OverviewPhoto Mechanic takes the work out of workflow!

Photo Mechanic sets out to be the most useful Photo Workflow Software on the market today. It does this by being logical in operation, intuitive in use and, most importantly of all, performing its functions as quickly as possible.

Photo Mechanic is able to perform most of the needed tasks in a Digital Asset Management (DAM) workflow. Such as; downloading, renaming, backing up, rating, grouping, optimizing, maintaining, thinning, and exporting files.

Custom sorting methods are available for your particular workflow. Multithreaded software works in the background to keep ahead of you, so images appear blazingly fast. You can view your originals full screen, compare similar shots side by side, delete the bad shots, tag photos while watching a slide show, and sort your keepers into multiple folders.

Photo Mechanic’s power lies in its flexibility and each user will no doubt use Photo Mechanic in subtly different ways to fit into their own unique workflow needs.

  • ImportThe first step of working with your photos is to get your photos copied from your camera’s storage card (e.g. flash memory or compact hard disk) to your computer’s hard disk. Photo Mechanic offers a way to streamline the copying process while providing additional options such as batch captioning.

  • Photo Mechanic's powerful Ingest utility is one of the core components of Photo Mechanic. Ingest can copy the files from several flash cards simultaneously, flatten the somewhat inconvenient directory structure of the card, rename the files to your specification, add IPTC information to each file, and make a mirrored backup folder - all in one step!

    The ability to open a Contact Sheet during ingest allows you to start editing your files immediately, no more having to wait until the copy process is complete. The renaming and IPTC functions can include user-specified Variables so you can customize your file naming in a huge variety of ways.

  • Live Ingest works like Ingest in that it copies images to one or more destination folders. But Live Ingest is different in that it can monitor one or more paths for new files and will process them as they appear. This is useful for shooting wirelessly or tethered.

    Live Ingest can ingest both JPEG and RAW files produced by cameras.

    Multiple separate Live Ingests may be active at any one time.

    Live Ingest can copy photos to up to three separate locations, performing different operations on each destination.

    The IPTC Stationery Pad is local to each Live Ingest process and if applied, the same IPTC Stationery Pad is applied to each destination. The sequence variable is also local to each Live Ingest process and will be the same value for each Live Ingest destination.

  • EditYou can quickly rotate, preview, copy, delete, tag, watermark, rename, resize, and add IPTC metadata to photos both individually and in batches. Adjust capture dates and times, change a files resolution, or embed an ICC profile into your JPEGs. Lock previews and pan them around together to compare details efficiently. Manually arrange photos in an arbitrary order, including across multiple folders.

  • The Contact Sheet view is the core of Photo Mechanic and consists of a display of thumbnailed images from a particular folder. You can create Contact Sheets from more than one folder and either keep them separate or combine them into one Contact Sheet view. All recognized file formats in the folder will be thumbnailed, including RAW files from most current digital cameras as well as the open source Adobe Digital Negative (DNG) format.

  • Each thumbnail can be quickly enlarged into a Preview screen where each image may be zoomed up to 800% to check critical sharpness. Images may be cropped and a right-click context sensitive menu allows export of the image in various ways, like FTP to a server, Email, Save as JPEG, etc. Images may be viewed 2-up for a side by side comparison when, for example in portraiture, differences between images can be too subtle for a single image view.

  • Photo Mechanic has several functions for getting the most out of your photos with GPS coordinates. Global Positioning System, an accurate navigational facility based on the reception of signals from an array of orbiting satellites, provides photographers with the ability to locate where they created their photos.

    The Set GPS Coordinates utility allows you to add, copy, or modify GPS coordinates to a singe or group of photos.

  • Given a selection of photos, the Import GPS Coordinates dialog can import GPS logs in the GPX and NMEA formats.

    Import GPS Coordinates dialog will try to calculate the GPS coordinates of the selected photos based upon log file(s) from a GPS device. This is done by searching for the closest GPS log time(s) which match each photo's capture time, then using the corresponding GPS log coordinates to interpolate each photo's GPS coordinate. The interpolated coordinate of each photo will be displayed on the map with a red pin.

    If some of your photos already have GPS coordinates, then you can choose to "Overwrite existing GPS coordinates". This will replace the photo's existing GPS coordinate with the interpolated coordinate from the log file which may or may not be more accurate than, say, a camera-connected GPS.

  • AnnotatePhoto Mechanic makes it easy to add common “IPTC” (or metadata) information (like Caption, Keywords, Contact Email(s) and Rights Usage Terms) to a single photo, or groups of photos at once. Reduce time and improve accuracy when captioning files by using the Code Replacement feature.

  • The Stationery Pad is used to add metadata to a group of images at one time. Shortening the time it takes to add common information to all photos.

  • Use the IPTC Info dialog to add or update your file’s metadata. Save the changes and move to the next or previous photo without closing the dialog.

  • Beyond the basic functionality of a simple linear keyword list is the concept of controlled vocabulary and a hierarchy of keywords. There are two different Structured Keyword 'tools', one is a floating panel which can remain open and the other is accessed through the IPTC/Info Dialogs. Both have similar functionality, the slight differences being how the keywords are finally applied to images.

    Photo Mechanic ships with a basic vocabulary which is intended as a starting point and to illustrate the concept of nested keywords. For a more complete Controlled Vocabulary Keyword Catalog, visit www.controlledvocabulary.com.

    Each keyword can be a parent, sibling or child word, forming a hierarchy of words from broad categories like 'Animals', to more detailed 'child' words like 'Birds' and on to even more detailed words like '48 Spotted Pardalote'.

    Keywords can be added to files either singly or as the whole 'path' which includes all the 'parent' words.

  • Output Create web galleries, print contact sheets, transfer photos to an FTP server or upload them to online services like PhotoShelter, DigitalFusion, Amazon S3, ExposureManager, Flickr, Gallery 2, SmugMug, and Zenfolio. Send photos to your clients via E-mail, or archive your keepers by burning them to CDs or DVDs.

  • The Uploader dialog allows you to transmit photos from your computer to various upload services like FTP, SFTP, PhotoShelter, DigitalFusion, etc. Use the 'Selected Uploader:' popup menu to choose the service you want to upload photos to. The Uploader dialog has its own Preferences dialog whose settings pertain to all uploader templates. These settings control "Upload Stall Detection" and "Concurrent Uploads". Upload Stall Detection is a feature where the Uploader detects lack of progress in an upload and brings up a warning dialog so that you can monitor your internet connection. The Upload Stall Detection can be set to wait anywhere from 45 seconds to 320 seconds before warning you, or it can be disabled entirely. The 'Allow concurrent uploads' enables the uploader to send more than one file simultaneously which can improve upload speeds significantly as long as you have a high bandwidth connection to the internet.

  • Photo Mechanic includes a number of sample HTML export templates in Ruby that generate an interesting variety of web galleries including the Flash-based slide show viewers PMSlideshow, and from SimpleViewer Inc. we have the SimpleViewer, PostcardViewer, and AutoViewer.

    Users can customize their web deployment by creating new HTML export templates for Photo Mechanic, or by using templates from third party developers. One example of a third-party HTML export template, sold separately, is the Enhanced Ordering System (EOS) Template
    (www.eostemplate.com) for generating web galleries with a complete stand-alone shopping cart system.

    Read more on PM's Exporter