Does your tablet replace keyboard shortcuts completely?

<p>Hey there,</p>

<p>Im looking for some advice regarding customisation of tablets for use with Photoshop...</p>

<p>I have had a Intuos 4 for some time, however I usually place my keyboard to the left of the tablet sitting on top of all of the Intuos shortcut buttons and scroll wheels, because otherwise the keyboard would be too far or awkward to use. Recently though I've started trying to customise the Intuos so I can actually use the tablet's buttons and wheel, and moving the keyboard to the side. Its been pretty frustrating though, given the sheer number of shortcuts availible in Photoshop through a keyboard. I was wondering how someone else goes about it? One thought I had was to map the most common shortcuts to the Radial Menu (I hadnt previously used the Radial menu much)</p>

<p>So how have you customised your tablet for PS? Still use a keyboard much?</p>

<p>I use an Intuos 4 and still use my keyboard a fair bit. I have all the buttons programmed, but don't use the radial menu.</p>

<p>On the pen, bottom button is spacebar to drag the image around when at 100%. Top button is X to toggle between black/white for painting on masks. The other buttons are for varying zoom funtions (in/out/100%/fit) and I also have buttons for Undo and Alt (when using clone tool or when I need to sample with a paintbrush).</p>

<p>Spacebar mapped to the bottom pen button would be heaven - but don't you need right click pretty often?!</p>

<p>I have it set up that way just for Photoshop, it's an application based preset so it's normal "right click" in other contexts. I don't right click much in photoshop, even if using the mouse so I've never missed it. </p>

 

<p>I use an Intuos 4 at the studio, and just got an Intuos 5 for home.</p>

<p>In both cases, radial menus are indispensable. I have the actual tablet keys set to various modifiers mostly, though with the 5 I now have one dedicated to swapping screens (I use dual monitors and having the tablet only pay attention to one at a time is hugely helpful for fine control). My top most key is set as a spacebar to pan/move around the image (this is the most natural key for my hand to rest next to based on the way I sit)</p>

<p>My bottom click on the Pen is brush resize/softness (keyboard shortcut cntrl+opt on mac for those who don't use it already btw). I'm constantly changing size/softness so being able to just click and swipe to change them is hugely helpful. My top click is a radial menu.</p>

<p>In that radial menu, it varies depending on if it's the 4 or 5.. the 5 has way more spaces in the top level menu whereas the 4 only has 4.. so since you're using the 4 we'll start with that. I have view all (cmd 0) and view mode (f) set on two menu tabs as those are commonly the first buttons I hit when I open a file. I then have 2 sub menus on the other tabs.. one for tools, one for commands.</p>

<p>In tools is obviously my common tools.. stamp, brush, healing brush, lasso, etc. Simple enough.</p>

<p>In commands are two different types of things.. common adjustments (curves, shadow/highlight, etc), and actions that I've assigned to keystrokes.</p>

<p>With this setup I can do basically everything without a keyboard or mouse. On the Intous 4 it is a bit irritating to have to use a sub-menu for tools, but with the 5 I can assign my most used tools to the top level menu due to the extra spaces it offers. The 5 is also touch sensitive so you can add multi-touch commands to the mix.. this again expands what you can do without the keyboard since you can assign even more things to your fingers, freeing up space in your radial menus.</p>

<p>Now, on top of all of this.. I use a product called x-keys. The one I have has 86 keys that I can assign macros to, which infinitely increases what I can do with a key press.. it's also significantly smaller than a keyboard, so I can fit it right next to my tablet without problem. I use iKey to create the macros for it. This allows me to automate even more tasks.. everything from launching programs, running PS actions, saving/exporting with particular settings, creating new orders with specific folders, the possibilities are endless.</p>

<p>My keyboard is for typing.. that's about it these days.</p>