Performance

The first time you connect the core module, it lights up with the FCC certification and lets you know the product was designed in Canada, but made in China. This is also when it gets automatically registered to your account, and the screen acts as a very useful visual indicator of which profile is active. It not only shows the supported application via a logo - Adobe Lightroom in the instances above - but also names the profile, which is user set. If the PaletteApp is not running, the Palette logo is all that is displayed on the screen.

Connect modules to the core and to each other the correct way, and they light up in a white color all around the periphery as mentioned before. This is a quick way to see if they are connected properly before even opening the driver and correcting it if need be (as shown in the last two pictures above).


I went with slightly edited bundled Lightroom profiles in the end. One for sorting through images, one for quick developing, and one for retouching. In each, I had one button dedicated to simply toggling between profiles so I could go back and forth. I also had a dial assigned to change a hovered over slider - this is where I have my mouse cursor hovering over a slider in Lightroom, which the dial then controls. This allows me to use a combination of the mouse and dial to change any slider by itself that I do not have specific modules already assigned for. Over time, I ended up using this less and created a fourth profile for more retouching instead. As I look towards using Photoshop CC, I suspect I will follow the same route or perhaps even consider getting more modules.


With the profiles created and the driver running, the kit works as it appears on the monitor, with its individual modules having their chosen colors as well. This was when I went about properly testing it in Lightroom. I was visiting family in April and a social event was planned wherein I volunteered to do photography. Across two sessions, I had taken a total of 554 photographs (~271 + 283 respectively). The first set I edited on site using my laptop and a mouse connected to it, and the second set was edited with the Palette kit after I got back home. I think it would be an understatement to say how much I like this kit now after it saved me approximately two hours over the first set already. Sorting alone was a breeze once I got into the rhythm of it, and I found myself using the mouse and keyboard less and less. Aside from using one dial module to control hovered-over sliders, every single module and profile worked incredibly well, though not perfectly.

The button module is the simplest, and as such, it is limited in what it can do, which also means it is near impossible to get wrong. It did what it promised, so there are no complaints there. The dial module has two directions of turn and a press/press and turn to activate a second function. Initially, the press and turn functionality was also allowed and has since been removed, which I disagree with. For example, I would prefer to have turning control the crop angle in 5° increments and then press and turn for fine control in 0.5° increments. What they have done now is to have pressing the dial be a reset and bring the slider back to its default position. To compensate for this, Palette has added per-dial sensitivity and range control, but this still feels like a step back from before unless you have more dials.

The slider module will end up being a deal breaker for some people. As we saw on the disassembly page, there is no motor to keep track of where the slider is on the module's length. This means there is no reset possible to account for the slider's travel. For instance, say you are editing a photograph and changing the highlights. The slider module is used to get +50 on the highlights slider and the slider knob is now about half way in the middle. You now want to edit the next photograph, and all seems good. The highlights slider in Lightroom still says it is at 0 despite the knob on the corresponding slider module being in the middle. Touch the knob and the slider will suddenly jump ahead to correspond to where the knob is instead of the new position of the knob being the new 0-level. With a dial, this is not an issue as infinite motion is possible. With a slider that has limited travel to begin with, this is never going to be a solution that will satisfy everyone. Even if Palette were to go with a motorized slider, the range of travel is now limited based on where the knob is, which one has to deal with by either moving the knob back to one end to set that as the new 0-level or by having sensitivity control on the fly.

Palette said they were going to bring out motorized slider modules in 2016, but with no word on these yet, I imagine they also realized that there is never going to be a solution that will satisfy everyone. They tell me they are still working on it and alternative hardware solutions around it that meet the same usage scenarios and offer even more control. There is no time line on this, of course, so make your decision based on the product as it is at the time of your intended purchase.

This is merely scratching the surface of what you can do with the Palette kit - create an arcade-style joystick, have a dedicated media player, take it to a friend's place who uses a Macbook and Final Cut, embrace Rube Goldberg machinery, and change Chrome webpages using it. I simply can not cover everything possible, and hopefully, this tryst with Lightroom gives you an idea of how things are at the moment.