Optimizing Your PowerMate for Photoshop

I purchased a Griffin PowerMate a while back and am just starting to realize this device’s potential. When I first got it, I didn’t apply any custom settings because I didn’t know how much use it could be to me other than adjust volume or scroll a document. I knew it was great for jogging through a video while editing which is the primary reason I bought it, but I haven’t gotten around to using it for that purpose yet. Then yesterday in Photoshop I thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if I could use the PowerMate to increase/decrease the brush size with a few rotations?”

After poking around Photoshop’s list of keyboard shortcuts I found the shortcuts I needed:

• Decrease brush size: [
• Increase brush size: ]

I actually feel slightly embarrassed that I didn’t know about these keyboard shortcuts after all these years of using Photoshop. It would have helped to know these earlier, but I guess you learn something new every day.

I then mapped these shortcuts to the PowerMate in System Preferences. As you can see in the screenshot, I also mapped the following for rotation while pushed down:

• Step backward (go back one step in history): Shift+Cmd+Z
• Step forward (go forward one step in history): Option+Cmd+Z

Of course, these shortcuts are for the Mac, I believe the equivalent keyboard shortcuts for Windows would be Ctrl+Alt+Z and Ctrl+Shift+Z respectively.