Right-click context menu builder for Photoshop workflows

The moment it becomes a problem: a designer is in the middle of a complex comp and needs to run a specific action — rasterize, apply a smart sharpen at their preferred settings, convert to a specific color profile. Every one of those requires navigating menus three levels deep or hunting a panel. One user complaint is direct: 'I wish there was more right-click capability.' The context menu in Photoshop is largely static and Adobe-defined. You can't add your own commands to it.

This gap persists because context menus in Photoshop are hardcoded into the application's UI layer, not exposed to the plugin API in any meaningful way. Adobe's panel and action system is the official extension point, but panels require you to leave whatever you're doing to click somewhere else. The right-click menu is the fastest possible interaction — no hand movement, no context switch — and it's completely locked.

The users asking for 'more right-click capability' and 'more commands' are not asking for new features in the abstract. They're asking for their own commands to be reachable without interrupting their spatial focus on the canvas. This is an ergonomic problem, not a feature gap — and that distinction matters because Adobe treats it as a feature request backlog item rather than a workflow friction cost.

This is a business rather than a feature because the need exists across every design discipline that uses Photoshop heavily — UI designers, retouchers, compositors, print production artists — and the recurrence is per-session, not per-project. Every day a designer opens Photoshop, the same five commands they wish were in the right-click menu still aren't there. A tool that intercepts right-click events in Photoshop's canvas and injects a configurable command layer would be used every hour of every working day by its customers.

What to build

Build a macOS and Windows background utility that intercepts right-click events inside Photoshop's canvas window and overlays a configurable radial or linear context menu populated with the user's own Photoshop actions, scripts, and menu commands — triggered without leaving the canvas or opening any panel.

Where to start

Launch exclusively on Windows first — input hook APIs are more permissive and better documented than macOS equivalents — and target motion graphics artists using Photoshop alongside After Effects, where fast canvas actions are a known pain point with a visible community on YouTube and Reddit.

The hard part

Injecting a UI overlay that correctly detects Photoshop canvas right-clicks without interfering with Photoshop's own context menu events requires OS-level input hooks that behave differently across Windows and macOS versions, and macOS accessibility permissions add friction to first-run setup that will kill conversion for less technical users.

How it makes money

One-time purchase around $49 with a paid upgrade for major versions, similar to how standalone creative utilities are traditionally sold to designers who distrust subscriptions.