What's the size of a tennis ball, sports a futuristic design, and offers a whole new way of getting around Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2, and InDesign CS2? It's a unique new navigation device, the NuLOOQ navigator, developed by Logitech for use specifically with these Adobe Creative Suite 2 apps.

The idea behind the navigator is to give creatives easy access to frequently used tools and tool options without having to shift focus away from the image to reach for an item, as we're accustomed to doing. It's not intended to replace your mouse, tablet, or keyboard, but rather to be used along with them. The navigator is a touch-sensitive controller. It sits under your non-mousing hand and has a moveable ring at the base for scrolling and zooming images, and a circular, touch-sensitive surface for adjusting application options without a trip to the Options bar.

The navigator is used with NuLOOQ tooldial software, which gives you a circular menu divided into wedges. You can assign frequently used tools, commands, and files to the wedges. The circular menu appears on demand under your cursor, giving you quick access to those items so you don't have to shift your attention away from your design or remember shortcuts.

We haven't gotten our hands on these products yet, but they do sound interesting. The fact that Bert Monroy endorses the products in a video on the Logitech site is a plus in my book.

The navigator and the tooldial software are sold together as the NuLOOQ Professional Series at a cost of $149.99. You can buy  tooldial separately for $49.99. The navigator is not sold separately. Both products are available only for Mac. You can download a free trial of NuLOOQ tooldial from the Logitech site.

Adobe yesterday announced collaborations with a number of partners to add new services for use with Photoshop CS2.  At the Photo Marketing Association conference in Orlando Adobe revealed partnerships with:

• Hewlett-Packard, which has developed a new professional photo printer with a plug-in for Photoshop CS2. The plug-in synchronizes color management between Photoshop CS2 and the printer driver.
• Logitech, which is making the NuLOOQ Navigator, a new kind of navigation device for use with Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign CS2 on the Mac.
  
• Lexar, which has developed a plug-in memory card for Adobe Bridge that will allow users to download images from multiple cards at the same time and add metadata to those images.
  
• MorePhotos.com, which offers photographers an online service for uploading photographs from Adobe Bridge for customers to proof and purchase.
  
• Iron Mountain, which will provide an online photo backup service to protect against loss of digital photos. This will be a subscription service for that will allow photographers to backup not only their photographs, but also financial documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and other documents.