I would like to see extended keyboard shortcuts to speed up my workflow. They would be consistent between Mac/Win (since there is feature parity anyway) and also try to be more in line with industry best practices.
Here’s my first go at it, will update more when I find time:
W - White Balance picker (would be cool to hold the key and then be able to make +/- adjustments with the +/- keys)
R - Straighten (would be cool to hold the key and then be able to make +/- adjustments with the +/- keys)
S - Spot weighted selection tool (those drawing boxes for faces and exposure)
M - show/hide mask
B - brush
C - crop tool
Q - color picker tool for HSL (not implemented yet)
Thank you! Most important of course is that there are shortcuts, the actual suggestion I make can be changed but most of them are similar to Lightroom/C1 and other DAM/editing software (e.g. W for white balance picker, 0-5 for ratings, 6-9 for labels etc.)
And being able to change copy/move files between shift drag or plain drag is also helpful. I keep accidentally making copies all over the place because sometimes Photolab is like Windows and sometimes not. On Windows a drag on the SAME drive is a move and a shift drag is copy. On a DIFFERENT drive it is opposite. Photolab always uses shift to move.
The key settings you suggest seem wholly reasonable to me.
To be honest I don’t mind what the key settings are as long as they make some kind of sense, but I do have a problem with multi-key combinations on frequent operations. To the extent where I have actually developed minor repetitive strain issues by using Photolab extensively for long periods of time.
Of course the frequency of an operation will depend on a users workflow, and preference for using keyboard shortcuts as oppose to menus/icons.
So as everybody has their own workflow and preferences, making the key settings configurable would be even better. Obviously that’s a bit more work, but adding a simple configuration GUI and internal lookup tables is not exactly rocket science, and it would remove this issue completely, forever, from Photolab as everybody could set it up the way that works best for them.
My other comment would be that wherever possible, and where it makes sense, the key combinations should be the same across the photolab application. By that I mean that if a shortcut key such as ‘P’ can be used to mark a photo as picked in the full screen image viewer then ‘P’ should perform the same function on the customize screen. As it stands there are unnecessary discrepancies along these lines, where keys are free for use but don’t perform the same function in a different context.
After realising the Help > Keyboard shortcuts menu option lists way more keys than the manual, I have been getting more efficient at processing my photos, but I often need the Horizon tool and this does not seem to have a keyboard shortcut?
I didn’t realise how easy it was to move to the feature requests. Vote away!
Note, however, that elsewhere I am advocating this function be combined with cropping. Still… a keyboard shortcut could be delivered a lot more easily (quickly) than a new tool.
the horizon tool doesn’t need only a invocation shortcut but also an efficient way to set the angle with the keyboard. For example, the step size needs to be sensible (0,5° or 0,25°) or adjustable.
