How HP’s Quick Keys will speed up your workflow

There are few things more intoxicating in life than finding your muse. From sketching and doodling, to 3D design and editing, there’s nothing quite like the thunderous strike of inspiration to get your creative juices flowing.

There are times, however, when you’re not in the best environment to channel your creativity. It’s all very well having a home studio with a graphics tablet, but if you're on the move when you need to work your magic, the wait to return to your creative haven can be frustrating, not to mention impractical. 

Laptops and tablets make reasonable stopgaps of course, but they're no substitute for the dedicated tools designed to help you achieve your absolute best work – until now, at least. 

Channeling your muse

The HP ZBook x2 is a hybrid workstation that's designed to empower artists, editors and designers to express themselves and generate ideas while they're on the move, without having to compromise while they're away from their studios. 

The most powerful detachable PC that HP has ever made, the HP ZBook x2 is a genuine alternative to your dedicated studio hardware, thanks to its high-specced innards, and stunning Wacom pen-enabled screen. 

While the latter allows artists and designers to draw and write with incredible accuracy thanks to over 4,000 levels of pressure sensitivity, the ZBook x2 also provides a new standout innovative feature that will elevate your productivity to a whole new level. 

Meet the Quick Keys

Situated on either side of the ZBook x2's screen are 12 shortcut buttons, which are designed to make your creative process flow as smoothly as possible, wherever you are. 

Called Quick Keys, these buttons are a godsend for creatives looking to increase their efficiency and comfort while they work in apps like Adobe Photoshop or InDesign – two of the most popular design and editing tools in the world. 

A large part of using these apps are the keyboard shortcuts, which soon become second nature to the artists who use them every day. While you can, of course, still use these shortcuts on the ZBook x2's keyboard, you might not always have the space for a traditional laptop setup. 

Sketching on a plane, for example, leaves you with very little room for work. With the keyboard detached though, you can comfortably draw directly on the ZBook x2's screen, while the Quick Keys let you unleash your full potential.

The power of shortcuts

Imagine a painter adding more paint to their brush for bolder, thicker strokes, or diluting a colour with paint thinner for a more transparent, subtle effect on the canvas. While they work, they move around the easel, looking at their emerging creation from different angles. The might even rotate the whole canvas, to tackle it from another direction, or step back to the other side of the room to get some perspective.

All of these actions seem natural and intuitive, but translating these real-world experiences to a PC or tablet is no easy task. Other tablets lack shortcut buttons, and while they may offer a natural drawing experience in the form of a stylus, beyond putting digital ink on paper, they soon lead to frustration. Trying to use these indispensable shortcuts with a stylus is frustrating at the best of times, and can be borderline impossible. 

The ZBook x2's Quick Keys, however, allow artists to instantly carry out these natural tasks without a second thought. In Photoshop, for example, right-clicking while holding Alt and dragging the mouse can change the thickness or transparency of your virtual brush – the exact same principles behind adding, removing or thinning paint with a real brush and palette. 

You can instantly make adjustments like these on the ZBook x2 without a second thought – one Quick Key press is all it takes to continue your flow. 

Work your way

Out of the box, these Quick Keys have 18 preconfigured shortcuts that are customised for Adobe applications. We all have our preferences though, especially when it comes to the way we tackle work – the most popular methods and shortcuts for one artist may be the least-used for another, which is why the ability to customise all 12 of the Quick Keys is another vital feature. 

Shortcuts are easily assigned via the HP Create Control Panel, which enables you to create all the custom shortcuts you could ever need. Each Adobe app has its own section too, so you can save multiple shortcuts specifically designed for whichever app you're currently using. 

With incredible performance and versatility to push your favourite Adobe apps – and yourself – to maximum potential, no other PC or tablet is better suited to turn your creative visions into reality.