Photo Mechanic overview

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.

What’s new in version 6.0

Version 6.0:

Fixed:

(Mac Retina only) Loupe cursor not working with pictures of 2000 by 1333 pixels
Photo Mechanic not erasing disks when Ingest completes successfully
On Mojave, thumbnails in Contact Sheet are hidden during certain operations
Clicking a hover button while moving the mouse changes selection
Issue with "Adjust Capture Date/Time" giving RAW file more recent time than XMP sidecar
Unable to drag RAW+JPEG+WAV to a folder in Navigator & Favorites
"Reveal in navigator" not expanding folder
Application activation issues with Server
When multiple contact sheets are displayed, it is possible to have multiple "Info" windows shown
Info tips not being refreshed when scrolling contact sheet
Contextual menu for Color Class and Ratings Filters not available when filters are disabled
Reverse Geocoding not respecting flag "Never overwrite existing data"
Error editing with Photoshop if Photoshop not already open
Issue whereby canceling an Ingest will cause incorrect image state
Dropbox uploader fails when destination path is empty

View older Photo Mechanic versions

3.9

(27 Reviews of Photo Mechanic)

Comments
User Ratings

Levelbest

Mar 9 2017

5.0

0.0

Version: 5.0

It is fair to say that FastRawViewer is much cheaper and will do some of what Photo Mechanic can do. I used PM before v5 and I just got a license for FRV. FRV is proving to be an excellent short term solution for what I need which is mostly DAM capacity to review and mark and exuded images. Images that are then edited when necessary in an external editor.

But that is where the difference ends. (disclaimer - I still don't shoot raw so all my comments are about DAM and reviewing photos and opening them in external apps).

I recently asked at FRW why there is no search mechanism built in? They replied that they did not see it as a necessary feature. Excuse me? You are looking at a large folder of photos but it is not relevant that you find one you are looking for? Photo Mechanic does this and I just took it for granted this was common sense.

And, Photo Mechanic does much more. It imports like a fiend. It compares shots for quick review and it allows me to make and rate my photos quickly. Photo Mechanic is clearly a professional grade app for professional people, for people who work hard (and fast) with many photos and don't want anything to screw up. Photo Mechanic left me behind in the upgrade to v5 because they didn’t offer an upgrade - or perhaps it was that I was too slow to take it and it is too late now. But that is water under the bridge. Photo Mechanic is a very good program and while I am glad I learned of FRV, it really doesn’t compare with the full strength of Photo Mechanic.

Turquoise

Aug 29 2016

I recently found a great alternative to this excellent but rather expensive application. It's called FastRawReview and it's much cheaper. http://www.fastrawviewer.com/

Jan 29 2016

It is useful to indicate the build of this great app. Latest is 16960.

Joseph-Farrugia

Feb 21 2015

Is there another image browsing app that allows viewing raw & JPEG as a single file, & allowing operations to be done on both versions of the file, or either one (ie: the JPEG version or the raw version)? ----> NO, Lightroom doesn't do that. Any tips would be appreciated.

Macedward

Aug 19 2013

Since 2012 the PM 5 is no longer a beta. Great product by the way!

Sausalitodog

Mar 9 2013

4.5

Version: null

Lambsporriegetta

Jun 9 2011

Feb 3 2011

Bigboysdad

Oct 16 2010