Palette Puts Customizable Buttons, Sliders, and Knobs At Your Fingertips for Hands-On Editing

Photo editing used to be a truly interactive, albeit laborious, experience in the days of the darkroom. Now, most everything is done through mouse clicks, keystrokes, and digital tablets.

Palette aims to change that with their fully customizable modular array of buttons, sliders, and knobs. This exciting new piece of hardware, which seamlessly integrates with Adobe software such as Photoshop and Lightroom, literally puts the editing controls into your hands and snaps together in whatever configuration best suits your workflow.

Palette consists of a base element, or the “core,” that attaches to your computer via USB. From there you can effortlessly attach up to 32 physical sliders, buttons, and dials (all referred to as “modules”) that function as specific tools or hotkeys within your program of choice. Adjust your highlights and shadows with a simple turn of a knob. Increase your clarity and saturation by moving a slider. It’s essentially like arranging a set of tools on your desk that are automatically recognized by your computer. It really can’t get any simpler than that.

While the DIY gamepad Lightroom controller is a giant step above relying on a keyboard, it doesn’t hold a candle to Palette’s flexibility and ease of use.

Palette seamlessly integrates with:

Lightroom
Photoshop
Illustrator
After Effects
InDesign (still in beta)
Premiere Pro (also in beta)

It can also be integrated with music software, set up to handle keyboard shortcuts for any program, or even function as a controller for PC gaming.

Pricing & Availability

Palette is scheduled to start shipping in November 2015.

Starter Kit – $199 (1 Core, 2 Buttons, 1 Dial, 1 Slider)
Expert Kit – $299 (1 Core, 2 Buttons, 3 Dials, 2 Sliders)
Professional Kit – $499 (1 Core, 4 Buttons, 6 Dials, 4 Sliders)

Additional modules can be purchased and quickly added to any Palette setup.

Buttons – $29
Dials – $49
Sliders – $49

To learn more about Palette or to preorder your own, visit palettegear.com.

[via Popular Photography]

Garrett Jimenez

Shut up and take my money
David Halliday

Clever idea but take a look at Paddy with the Behringer control (with motorized sliders) and an auxiliary keyboard.

Do not seem to be able to embed links but Google ‘Paddy Lightroom’ and it will take you right there. Donation-ware. The controller is the Behringer B-Control Fader BCF2000. $300 new / $200 used. Eight motorized faders, eight rotary controls, twenty pushbuttons and four “pages” so you can extend your control set.
The auxiliary keyboard is another $150 or so – I do not use it that much but it is handy. Paddy with the BCF2000 and Lightroom is stunning.
Palette is a very clever idea but they are focusing on a very different market niche.
Vlad Didenko

For a couple years I am a happy hobbyist user of the PFixer Panel Bundle (includes a skinned Behringer BCF-2000) from http://www.pusherlabs.com/. Part of it’s appeal to me was that there is no tinkering needed (albeit available) after installation – good settings out of the box.