Now, this is not for everyone because it involves spending some money on a very fast SSD drive, installing it and formatting it. But any working photographer will appreciate the speed enough to easily see the value.

So, like I mentioned, LR3 uses ACR6, and the cache for ACR6 is independent of the cache for LR3. And from what I can tell, the ACR6 cache is the one that now creates the preview files, which are the ones LR3 uses to show you the effect of your adjustments. And loading the previews is one of the bottlenecks as you switch between images in LightRoom.

So the tip is simple: buy a smallish SSD drive, and put the ACR6 cache on it. I use a 40GB Intel SSD for this, and the difference is dramatic. The 40GB Intel I got cost about $140, to give a frame of reference.

Once you get your SSD installed and formatted (no I’m not going to describe how to do that), open LightRoom and go to Preferences, File Handling, Camera Raw Cache Settings, and set the path to a folder on your new SSD. Set the cache limit to 35GB, and restart LR.

Presto: huge speed increase.

…Mike

The fix for this is simple, but you have to know where to look. Here’s where:

1. Start Bridge, and open the Preferences.
2. Go to the “Advanced” section and turn on “Generate Monitor-Size Previews”
3. Click “OK’ to save

Now the drag about this is you have to re-create your entire cache. So first, purge it:

1. Open the Preferences again
2. Go to the “Cache” section and click “Purge Cache”
3. Click “OK’ to save

If you want to bulk-create thumbnails and previews, do this:

1. In Bridge, select the folder
2. In the menu, select “Tools, Cache, Build and export cache”
3. Make sure to leave both options un-checked, and click OK

This will scan all subfolders to create the cache for the files found.

I hope this helps!

…Mike

Happily, it’s pretty easy The key is that all the custom settings for Photoshop are stored in individual files, in a special folder. The trick is to copy these special files from the CS4 folder to the CS5 folder. The exact steps are as follows:

1. Shut down Photoshop
2. Locate the CS4 preferences folder. In OS X, this folder is <your home folder>/Library/Preferences/Adobe Photoshop CS4 Settings. On a PC, I can’t keep track since it seems to vary with what version of Windows you are running. So search for “Actions Palette.psp” and you’ll find it.
3. Select the files you want to copy:
   • to migrate actions, copy “Actions Palette.psp”
   • to migrate tool presets, copy “ToolPresets.psp”
   • to migrate your workspaces, copy the contents of “Workspaces”
   • to migrate your keyboard shortcuts, copy “Keyboard Shortcuts.psp”
   • etc. the files are named in a straightforward way
4. The target is the CS5 configuration folder. The CS5 folder is next to the CS4 folder, so there should be no problem finding it if you found the CS4 folder. Simply copy the settings files from the CS4 folder to the CS5 folder, and you’re all done. Note: I always rename the file that is already there by adding “stock” to the end, so make sure I can go back to the original version if I need to.

Start up Photoshop CS5, and behold: your actions, presets and workspaces are ready and waiting.

…Mike

Happily, there is another way The contents of the actions palette are stored in a special file, in a special folder on your hard drive. So all you need to do it back up that file, and your actions are backed up.  Easy!

The file is called Actions Palette.psp and it lives in the preferences folder for Photoshop. Where to find this folder depends on what operating system you use.

On a mac, it’s in <your home folder>/Library/Preferences/Adobe Photoshop CS4 Settings

On a PC, I can’t keep track since it seems to vary with what version of Windows you are running. So search for “Actions Palette.psp” and you’ll find it.

Bonus: you can also copy this file to another computer, which copies all the actions from one to the other, in one simple file.

…Mike

(At this point I should mention that my wife thinks I am crazy for posting about mice. To which I reply: Yep.)

The Good

The single best feature of a Wacom tablet is that the stylus (the pen part) is both angle-sensitive and pressure-sensitive. The best analogy I could come up with to explain this to anyone who has not tried a tablet is simply this: it’s the difference between a pen and a pencil.

With a pen, the ink is either there or it isn’t (all else being equal). Doesn’t matter how hard you press, or what angle you hold the pen at, there is no variation: ink or no ink is the choice.

But with a pencil, the harder you press, the darker the line gets. And the lower the angle, the fatter the line gets. With a pencil, you can make a dark thin line (pencil tip: twirl the pencil in your hand as you draw a line to keep the thickness the same. Don’t thank me, thank grade 12 drafting class) or you can make a light shaded area. And while I’m sure there are pen maestros out there, even they would agree that a pencil is far better for art than a pen is. In high school I had a set of 15 Staedtler pencils from 9h to 9B…wicked.:) All I have left is the 2H. Anyway, off topic.

A mouse is like a pen: when you click the button, it’s either on or it’s off: no half-pressing. But the Wacom is pressure sensitive, like a pencil: the nib of the stylus detects how hard you are pressing, and Photoshop can use this pressure reading to vary how it applies its various brushes and so on. The result is an amazing degree of control over how retouching is accomplished.

Here you can see lines made a mouse on the left, and a pen on the right. I pressed harder on the pen as I drew, making lines of increasing darkness and thickness.

The other big difference between a tablet and a mouse is that a table works in “absolute” mode, whereas a mouse is always relative. This means that if I touch the top-left corner of the tablet with the stylus, the curser goes to the top-left corner of the screen. A mouse has no framework to do this, so it’s always relative. Absolute mode with a tablet is the only way to fly.

If I sound like I’m going on and on here, it’s because I love my tablet. I cannot function in Photoshop without it.

The Bad

With a table you will get amazing control and precision…but at a cost.  For me, I pay for my table with my right shoulder, specifically my trap. When I move the curser I am moving my entire right arm. Doesn’t sound like much but it’s enough to cramp my right shoulder after about four hours of work.

The only other drawback to the tablet for new users is that they are tough to learn. Yes, it’s just a pen, but it takes a lot of patience to stick with it for everyday use and not give up and go back to a mouse. When I got my first table in 1999 (a 9×12 serial version…remember serial ports?) I had to unplug my mouse to force myself to learn it. It paid off, but it was tough going at first.

Conclusion

I don’t like a tablet for everyday use (as you can probably tell since I’m evaluating all these mice). If it came down to it, I could make it work. But for me, an optimal workflow means using the best tool for the job…and while a tablet is the best tool for Photoshop work, I don’t like it for normal stuff. But for Photoshop: no question, it’s a must-have.

…Mike

I’m a skeptical person, and I had my doubts about a $130 mouse. But after having used it, I can see how that $130 is, if not totally justifed, at least not out-of-this-world crazy.

This is a laser mouse (using a laser to track movement instead of that red light that so many use now). It’s wireless, using an internal lithium-ion battery; the battery meter is indicated with a set of little green lights that light up when you move it around.. It has 6 buttons, one wheel, and a lever for your thumb. The receiver is a small USB dongle-looking thing about the size of a thumbdrive.

The Good
There is a lot to say about this mouse that falls under the “good” category.

The feel of it is pretty nice…the sides have a rubbery coating that is strangely soft to the touch. The buttons are all easy to use, providing good feedback. The shape is very sports-car-esque, and the thumb support wing is actually pretty nice.

It is very lightweight for a cordless mouse because it uses an internal lithium-ion battery. This, together with the super-smooth glide pads make it very easy to move around. The battery life is indicated by a meter on the side of the mouse, and in the system preferences panel it shows how long the battery is expect to last, in days (mine tanked after 13 days).

Just like the MX 620, it has two modes for the scroll wheel, so I’ll just quote what I wrote there because it applies here too:

The most interesting thing about this mouse is how the scroll wheel works. It has two modes: “gear” mode is when the wheel “clicks” as you roll it…chunk-chunk-chunk. Very good precision, and it doesn’t get knocked accidentally. In software you can adjust how far to scroll with each “click.”

The second mode I call “free-wheelin’” mode: the wheel spins without any “gear” feel to it…but beyond that, it’s also very low friction, so if you spin it quickly, it keeps spinning…and spinning…and spinning. This is very handy for getting to the end of some huge web forum post or long document or something…just spin the wheel, and watch stuff fly by. To stop, just touch the wheel…it stops spinning, and the page stops scrolling. The scroll wheel is metal, so when you spin it it just keeps going.

It does take some getting used to, but once you are used to it…wow, it this feature ever useful! I never paid attention to how much scrolling I was doing until I went back to my old PC and a mouse that uses a gear wheel. I have to say that it was annoying to now have the free wheelin mouse wheel.

But what if you want both the precision of gear mode, with the user-friendliness of free-wheelin’ mode? Enter mode three, which Logitech calls “SmartShift.” In this mode, the wheel starts in gear mode, but if you spin it quickly, it slips into free-wheelin’ mode. You get the best of both worlds! Very nice!

Each of the buttons can be programmed to do various things…and in fact there is a dedicated “search” button that you can use to either search your computer or search the web.

The software lets you create application-specific configurations, which can be really handy if you want to assign a mouse button to do one thing in Lightroom, and another thing in PhotoMechanic, and those two things don’t use the same keyboard shortcuts.

The Bad

It’s not all roses…I have found three things about this mouse that I don’t like. The first is an inconvenice, the second and third are a bigger deal for me.

First, the battery. Because it’s internal, if you let it drain completely you’ll need another mouse to use as it charges up (it comes with a charging stand). If you remember to keep it charged, this is a non-issue though.

As for the second issue…remember I said earlier that the buttons were all easy to use? Well, that’s not quite true: the wheel button is actually one of the worst buttons on any mouse I’ve tested. It takes much more pressure to activate than the others and the feedback is quite mushy. In free-wheelin’ mode, it can be difficult to press the button and not move the wheel. And I use the middle mouse button a lot, especially in Photomechinic, where I have is set to tag images. I suppose I could configure one of the other buttons to do that as a work around though.

The third issue in fact a potential deal-killer for me. Remember I said that I use PhotoMechanic? It’s a great piece of software, and one of the great features is that you can scroll through the images using the mouse wheel. In free wheelin’ mode, this is almost useless as it’s very difficult to move only one photo at a time. This, together with the fact that when the wheel button is used to flag images, using the hard-to-press middle button to flag it without accidentally moving the scroll wheel and switching images is nearly impossible.

So the SmartShift solution seems to be ideal right? It would be, but there is a large catch: the gear motion is not even. What this means is that, about every 4th or 5th movement of the wheel translates into two movements…so about every 5th image is skipped. Worse, after scrolling through about 10 images, the scroll wheel just stopped working in PM. I could not find a way around this one in software.

Conclusion

This mouse is lightweight, extremely configurable, and the SmartShift wheel mode has to be tried to be appreciated. Outside of PhotoMechanic it is the best mouse I have ever used…but it does have some big-time conflicts with how I use PhotoMechanic, one of my critical workflow apps. So will *I* keep it? You’ll have to wait to find out

…Mike

It’s a laser wireless mouse, but this time instead of using that giant half-moon thing as the receiver, it uses a little USB dongle about the size of a memory stick. Much easier to manage, and it implies that the wireless bits work better. The mouse has two normal buttons, a scrollwheel button, a dedicated search button, and two thumb buttons. It uses two AA batteries.

The Good

The most interesting thing about this mouse is how the scroll wheel works. It has two modes: “gear” mode is when the wheel “clicks” as you roll it…chunk-chunk-chunk. Very good precision, and it doesn’t get knocked accidentally. In software you can adjust how far to scroll with each “click.”

The second mode I call “free-wheelin’” mode: the wheel spins without any “gear” feel to it…but beyond that, it’s also very low friction, so if you spin it quickly, it keeps spinning…and spinning…and spinning. This is very handy for getting to the end of some huge web forum post or long document or something…just spin the wheel, and watch stuff fly by. To stop, just touch the wheel…it stops spinning, and the page stops scrolling. The scroll wheel is metal, so when you spin it it just keeps going.

It does take some getting used to, but once you are used to it…wow, it this feature ever useful! I never paid attention to how much scrolling I was doing until I went back to my old PC and a mouse that uses a gear wheel. I have to say that it was annoying to not have the free wheelin’ mouse wheel.

The wheel itself has another new feature (to me at least): horizontal scrolling. If you push the mouse wheel to the left or right, it will scroll whatever page you are on to the left or right. I didn’t see the point of this one until I used it to start bombin’ around in a zoomed-in Photoshop file, where it replaced the spacebar-drag combo. Turns out it’s pretty useful after all.

The dedicated search button can be configured either to search Google or to call up Spotlight. Either way, very useful.

This mouse feels good in your hand: it has a pleasing shape, and the sides are covered in some kind of rubbery material. It glides very well.

The included software works similarly to the MS software in that it allows you to adjust all mouse settings, including making application-specific configurations.

The Bad

Well, not bad really, but there are two things to know about this mouse.

First, because the mouse uses AA batteries, the weight of it will be directly related to the batteries you use. I used AA NiMH rechargeables but I’m assuming that lithiums would make the mouse lighter. Just something to keep in mind.

Second, as cool as the free-wheelin scroll wheel is, it does take time to get used to, maybe a day or to. It is very sensitive, at least how I had mine set up. And some of the new Adobe apps don’t like it…scrolling through the font list in Flash CS4 for example was not possible for some reason, it kept closing the list. Adobe apps were the only ones affected by this however.

Conclusion

I like this mouse a lot. It has a good shape, the scroll wheel is killer, and there is no gooney wireless receiver to clutter up my desk.

…Mike

ETA: After noticing some strange behaviour with the mouse wheel using the MX Revolution in PhotoMechanic, I went back and did a few more tests.

The gist of the problem is this: unless the wheel acceleration is set to None, scrolling through images in PhotoMechanic is uneven and unpredictable. But even with acceleration set to None, there is a delay of about half a second between a movement of the wheel and the advancement of the images. This is a huge deal when editing, and will likely eliminate this mouse from being the only mouse attached to my system.

I’ve had a one in one form or another since then, as I love them for FPS gaming…the old version of the marble was such that you could fling the marble really fast…too fast for the driver to handle. So it would interpret a huge fling forward as a quick back step, then a run forward…or a step left, then quick right. Killer Now I just use it for aiming. Awesome in Bioshock. But I digress.

More after the jump.

The Logitech cordless TracMan Wheel trackball itself has three buttons and a wheel, like most mice do these days.

The wheel has the “gear” feeling to it, which I like. The jump range can be adjusted in software. This is the wireless version, and a wired version is also available for a few bucks less. It takes one AA battery. The receiver part is one of those old-school things that looks like half-a-mouse attached to a USB cable. Fine as far as that goes.

The Good

I have a large hand…it goes with the rest of my large 6′-7″ body. And because of this, I long ago gave up trying to find a mouse that actually fits my hand. But this comes the closest. It has a comfortable curve and since it’s stationary, I cut a piece of an old mouse pad to sit under it, raising it even more. So comfort-wise, this one is the winner for sure.

I find moving the wheel with the thumb quite easy: the ball itself moves very easily, as the tracking is done optically (as opposed to rollers like the old-school tracballs used to use). Not much to say about this guy really, just a great tool.

The bad

There are two drawbacks to using this thing. The first is that, until you get used to it, your thumb will ache if you use it for an hour or two. Eventually this won’t happen as you get used to it, but in the beginning…ow!

The second drawback is more long term. I have been using a trackball from Logitech for at least 12 years, sometimes as the only pointing device attached to the computer. Now, remember, my hand is huge, so even with the extra padding to make it higher, my hand is still too big for the trackball, and the “heel” of my hand rests on the table. Specifically, the outside of the heel of my hand. At this spot, there is a bone, and most of the weight of my hand and arm rests on this spot. (If you’re curious, look at your right hand, palm up. At your wrist, you’ll find a little bone sticking out on the left side. That’s what I’m talking about). When I first started using a trackball, this spot got very sore, so it’s worth knowing that you’ll need a pack of band-aids to go with the trackball for the first little while.

I found the wireless range for this thing to be normal, unless I put it on my Wacom tablet…then the range goes in the toilet, like to under 2 feet. Must be some kind of interference between the two.

Finally, as with any new pointing device, it will take some getting used to. And you just may not like it.

Conclusion

I like trackballs. And I sometimes use this one for everyday use. But not often anymore…I prefer a normal mouse these days. But as with the Wacom tablet, it has its niche: for me, that’s any type of FPS game…almost any game actually. It makes aiming really quick when in free-look mode. If it had more buttons, it would be even better!

…Mike

The MS mouse has five buttons and a gear wheel (its two extra buttons are along the side). This is a wired mouse. And while it is also instantly recognized by OS X, the advantage to this mouse (and other MS mice I presume) is that, once you install the Intellipoint software for OS X, you get a new panel in System Preferences that lets you configure all aspects of the mouse. This includes per-application button key-binding and ballistic properties.

The former is very important for me because of the way I use PhotoMechanic: as I cull, I use the wheel to move between images, and the middle mouse button to tag the ones I want to keep (I “edit in”). To accomplish this, I use IntelliPoint to set the middle mouse button to “Control-T” for PhotoMechanic only. Very fast, one-handed culling that you can sit back in your chair to get through it.

As for the ballistic properties, one of the most irritating things after I switched to Mac was how the mouse moves in OS X. Happily, I can set the MS mouse to behave as a mouse does in Windows, which is a huge plus. I know it sounds trivial, but you converts know what I mean.

These are basic mice that do their job. Nothing special about either one, and both represent the most basic of mice in this roundup. I have been using variants of the MS mouse for the last 8 years or so.

So now that the baseline has been set, we can move on to the more advanced stuff. Stay tuned.

…Mike

This is why I wrote AutoLoader and the other productivity tools on this site: too much time was being wasted doing things better left to computers. Luckily, when I run into such situations, I can just write my own solution.

But I also don’t like to change the workflow methods I have in place mid-season…there’s just too much going on during the busy shooting season to be messing around with new stuff. So I save it for this time of year.

Keep reading for a taste of things to come.

First up: mice.

My old mouse kicked recently, and so I’ve decided to really give some of the new whiz-bang mice a try. I currently have 6 pointing devices hooked up to my Mac:

Clockwise from the bottom right, we have a Logitech Trackball Marble ($45), a Logitech MX 620 ($89), a Logitech MX Revolution ($129), a generic Logitech wireless POS I got with a keyboard combo ($dunno, maybe $30), a generic MS optical IntelliMouse ($30), and finally my workhorse, the Wacom 9×12 tablet, which all the mice are sitting on ($lots).

Over the next few weeks I’ll be using each one of these exclusively, trying to take advantage of all the features to determine which one I like the most.

…Mike