How to Make Your Retouching Workflow Faster and Mobile With These Five Pieces of Hardware

As photographers and retouchers, we are often required to travel. But travel eats up a lot of time and thus it is crucial to optimize one’s workflow. While gear is not everything in our industry, it still maintains a critical place, especially to help save time. Spending more and more time on the road, I recently had to take a look at my editing workflow and find new solutions to make it better and faster. In this article, I’ll share with you some of the accessories I use or have since discovered to cut my retouching and keep me sane.

Think of Retouching as a Game

Computer games and retouching have more in common than most would like to admit. For example, both gamers and retouchers always wished they had more keys on their keyboard to set new shortcuts. Both also require a precise and fast mouse that is somewhat ergonomic.

A good mouse will meet all these criteria. Many gaming hardware manufacturers exist and offer a large range of products. Personally, I like Razer and bought a Naga Chroma. It has 12 mechanical buttons on the side and 19 in total, all being programmable. So you can assign anything to any of them. When I say anything, it doesn’t just mean a key or keys combo, but macros as well. Even better yet, profiles can be created to match the software you are using. So that you can have a different action for each button depending on whether you are running Capture One, Photoshop, or Photo Mechanic.

One bit of advice, if you are traveling a lot, I'd suggest a mouse with a USB cord and stay off the wireless options. Cordless mice have a tendency to have a slight delay, can run out of battery, and connection issues are still common.

Unleash The Power of Shortcuts and Macros

When retouching you are always left with one hand doing nothing. Sometimes, you might use your left hand to reach a key to change tool in Photoshop, but that’s about it. So why not make it useful?

While the mouse added 12 shortcuts, having a few more wouldn’t hurt. It might seem like a lot a first, but once you have set the star rating from 0 to 5 and your flag rating, including no flag, you are already using the 12 of them! This is where the gaming keypad comes in. It’s a tiny yet very comfortable piece of hardware that you can customize to match your needs. Here again, Razer is my brand of choice with the Razer Tartarus Chroma. 

Just a quick word regarding the keypad and the mouse. I’m sure some of you are wondering why I’m so crazy about shortcuts and customization. Look at any IT specialist; they use the mouse only when needed. The simple reason being that a keystroke will not require any precision or movement from you. As long as you hit the correct key, you activate the corresponding feature. Still not clear? What’s faster between moving a cursor across two screens to click “ok” on a tiny window, or just press “enter” on the keyboard to have a similar result? Now, the same story in Lightroom, Photoshop, or Capture One. What is quicker to adjust exposure, create a new curve layer, or export a file: moving your mouse, click a button, click the next, etc. or just press a key that activates a macro doing the work for you?

These two accessories will take a bit of time to be perfectly set up and match your workflow fully, but once they are fine-tuned, you’ll be left wondering how you could ever work without them before.

Work in Silence

Noise can be a distraction, especially if you are trying to concentrate and cannot switch off that noise. Well, you actually can turn down the volume of the noise around you. The solution? Noise-canceling headphones. When I bought my first pair of Bose QuietComfort, I couldn’t believe it. It kills the noise around you just as well, if not better than earplugs. I live about one mile away from a military airport and used to be unable to work during the airforce training weeks. With my new headphones on, I can work no matter the noise around me, even military airplanes taking off and landing next to my window.

Bonus tip, if you travel a lot and have to take the train, the bus, or the plane, you can use the noise-canceling system without any music on. A great way to sleep anywhere, no matter how loud other people are!

Color Correction on the Go

If you print a lot of your work, you might edit your pictures in Adobe RGB instead of sRGB. The only issue is if you travel often, you cannot always lug around your NEC or Eizo screen. However, a few brands have started to release Adobe RGB laptops. Yes, you read that right: laptops with an Adobe RGB display, finally!

First, there was Razer (no, I am not sponsored by them in any way) with the Razer Stealth. However it only carries a 12.5-inch screen and doesn’t come with more than 8 GB of RAM (cannot be upgraded either). So it’s a start but not perfect.

Then, comes the Dell XPS 15-inch. Much more powerful than the Razer and much cheaper than a MacBook Pro, it seems like the best option currently on the market for retouchers and photographers. I haven’t replaced my trusty MacBook Pro with it yet, but I might order one very soon. From the short trial period I had with it, the only thing I’d probably miss is the almost perfect Apple trackpad.

Do More With Less

I never liked tablets because I hate virtual keyboards with a passion. The iPad is great to show your work, to play, to browse the web, but definitely not the most practical thing to retouch, answer emails, write articles, edit metadata, or any work that requires a particular app or a lot of typing.

2-in-1 laptops are the perfect alternative, except for the iPad Pro. Yes, it is a very capable piece of hardware, but it doesn’t offer as many options as Windows tablets or 2-in-1 laptops. The Apple tablet cannot run all the apps that Mac OS can. For example, the industry standard for shooting tether, Capture One, doesn’t exist on iOS, yet it is available on Windows 10. Same with Lightroom, while it has a mobile version, it just doesn’t match the full desktop software.

The HP Pavilion x2 is the latest addition to my gear inventory. I bought it last week, and I couldn’t see myself working without it again, especially while on the go. I can now shoot tethered anywhere without having to carry a not so practical laptop. The small 2-in-1 laptop is very light and small to fit in any bag, yet big enough for me to check my composition, exposure, and do a quick edit on set. While I used to be a bit lazy with my MacBook Pro and end up shooting without tethering, I might just shoot tethered all the time now — except for weddings.

Speaking of weddings, I can also use it to run a photo booth. I can tether a cheap entry-level DSLR and let the tablet run everything with Flassh. So no more lost PocketWizard and no more drink spilled onto an expensive screen or laptop. Even better yet, I can upload the images to a gallery directly as I have Wi-Fi.

Finally, this tiny laptop is just powerful enough for me to do most of my daily tasks without any issue. So now, when on the go, I can bring it along with me, import or export files on my MacBook Pro, while still culling another job, answering emails, or even writing articles like this one on Fstoppers.

Recent 2-in-1 laptops such as the HP Pavilion X2 I own can be bought for less than $400. To me, this makes it a no-brainer. But if you have more money lying around and doing nothing, you can even spend a bit more and find a better 2-in-1 laptop that will be powerful enough to do any task you want.

There are tons of other exciting options out there. I couldn't mention everything in here, and I haven't tested everything that is available on the market. For example, using MIDI controllers to turbocharge your raw editing workflow is great if you work in Lightroom, but I couldn't find one that works with Capture One just yet. Like I said at the beginning of this article, our job is not all about gear, but it definitely plays a role when photography is your job. If you want to be as efficient as possible, a few accessories can go a long way.

How about you? Do you guys use any gadget or weird piece of equipment to boost your workflow? Do you use some the aforementioned gear or would you try any of these options now that you learned about them?