Best Mouse for Photoshop

[sunnyskyez]

Hello,

New to this forum.  I appologize if Im not in the correct area, please point me.  Wondering if anyone knew which mouse is best for Photoshop. ie: using magnetic lasso, fine touch up/restoration work etc ? 

I have a tablet but my hand shake to much to use it anymore.  So I need a replacement for it.  I used to use a trackball on my pc some time ago but now I use a Macbook pro laptop.

I appreciate any suggestions on mice and I thank you now in advance for your expertise.

Sunny

[Noel Carboni]

Sunny, I don't use a Mac, but I do get good results from a plain old wired "M-UVDEL1" Dell brand USB 2 button + scroll wheel optical mouse.  It's nothing special, but it just works, no muss, no fuss, no laser, no batteries to change, and it just goes on forever.  I've worn it smooth in several spots, and it works as well today as the day I put it into service, allowing me to do pixel-perfect positioning on a 3200 x 1200 pixel (multi-monitor) desktop.  Sometimes simple really is good.

-Noel

[Mylenium]

If you have a twitchy hand, you might wanna look into a Logitech mouse or a Microsoft gaming mouse. Some of them have extra weight to increase precision and/ or configurable mouse delay. Should not be a problem to get them running on a Mac via USB, you may just not be able to access some features like custom buttons. Logitech does offer special Mac variants of their products, though. I also seem to recall Logitech offering a trackball with an extra large, but slightly soft ball aimed at elderly and impaired users. Maybe that's worth exploring, too.

Mylenium

[Guest]

There was a problem aired recently about a bug in Trackball mouse and Photoshop.  If memory seerves me corretly (and it does not always) believe it was holding the space bar and trying to move image. 

Would not work on several machines, but this was on a MS OS so don't know if it applies to Mac..

[Zeno_Bokor]

I'd also go for some gaming mice but not because of the weight but because on most of them you can change the resolution of the mouse on the fly using small buttons located somewhere on the mouse. Changing the resolution of the mouse basically changes the sensitivity of the pointer, the lower the resolution the slower the pointer will travel so you can work on small details easier.

The most important thing however for a mouse is to be comfortable to use so whatever mouse you go for make sure that you test it out in a store before you buy it.

[Lundberg02 · Accepted solution]

I'm an old guy too and have some shakiness especially left handed. I don't know if Microspeed is still in business but I loved thier trackball. Only problem was reliability, I went through three of them in three years.

As for mice, I find I have to have a mouse that's more that 4 inches long and fairly heavy otherwise I lift it's rear end and everything goes to hell on the page. I like the Magic Mouse except that it is too short and not heavy enough so that's a problem.  If you have Lion I would get the MM and train yourself to not get airborne.

[sunnyskyez]

Hello Lundberg02,

When it comes down to it, Im going back to the trackball. Ive had a few and they do seem to work better. All of my mice have been logitech.  The last one I had was the wireless M570 which had that unifying thing, it was nothing but trouble. I had to keep downloading their software, then the unifying thing just quit paring, it just wasnt a good match for me. So after reading your reply I decided to keep it simple stupid and go back to the corded trackball.

Thanks again to all who answered. Cheers. Sunny

[Lundberg02]

I have a trackball, which I used to use on my old g3, lefthanded and that seemed to work out nicely with my one finger typing.  There's something about this one that is touchy, maybe I should slow it down in s/w. Right now there isn't room for it on my desktop because I haven't decommissioned my g4 and taken it down.  I like the minimum movement cocept for the wrist rest mouse pad, but in actual practice I had to turn my micro surface pad sideways to get it out of the way.

I'm a lot shakier now than when I used it years ago and I'm not sure how it will play out. Besides, I have 14 USB devices and only 13 ports.

[Trevor.Dennis]

Lundberg02 wrote:

Besides, I have 14 USB devices and only 13 ports.

Isn't amazing how quickly they fill up?  I gotone of those ShuttlePro gizmos for use with Premiere Pro last week, and was astonished to find I was pluging it in to the last remaining port of an 8 port hub on the back of my desk!  I think most of the USB2 ports on the back of the system box are occupied, so all I have left are two on the front of my box.   The board only came with two USB3 ports on the back, so I had to swap out the USB3 PCIe card from my old box because I have three WD My Book externals.  That seems kind of short sighted because surely USB3 will take over.  My USB3 externals give me 110MBS read and write using Crystal Disk Mark, and that is faster than some of my internal drives!!

[Lundberg02]

I'll be getting the LaCie Thunderbolt to eSATA adapter box as soon as

it's available but that won't help the USB port shortage. I have two

externals with eSATA that are chained to the single FW800 port on my

mini right now.

Why is your USB3 only doing 110MBs? I thought the internal SATA was

3000mbps, it shouldn't reduce it that much unless there's a lot of

read/writes.

You can estimate speeds by treating hard drives as capacitive impedance

where you would invert the speeds to add them. HD speed plus

connection speed plus internal drive SATA speed. You have to make

allowance for the CPU I/O but it doesn't have much effect. The real

advantage of SSD drives is that they have almost instantaneous

read/write when that is called for , they're just SATA II or III for

data transfer.

[Zeno_Bokor]

That's the limitation of the hard drives, not the interface. Traditional hard drives still aren't fast enough to tax the good old P-ATA 133 interface

[Noel Carboni]

Spinning hard drives have pushed past the 100 megabytes/second throughput barrier, but only just.  However, on-drive caches grow ever larger, so for bursts of data it's possible to imagine saturating even the higher speed SATA links for a very short time.  Those limitations are what RAID 0 is good for breaking.  More hardware running in parallel is better. 

-Noel

[arc_fixer]

Hi.

I second Mylenium's emotion. I've been using Logitech programmable mice for 10 years. Currently I'm using the MX Revolution (wireless). Still working after 5 years of heavy use. My previous Logitech mouse was still working fine after 6 years, but didn't like Vista when I got a new computer.

I have big hands, and the MX is a good fit. Righties only, sadly. It's big, heavy, and stable. It has a built in rechargeable battery, which I was leery of at first. But the battery last a long, long time, and it has never been an issue. It recharges in a cradle, and fast, which is good.

It's programmable, the most important feature to me. It has more programmable toggles and buttons than I use, but the ones I do use are golden. In addition to the normal mouse functions in their normal places, I have Shft, Ctrl, & Enter under my index finger. My thumb accesses Alt, Ctrl+Alt, & Ctrl+Alt+Shft under my thumb. The result being my right hand never leaves the mouse, and my left hand works the keyboard. It's fast and efficient, even when I don't know where I'm going. If that sounds too geeky, just program couple of buttons. The new MX is still $100 and is supposed to work with Mac OS® X 10.4 or later.

I know some folks like to keep it simple. Even if you don't program it, it's still a big, heavy, comfortable mouse with great performance.

A critical element in my mousing nirvana is the gel filled wrist pad. It reduces fatigue and the chance of carpel tunnel and such. And just as important, it stabilizes my wrist so my hand movements are more sure. The speed of the mouse is a factor too. My mouse is set to "Fast", with moderate "Acceleration". This way I can reach the whole screen without moving my wrist or lifting the mouse. Saves time and fatigue. And of course a good chair set at the right height and the desk at the right height help.

FWIW.

Peace,

Lee

(Logitech Marketing Dept: You know where to send the check.)

[Guest]

My 2 cents - even though you say you're using a Macbook, I've just upgraded both my work and @home pc workstatiions to Logitech G500 gaming mice. Had them about three weeks and getting comfortable with all the programmable features. Custom weights are nice as is the adjustable dpi settings. Trying to decide which button will be copy and what will be paste! Very happy so far...

[Lundberg02]

Very good summary.

[Trevor.Dennis]

Add a 'Me too' for the MX Revolution. There is something rather luxurious about using a really nice mouse.  The response is silky smooth, and the control very fine.  It is also far and away the most comfortable mouse I’ve ever owned, and you get so used to the extra buttons, you wonder how folk cope without! 

Mine is also about five years old.  They are supposed to have a huge range, but I have to connect the receiver to an extension cord to get it within a foot of the mouse for reliable operation.  It works on most surfaces, but I have a shiny black mouse mat that has very low friction.

The buttons are application specific, but I keep most of them on the defaults because they make sense.  I do have button behind the wheel programed to ‘Show desktop’ though.

About the only downside - appart from the price - is that the batteries only last about three days, but it comes with a little charging station which you can park it in over night, but it charges from flat to full in about 30 minutes.

If I had to replace it I’d go with the M950 Performance Mouse.  I almost wish my MX Revolution would die so I could justify the purchase.

[Lundberg02]

This is very informative. I really should upgrade my old 20 dollar

Microsoft mouse that is held together with transparent Scotch tape, but

I love it.

[davidc1815]

I love the Logitech Performance MX mouse used with the smooth side of the Func Surface 1030 Original mouse mat.  Great combination.