Do you have money that you don’t know how to use? Let me show you how to spend it with this list of tools that can increase your productivity and let you use Photoshop in new ways. I’ll show you the ones that I use all the time and and give you my honest opinion the others.
Pen Tablet
The most popular Photoshop tool people tell you to get is a pen tablet. These tablets let you control your cursor with a pen. They’re pressure sensitive so that you can apply strokes of varying thickness and opacity and some have tilt-detection which works great with the new airbrushes in Photoshop CS6. Tablets let you paint with varying opacity, brush size, and tilt direction. They’re great for everyone including photographers and photo manipulators and is a must-have for digital painters. There are many tablets to choose from the affordable tablets like the Monoprice 8×6” Tablet for $30 to the powerful and feature-rich Wacom Intuos5. Should you be so inclined, you might even want to selling all your personal belongings for a drawing monitor like the Wacom Cintiq 24HD that goes for $2500.
3D Mouse
The least known companion for Photoshop is a 3D mouse. Photoshop CS6 Extended has powerful 3D capabilities and a 3D Mouse is the best way to work with 3D objects in Photoshop. It makes 3D editing feel second-nature and speeds up your workflow. This knob can also be used to rotate, zoom in/out, or set to another feature of your choice. Currently, the only company making 3D mouse is 3DConnexion. Their SpaceNavigator can be yours for $100.
Gaming Mouse
The best mouse you can get for Photoshop are gaming mouse. They combine high accuracy, low latency, smoothness, and extra buttons to give you the perfect mouse for Photoshop. There are times when you need the absolute precision from your mouse. Times such as masking out people from photos, painting/drawing, or even working with vector shapes. High-end gaming mouse such as the Logitech G700 will give you all that precision. They also have extra buttons that you can bind to specific keys (ex. undo/redo, next/prev document, brush/eraser tool, etc.). It takes at least a few days to remember all the keys but once you do, you’ll see yourself using Photoshop way faster than before. Most gaming mouse have a DPI adjust setting where you can adjust your DPI on the fly to slow-down your mouse when you need the extra precision or speed-up when you’re creating long strokes. Originally designed to snipe your enemies in FPS games, the Logitech G600 mouse has a 3rd click button that you can hold down to slow down your mouse. For Photoshop, you can use this feature to slow down your mouse whenever you need that extra precision. I started with the Logitech G700 that I loved but craved for more buttons. When the Logitech G600 came out, I got it immediately and started to adapt to the new buttons. If you could only buy one thing, I recommend you buy a gaming mouse with lots of buttons.
30 responses to “6 Accessories You Can Buy to Improve the Way You Use Photoshop”
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A good list that still mostly stands ten years later. I am not so sure about the 3D mouse. Especially as Adobe are winding down Photoshop’s 3D capabilities in favour of Substance with some help from Blender. I have owned a 3DConnexion Spacemouse Wireless for many years, but never found it much help with Photoshop. I mostly use it with SketchUp for which it is a total game changer.
Gaming mice and keyboards are excellent for Photoshop. The smooth high res movement of gaming mice is super useful for putting the cursor exactly where you want it, and the extra buttons absolutely speed up your workflow.
I am on my forth gaming keyboard and currently use the Corsair K95. Programable G-keys allow you to trigger complex actions with a single key press. Note you can still do this with a cheap keyboard by using the function keys to trigger actions. I strongly suspect that almost no one uses the function key defaults, so they are solid gold functionality just waiting to be put to better use.
I have not thought about using my iPad as a Photoshop accessory, but I’ll have a look at it. I currently use three screens anyway (two 24″ and a 32″) so feel like I have lots of space to keep all panels open.
I also have a Razer Tartarus that lives on a shelf because I simply don’t need that many programable keys. What makes that possible is that we can save different keyboard shortcuts to different custom workspaces so you can have context sensitive shortcuts and switch between workspaces with the press of a function key.
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Nice tutorial! I was looking for a mouse especially photoshop mouse. The Gaming Mouse is really looking the best for it. It has a lot of features. I will buy this in a couple of months. Thank you!
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Check out the programmable Logitech Craft Keyboard, which has profiles for Photoshop, and now Lightroom.
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Adobe Nav has disappeared from the App store!
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Adobe discontinued it a long time ago… not sure why. I really liked it and although it was simple and had connection issues, it was useful.
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HOW ABOUT LOGITECH G602?
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HOW ABOUT G602?
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Logitech G602 is a great mouse for Photoshop too. It came out after we wrote this article. The main difference is the sensor location. If you look at the bottom of the two mouse, the G700S is near the front where your finger tips are. The G602 sensor is located in the middle where your palms are. The G602 is better for gaming precision but the G700s sensor location gives you more freedom when moving the mouse in diagonal motions. If you find yourself rotating your mouse to move it in a diagonal motion, then the G700S is better. If you don’t, the G602 will work fine.
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You can also try a new product called Palette (palettegear.com). It let’s you program its modules and works really well with any Adobe product
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This is a really inspiring collection for all, I like it, thanks for shearing!
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how is the logitech g300
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The plain black g700 mouse is discontinued but they still sell it on amazon.com for less than the g700s
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Where can I buy the G700 mouse (not to be confused with G700s)? I like the plain black design.
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Click on the link in the article it brings you right there to the G700. But I recommend G700s because it has an upgraded and better optical sensor (so long as you don’t mind the looks). The G700s has 8200dpi sensor and not sure what the G700 is but it’s lower. Probably not noticeable though… the G700 is already really high DPI.
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Could you upload your Photoshop profile for the G600?
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I suggest that you create it yourself and customize it to what you use the most and what you’re comfortable with.
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Which programmable mouse would you recommend for a mac user?
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Now that Logitech has finally released their Logitech Gaming Software for Mac, I would recommend the Logitech G700. It is the best mouse you can get. Comfortable, smooth, and accurate. The gaming software is used to configure the keys.
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I’m curious to why Adobe didn’t make their iPad apps for Android. Didn’t they have something against Apple because of Flash?
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If I am not mistaken there is an android version.
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+1 for the G700 mouse! Not sure how the G600 is but I have the G700 and I LOVE it. It’s buttery smooth
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^ G700 designer here too. G600 is a claw mouse so not very good for designers
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Thanks for sharing your knowledge..This is great .
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Great Tutorial. This has certainly helped. Keep up the good work here.
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My studio everyone use wacom graphire and intuos
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Thats a lot of buttons. How do you know which one your pressing?
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I just memorize them. Takes a few days to get the hang of it and a few weeks for it to become second nature. Try it out.. it’s the best thing you can learn :)
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For the G-13 I took a tiny square of transparent tape and stuck it to the center key (G11). So now I don’t even have to look down when I put my hand on the keypad. It’s the same reason that your “F” and “J” keys on your keyboard have little raised areas on them. It’s a way to quickly set your hand if they go astray.
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You can also screenshot your setup screen and either print it out or drag it to your second monitor if you use dual monitors. The functions are listed right on the setup screen.
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Photoshop Nav rocks!
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