I currently have a bit of a dilemma with my RealForce 87U 55g (black version), and none of the options I have in front of me are ideal, and I wanted to see if the community can come up better solutions.
My situation is basically this:
I currently have three keyboards that are Topre--a Leopold FC660C, a RealForce 87U Type-S in white/gray, and a RealForce 87U 55g in black.
When I got the 55g in black, it wasn't a decision I was too satisfied with to begin with, since I already had the white/gray Type-S version and wanted to differentiate from it, but my general preference is NOT to have black legend on black keys. I can touch-type very well, but for content creation such as audio/visual editing software with lots of custom hotkeys, clearly readable legends is still more ideal.
I do like the 55g weighting the most, since it's the snappiest out of the three Topres I have (though the FC660C's keys are very nice too--they feel heavier than the supposedly 45g), and I do want to have a 55g keyboard in my rotation. I also do like the Type-S too, since it feels so effortless and smooth and quiet, but if I had to pick only one between the two 87U keyboards, it's definitely the 55g. The FC660C is definitely a keeper since I use if for in-bed typing on my Galaxy Note 3 and traveling.
I've been trying to think of ways to improve the readability of the black on black keys of the 55g, and these are the options I've considered/tried:
1) Sell the black 55g and buy a white/gray 55g instead, then use other methods to visually differentiate it from the Type-S version, such as getting different colored modifier or Enter keycaps. This is a pretty good solution and the one I'm leaning towards the most. I could stop here but I wanted to see if you guys have better suggestions.
2) Sell the black keycaps and buy a set in another color. But that's not ideal, since the RealForce keycap sets are ridiculously expensive, not to mention I don't particularly like the color choices that are available--they aren't nearly as appealing as the really well designed sets we have in Cherry MX.
3) Hand-paint the legends on the black keycaps with acrylic paint and then seal them with matte acrylic sealant/varnish. I tried this and it's way too much work and way too easy to screw up, even for someone like me who's a veteran artist that worked in comic books for 8 years and did a lot of inking with expensive Winsor & Newton Series 7 detailing brushes.
4) Put legend stickers on the keys. I bought a few sets from amazon and they just didn't look very good--too clunky looking and not elegant/simple enough, even if I chose simple white legend on black background stickers.
5) Sell the black 55g and buy the anniversary version in blue/gray. I'd love to do that, but it's way too expensive and far too much diminishing returns for basically a keycap swap.
6) Buy a Novatouch and swap the sliders so I can put Cherry MX keycaps on the 55g RealForce, then sell the Novatouch with the RealForce slider and black on black keycaps. This seems like a good option, but it invites unnecessary possible complications such as breaking something during the process, or no one wanting to buy a Novatouch with RealForce sliders and black on black keycaps. I don't want to keep the Novatouch since I already have a 45g Topre in the form of the Leopold FC660C.
I think these are pretty much all the options I can think of (or have been suggested to me) so far. What do you guys think? Any other suggestions?