Web Designer JuliaCodes Explains How to Use Palette Gear for Web Design

Speed up your workflow in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator

As a web developer and designer, I’m constantly using apps like Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. Since I work on both the design and development side, I’m also constantly looking for new technology or software that can speed up my workflows and setup time.

Palette Gear has been a life saver for my design processes. Changes that would normally take 5 or 6 clicks now take one simple sliding motion, it’s absolutely awesome.

What is Palette Gear?

Palette Gear is an external add on for laptops that can be customized to do almost any function you can think of, they can also be arranged and rearranged in any order you can think of, and you can purchase additional buttons and switches to expand your Palette over time.

What do you use Palette Gear for?

I use my Palette to quickly create graphics in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop CC, but it can be used in virtually any application.

I use the buttons to:

• Copy and paste elements
• Switch to the brush tool
• Add filters to my photos

The slider and dial are even more useful as I can change the opacity of an object or the size of my brush tool with a simple slide or twist of my hand. Here is my setup:

How do you use Palette in Adobe Illustrator?

When creating a graphic for a website, I open Illustrator, and Palette gear is up and running with my Illustrator settings before my new file has even opened.

I use my Palette’s buttons to copy and paste elements as I’m often replicating graphics for the web. I’ll use my dial to change the opacity of whats selected, which is so much more convenient than searching for the opacity tool on illustrator. My favorite tool on my Palette is the slider module, I always have this set to page zoom, because its a lot smoother than using the keyboard to zoom in and out.

How do you use Palette in Photoshop?

I also use my Palette when using Photoshop, but here I set the dial to the brush size tool, one button to the brush selection tool, and the second button to the eyedropper tool. This way I can paint and edit photos without ever needing to move away from my Palette and mouse.

Another awesome ability of Palette Gear is how it automatically switches the buttons and slider functions based on what app I’m using. So if I’m in Illustrator, Palette will automatically use my Illustrator profile and functions and as soon as I open Photoshop, Palette will switch to my Photoshop functions. It means I never have to interrupt my workflow.

The possibilities are really endless with this device, and the more I use it, the more I love it!

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Follow Julia on Instagram and check out her website for web coding tutorials. Try Palette Gear for your web design workflow risk-free for 30 days.