Power Keys as a Replacement for VSCO Keys
June 28, 2024
VSCO Keys was a revolutionary tool when it was released at the end of 2012. It was one of the first tools (if not the first) to allow users to map keyboard shortcuts to develop presets and develop sliders in Lightroom Classic.
Before releasing VSCO Keys, the company focused primarily on creating incredibly popular presets for Lightroom Classic, mostly film-inspired presets. Heck, in our editing business, we still have clients who use VSCO presets.
Over time, VSCO Keys developed a cult following (there are still people asking about it on Reddit) with many loyal fans of the software and its unique capabilities. Unfortunately, on August 31, 2015, VSCO announced that they were discontinuing the software. VSCO decided to focus its efforts (and funding) on creating a mobile app for photo editing and sharing. Since then VSCO users have grown to 200 million.
Luckily for VSCO Keys users, they decided to open-source the codebase. It can still be downloaded here. While VSCO Keys is technically free for all to use, it no longer works correctly with the latest versions of macOS or Lightroom Classic.
When I started building Power Keys in 2022, it was important to me that it could work as a replacement for VSCO Keys. I'm happy to say, the majority of the functionality that existed in VSCO Keys is built into Power Keys. This includes remapping native Lightroom Classic keyboard shortcuts, assigning keyboard shortcuts to develop sliders (with the ability to create custom change increments), and assigning keyboard shortcuts to develop presets. There are a few small differences between the two pieces of software but any VSCO Keys user will find that Power Keys is a suitable replacement.
Since Power Keys is a subscription-based application, you can rest assured that it will continue to be supported as new versions of Lightroom Classic and macOS are released.