(15)
Your rating: Now say why...
Photo Mechanic is a photographer's image browser tool. It is the answer for professional digital photographers looking for a fast and easy-to-use image browser for digital camera files. Photo Mechanic's innovative batch captioning, renaming, speedy browsing, and Photoshop connectivity features have made it the choice of thousands of photojournalists and professional photographers worldwide. Optimized for use with professional cameras from Nikon, Canon, Olympus and Pentax, Photo Mechanic has become the standard tool for digital image browsing.
Photo Mechanic is a standalone
Photo Mechanic is a standalone
What's New
Version 4.6.8:
- (Mac) Updated the slideshow and live slideshow to work with Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion). Please read the note above if you are using Mac OS X 10.4.11 (Tiger) or 10.5.x (Leopard) as you will need a special "legacy" build that uses the old slideshow. HINT: To move the slideshow to a different monitor, temporarily use the 'F' key to toggle between full screen and window mode, drag the slideshow window to a different monitor, and then resume to full screen with 'F' key.
- Added support for RAW ORF files from the Olympus E-P3, E-PL2, DMC-GF2, and DMC-GH2.
- Fixed {frame} and {frame4} variables for JPEG and NEF files saved from Capture NX2.
- When uploading, the cached upload images (not your originals) are deleted when their image processing is complete. Upload images are also deleted if the upload is terminated.
- (Win) Autoplay will now launch Photo Mechanic and if configured to ingest, PM will display the ingest dialog.
- Fixed an issue with Ingest where the {seqn} value would be incremented when using a local IPTC Stationery Pad that didn't contain the {seqn} variable (but the global IPTC Stationery Pad did).
- The {seqn} value is only incremented by one when saving from Preview window.
- Structured Keywords are now written to IPTC metadata without spaces around the '' separator character. This makes them consistent with the way the XMP data is represented.
- Fixed an issue that would cause improperly formatted but otherwise valid GPS coordinates to be discarded.
- Fixed an issue with expanding extremely large {variable} lookups.
- (Mac) Fixed an issue in the Preview window that would cause the user's choice of layout to be disregarded.
- (Max) Fixed Navigator Sidebar issues when running on Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion).
- (Mac) Fixed an issue with launching classic (Rosetta) Photoshop droplets.
- PEF files now treated properly as TIFF-based RAW.
- Enabled cropping feature for RAW Sony formats ARW, SR2, and SRF.
- Fixed handling of smart quotes (e.g. pasted in by Word) in the Text Exporter.
Version 4.6.8:
- (Mac) Updated the slideshow and live slideshow to work with Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion). Please read the note above if you are using Mac OS X 10.4.11 (Tiger) or 10.5.x (Leopard) as you will need a special "legacy" build that uses the old slideshow. HINT: To move the slideshow to a different monitor, temporarily use the 'F' key to toggle between full screen and window mode, drag the slideshow more...
Photo Mechanic User Discussion (Write a Review)
Overall:
(16)
(16)
| Downloads:51,538 |
| Version Downloads:2,185 |
| Type:Multimedia & Design : Author Tools |
| License:Demo |
| Date:15 Sep 2011 |
| Platform:PPC / Intel |
| Price: $150.00 |
Overall (Version 4.x):  |
| Features: |
Ease of Use: |
| Value: |
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Displaying 1-10 of 20
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Photo Mechanic is a photographer's image browser tool. It is the answer for professional digital photographers looking for a fast and easy-to-use image browser for digital camera files. Photo Mechanic's innovative batch captioning, renaming, speedy browsing, and Photoshop connectivity features have made it the choice of thousands of photojournalists and professional photographers worldwide. Optimized for use with professional cameras from Nikon, Canon, Olympus and Pentax, Photo Mechanic has become the standard tool for digital image browsing.
Photo Mechanic is a standalone image browser that lets you view your digital photos with convenience and speed. Photo Mechanic displays the "thumbnails" of photos on a camera disk or folder in familiar "contact sheet" display windows. You can quickly rotate, preview, copy, delete, tag, rename, and add caption / keyword (IPTC news record) information to photos both individually and in batches. Photo Mechanic helps you find the best photo amongst several similar shots with its preview display that lets you flip through a group of selected photos at high resolution. Photo Mechanic can then pass the photos you select on to Adobe Photoshop for image retouching.
Photo Mechanic's unique Image Variable technology unleashes the power of metadata. Metadata can be information saved with each photo such as image capture data or IPTC fields, or other information like the current date and time. Standard image capture data like aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and focal length can be accessed through "variables" and tucked-away in any IPTC field such as the caption. You can also use variables representing the current or capture time, date, or frame number, for example, for file renaming purposes. IPTC fields can be extracted using variables for use in renaming - even the filename variable can be placed in an IPTC field. One important variable called the sequence variable can be used for sequential naming or to serialize certain IPTC fields. In all, Photo Mechanic has more than 60 variables that enable customized workflows for captioning and renaming photos. The possibilities are endless!
Photo Mechanic can also print contact sheets and export HTML for web pages. You can control the layout and size of your thumbnails, and even use Photo Mechanic's image variables to customize the text for thumbnail titles and page headers or footers, making Photo Mechanic one of the most flexible tools available for formatting your output.
Photo Mechanic is a standalone image browser that lets you view your digital photos with convenience and speed. Photo Mechanic displays the "thumbnails" of photos on a camera disk or folder in familiar "contact sheet" display windows. You can quickly rotate, preview, copy, delete, tag, rename, and add caption / keyword (IPTC news record) information to photos both individually and in batches. Photo Mechanic helps you find the best photo amongst several similar shots with its preview display that lets you flip through a group of selected photos at high resolution. Photo Mechanic can then pass the photos you select on to Adobe Photoshop for image retouching.
Photo Mechanic's unique Image Variable technology unleashes the power of metadata. Metadata can be information saved with each photo such as image capture data or IPTC fields, or other information like the current date and time. Standard image capture data like aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and focal length can be accessed through "variables" and tucked-away in any IPTC field such as the caption. You can also use variables representing the current or capture time, date, or frame number, for example, for file renaming purposes. IPTC fields can be extracted using variables for use in renaming - even the filename variable can be placed in an IPTC field. One important variable called the sequence variable can be used for sequential naming or to serialize certain IPTC fields. In all, Photo Mechanic has more than 60 variables that enable customized workflows for captioning and renaming photos. The possibilities are endless!
Photo Mechanic can also print contact sheets and export HTML for web pages. You can control the layout and size of your thumbnails, and even use Photo Mechanic's image variables to customize the text for thumbnail titles and page headers or footers, making Photo Mechanic one of the most flexible tools available for formatting your output.
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Lambsporriegetta reviewed on 09 Jun 2011
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Mx reviewed on 03 Feb 2011
Unless you’re a star photographer who can get the shot in one, you’re like the rest of us, shooting multiple angles/shots of a subject that will have to be culled. Obviously, you want to archive almost all your shots (even the rejects), but you’ll only be working with a few selections.
That’s why you need Photo Mechanic. With PM, you “injest” your card into a (what I call) “dump” archive. From there, you rapidly browse through your images, selecting your picks. Then, you copy your picks into a separate “project” location.
From here, you can import the “project” selections into Lightroom, Aperture, iPhoto, or whatever you use to manage your projects.
To answer another misconception from an earlier user, no, you don't have to “injest” archives you’ve already sorted and stored on a hard drive somewhere. You just have to open the folder in Photo Mechanic to view the images. Injesting is meant for dumping card data onto a hard drive; once there, you only need to browse folders.
I didn’t think this app would be that useful to me (especially at $150), but after using it for 10 months, I don’t think I can live without this first step. Injesting photos straight into Aperture or Lightroom is a monumental mistake because it takes far longer, and both programs are incredibly slow at loading RAW files the first time. Plus, there’s no reason to import images into LR or A projects that you know you don’t want to use. It just makes everything aggravatingly slower.
Trust me: this first step will save you so much time and energy working with your project files.
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SORRY, if you're a professional PHOTOGRAPHER then use Lightroom, not Photo Mechanic. This software is only for museums or universities. it's too expensive.
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I don’t understand this comment. Lightroom is $299; PhotoMechanic is $150. If you're a pro photographer you definitely use PhotoMechanic, and for image editing, you could be using any number of apps similar to Lightroom.
Again, Photo Mechanic is not equivalent to Lightroom (or Aperture or Capture Pro). They don't do the same thing; they are different steps in the work flow.
+2
Create a folder in the Finder and name it date first.
"2011-10-09 ShootName"
Plug in the camera card and drag the images to that folder.
Drag the folder to Lr.
Uncheck obviously bad shots.
Click Import. (Set import settings if needed)
Flag and retouch your picks, trash the crap.
Export just the picks. They'll be jpgs so you can set the "2011-10-09.." folder view options to 'By Kind".
Done.
With all due respect, I can't imagine spending $150 on an app that does what Lr already does. Spend just a few minutes looking at how Lr works and save your cash. Or heck, get Aperture, it's only $80 now.
I'm sure PM is good, but for me a pro workflow should not involve superfluous steps. But hey, to each their own.
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Again, if you don't shoot a ton every day, I can get how you'd think this was a waste of money. The time it has saved me has not been superfluous.
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Often I import my cards into Lr right at the reception. I can apply Develop setting (sharpening, vignette, etc) and can immediately show a slideshow of those images to the guests.
PM in combination with Ps makes more sense, but Lr is specifically designed to quickly preview, copy, delete, tag, rename, keyword AND do basic retouching. Out of 1000 images I send less than five to Ps now, saving a significant amount of time, and Lr saves the history of each change you make to every image you've ever touched.
All that being said I'm going to give PM a try.
If it would indeed save me time to do it another way I'm all for it.
+258
Bigboysdad reviewed on 16 Oct 2010
If you're a non professional photographer then try Lightroom 3 instead, you'll probably get more value from that product, which does everything that Photo Mechanic does and a lot more. Photo Mechanic however, is way faster and just as if not more stable than Lightroom 3 at what it does and is excellent software for professionals who have a necessity to deal with 100/1000s of raw DSLR shots in a very short space of time.
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CharlesTeton reviewed on 03 Apr 2007
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lazarus reviewed on 28 Apr 2006
It is the single most useful tool in the market, nothing touches it for professional workflow in terms of organising and accessing images. I started using it about 6 months ago and almost on a daily basis find new ways in which it helps me work faster.
The developers are very open to suggestions and respond personally to queries. As for price, well I wish that my $1400 CS2 with fancy bridge could load images for preview as fast as PM. It is instant. jpgs and RAW.
my business generates several 1000 images a week and the ability to vet them, rename them and save them to 2 locations as they come off the card, and then burn to CD/DVD (and across multiple discs if needed) all from one app, is so tremendously timesaving.
The Email and FTP features are a huge time saver. Clients want images emailed, select them, size them to what ever pixel dimensions and dpi and send them. Done.
The zillion ways to catagorise images is so much better than Bridge, its a joke. Sort by any piece of metadata that you like. Great for separating images that are shot on different cameras, but merged and renamed in chronilogical order such as weddings. Want to see what each photog shot? Sort by serial number then.
It just goes on. Any claim that PM is not a quality program, comes from the mouths of fools and is simply absurd.
If for some reason your camera is not supported, email the devs and let them know. Or get a real camera :-)
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m85 reviewed on 26 Apr 2006
PM is purpose-built for a professional workflow. There's nothing else in it's class for that.
Anonymous reviewed on 21 Nov 2005
For you and the one other guy out there who uses a Pentax digital camera.
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You were being a little generous there, or the room was in Cupertino.
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Anonymous reviewed on 15 Jun 2005
The best!!!
I run through thousands of digital immages every day, super!!
Finaly digital immaging is becoming serious.
Anonymous reviewed on 15 Jun 2005
Judging from other reviews, this bug must not be that common and I'm just unlucky, but I have to rate from my own experience, and I wasted so much time just to figure out what was going on and manually reorganize everything that I pretty much hate this program.
And if there is such an "security" implementation, it would be a totally messed up way of dealing with piracy and it's hard to believe any developer would be so retarded...
I no longer use the ingest feature as it sometimes works sometimes. It actually fails to copy whole sections of photos when it malfunctions, deleting the uncopied photos.
When batch renaming, it sometimes decides to do only half, leaving the directory scatterred with files named ʻTEMPxxxxxxʻ
None of the updates have cured my problems. As for the poster that suggested that this erractic behavior is the cause of a pirated serial number, I am running a purchased licensed copy.