Photojournalists, sports photographers, wedding photographers and even studio commercial photographers who need to move photos quickly from capture to uploading have turned to Photo Mechanic software for years. They use it to sort, cull, rename, and add metadata to lots of files fast, then transfer to pixel editing applications, online gallery sites, or directly to clients.

With the pace of these and other photographic specializations showing no sign of slowing down, Photo Mechanic 6 is sure to find a user base hungry for a speed boost.

Photo Mechanic is available for both Windows and Mac and retails for $139.

What’s New

New features are present throughout the latest version of Photo Mechanic.

• 64-bit operating system compatibility. Full compatibility with the latest Mac and Windows OS with increased speed and greater caching. Speed is further increased by the large number of keyboard shortcuts.
• Ingest selected photos. You no longer need to move an entire camera card or folder of photos into Photo Mechanic or onto your hard drive. Now you can just move a few selects to save time and upload quicker.
• Reduced clutter in stationary and IPTC pads. You can now hide fields that you never use in these pads to speed entries.
• Improved crop tool. While not a pixel editor, Photo Mechanic 6 allows you to preview crops and rotation.
• Reverse geotagging. If GPS information is embedded in the image, version 6 uses it to insert location information (city, state, country) into the metadata.
• Improved code replacement. Photo Mechanic is unique in that you can create a text file with needed information (names of guests at a wedding, etc.) along with a shortcut code to that information and apply it to images without having to retype it each time. This can be a huge time saver.
• New uploaders. The dropdown list of uploaders has been increased to include Box, Dropbox, Amazon Cloud uploader, and a few others. Camera Bits had created an uploader for Facebook, but Facebook no longer allows any uploads from other software. You can, however, drag and drop photos from Photo Mechanic directly into an open Facebook page.
• Revised user interface. Small changes to improve usability.

In Depth

Without the need to move images, often the complete set on a camera card or in a folder as required by other software, onto your hard drive before selecting the ones to caption and upload, Photo Mechanic is the fastest photo browser available. Even when browsing images already on your hard drive, previews are available instantaneously in Version 6. And this speed is carried over when moving from one image to the next. Unlike with Lightroom and other programs, there is no delay moving from one image file to the next.

Whereas other software acknowledges the existence of metadata, Photo Mechanic is designed to make the addition of IPTC metadata and keywords to images fast and easy. It also allows you to search on any word in the metadata to find corresponding images, which is increasingly important as the number of images saved increases exponentially. The ability to quickly and accurately add metadata is essential to photojournalists and professional sports photographers and becoming more important to wedding, portrait, and commercial photographers whose clients want to see results online immediately. By creating a stationary pad of IPTC metadata before a shoot and making small additions for individual images during the shoot,the process is fast and nearly painless.

No other commercial software of which I am aware allows for what Photo Mechanic calls “code replacement”. This is the ability to create a text file with keyboard shortcuts to call up information quickly and error-free each time. Sports photographers use it to create a list of players on a team, then, using a keyboard shortcut such as their jersey number, add the player’s name into the metadata without retyping each time. Wedding photographers could do the same for the wedding party and even the guests. And again, each name becomes searchable at any time.

Pros

There is simply no better program available for fast image previewing and adding metadata than Photo Mechanic 6. In this way it is almost a “one-trick pony”, but if you are a photographer who needs the “trick”, there is no better option. Other features have been added, such as the ability to preview image rotation and cropping, but its emphasis on captioning with code replacement and IPTC metadata make it unique. Now that version 6 allows for hiding metadata fields that you don’t require, the process is quicker and more personalized than ever. The new export options to speed the moving of photos online are a welcome addition.

Cons

It’s tough to fault Photo Mechanic in areas for which it is designed. Although it performs many of the rating functions found in Lightroom and other database programs, it is not designed as a pixel editor, which may be disappointing to some given the cost. I miss the search box from previous versions that was at the top of the contact sheet, but typing Cmd/Ctrl-F is becoming second nature. It would also be nice to have an uploader for Instagram.

Bottom Line

If you need the ability to quickly cull selects from a photo shoot, add caption and IPTC/metadata information and upload those images in the shortest amount of time, you need Photo Mechanic. Version 6 incorporates improvements that speed this process further while adding a few new capabilities. And with the availability of a free trial from camerabits.com, even if you don’t need what Photo Mechanic can do right now, as the pace and importance of getting your images to your audience increases, you should become familiar with the quickest and easiest way to do that for the time you will need it in the future. Many video tutorials are available for new users to get you up to speed.

Stan Sholik is a writer/ photographer in San Clemente, CA.

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