Photo Mechanic™ Version 4.4 History

Below is a list of changes made to Photo Mechanic for Version 4.4, released November 30, 2005.

This version is available as a free update for registrations good through November 2005.

• Photo Mechanic now requires Mac OS X 10.3.5 or 10.4.
  
• Photo Mechanic can now embed and update XMP in addition to IPTC in JPEG, TIFF, Photoshop PSD, and TIFF-based RAW formats (Canon 1D TIFF and CR2, Nikon NEF, Olympus ORF, Epson ERF, and Adobe DNG). For RAW formats, Photo Mechanic can also create and update XMP sidecar files. IPTC-related fields in XMP follow the IPTC.org IPTC4XMP guidelines for maximum compatibility.
  
• Because most RAW formats are proprietary and various RAW processing programs may be sensitive to modifications in RAW files, Photo Mechanic uses a new technology called Caption Safe™ that can undo captioning edits made to TIFF-based RAW photos in order to restore the RAW photos to their original state.
  
• Added the ability to ingest from folders in addition to ingesting from disks, and the ability to incrementally ingest photos so that only newly added photos are copied. Also added the option to verify copied photos, and additional filtering options for ingesting only RAW/non-RAW and/or locked/unlocked photos.
  
• (Mac) Added Spotlight searching. The search results are displayed in a contact sheet so that Photo Mechanic can work with the found photos. The searches can be saved as Favorites items so they can be executed or edited when desired.
  
• A contact sheet can now view the contents of multiple folders. From the Navigator and Favorites views, use the Shift (Windows) or Option (Mac) key and double-click on a folder to add its contents to the current contact sheet. Option-drag from the Mac Finder will also add the folder to the destination contact sheet.
  
• (Mac) Added the ability to burn photos to CD or DVD without having to first rearrange photos in folders to fit under the capacity limit for CD and DVD discs. Photo Mechanic will automatically split the source photos across multiple CD / DVD discs as needed according to the capacity of the recording media and the number of photos selected for burning.
  
• Added a new Tools menu with the following useful tools:
  
  
  • Adjust Capture Times tool for fixing erroneous camera capture dates and times due to changes in time zones, for example. Photos from multiple cameras can be synchronized by taking a photo of a common clock, and then entering the time of that photo for each camera.
  
  
  • Update IPTC/XMP tool for updating existing archives of IPTC-captioned photos or for synchronizing IPTC/XMP data for RAW+JPEG pairs. For example, IPTC metadata can be transferred from JPEG to RAW photos (or vice-versa), from XMP sidecar files into embedded IPTC, or from Macintosh IPTC-NAA resources into embedded IPTC/XMP for cross-platform compatibility.
  
  
  • Revert TIFF-based RAW to original tool for undoing any captioning edits made to TIFF-based RAW files (using Caption Safe™).
  
  
  • Mask/Unmask tool for hiding Exif, IPTC, XMP, and ICC profiles. This can be useful for diagnosing workflow problems or compatibility with other software.
  
  
  • Change Resolution tool for changing the resolution value of existing tags (e.g. DPI).
  
  
  • Embed ICC profiles into JPEGs is the same tool from previous Photo Mechanic versions but moved into the Tools menu.
  
  
  • Lossless JPEG Rotation tool for modifying the image to reflect its soft rotation. This is the only command in Photo Mechanic that will modify an original photo's pixels.
  
  
  • Extract JPEG Previews from RAW photos tool for creating JPEG files from the embedded JPEG preview stored in RAW files by some camera models or DNG converters.
  
  

• Added a new Color Class view filter for displaying combinations of photos of different color classes. It can be used for displaying only top rated photos (say first two color classes), or it can also be used to display photos belonging to certain user-defined classes.
  
• The IPTC Info dialog now shows a thumbnail of the photo that is being captioned, along with buttons to move to the next or previous photos, and for copying and pasting the entire IPTC info from one photo to another (similar to the IPTC Snapshot contextual menu command).
  
• Added an improved IPTC Keywords editor for working with large numbers of keywords. This is accessible from the "Edit Keywords..." menu.
  
• Added a User / Client dialog with corresponding variables to store custom values for configuring advanced workflows from a single dialog. In particular, the Job Name field variable {job} is useful for folder and file renaming, and for insertion into an IPTC field. By changing the value of this field in the User / Client dialog, all uses of this variable will use the updated value.
  
• The settings in most Photo Mechanic dialogs can now be instantly saved and recalled via a handy Snapshot menu icon (which looks like a lightning bolt). This feature allows sophisticated workflows to be saved and shared for later recall with a simple Snapshot menu selection.
  
• Added JPEG sizing estimate for first photo in Save As and FTP As dialogs.
  
• Added photo info "tooltips" in contact sheet to instantly show info about a photo. From the View menu, select the Show Info Tooltips command from the View menu to enable or disable the tooltips info. When enabled, the photo under the mouse cursor in a contact sheet will display a floating window with the photo's Info Text.
  
• Added {tab} and {nl} variables. The {tab} evaluates to a tab character, and the {nl} variable evaluates to CR/LF (carriage return and line feed) on Windows, and to CR (carriage return) on Mac.
  
• Added {raw+jpeg} (or {r+j}) variable that evaluates to a 1 if a photo is part of a RAW+JPEG pair (this is useful for custom sorting).
  
• The Preview dialog can now zoom to 800%. To quickly zoom into a particular spot of a photo when not in zoom mode, use the Control (Windows) or Command (Mac) key and click on the location to center the zoomed view. Repeat to zoom out (back to full photo mode).
  
• There are dozens of other improvements and fixes that are not listed above. If you've requested a (reasonable) feature enhancement from us in the past, there is a chance that it has been included in version 4.4

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