Photo Mechanic
Encyclopedia
Photo Mechanic is a front-end photo ingesting, tagging, and browsing tool by Portland, Oregon-based company Camera Bits.
Photo Mechanic allows the photographer to accomplish the initial capture of photos from the camera, to categorize photos into winners and losers, and to tag each photo with IPTC Information Interchange Model
metadata
.
Retailing at approximately USD $150, it is targeted for the professional photographer market, particularly photojournalism and stock photography.
While Photo Mechanic has basic support for simple image edits, such as crops, it is meant to be used in concert with a dedicated photo editing program, such as Adobe Photoshop
, and a back-end cataloging tool, such as iView Media Pro or Extensis Portfolio.
. It is widely accepted among professional photographers as being the fastest tool for browsing and sorting files.
CR2 or Nikon
NEF. Other keywording solutions typically cannot write keywords directly to the RAW file
, but instead create a "sidecar" XMP
file. Photo Mechanic actually embeds the keywords in the RAW file itself. If preferred, Photo Mechanic can also create and maintain sidecar file
s in addition to embedding IPTC and XMP into photos.
Photo Mechanic allows the photographer to accomplish the initial capture of photos from the camera, to categorize photos into winners and losers, and to tag each photo with IPTC Information Interchange Model
IPTC Information Interchange Model
The Information Interchange Model is a file structure and set of metadata attributes that can be applied to text, images and other media types...
metadata
Metadata
The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...
.
Retailing at approximately USD $150, it is targeted for the professional photographer market, particularly photojournalism and stock photography.
While Photo Mechanic has basic support for simple image edits, such as crops, it is meant to be used in concert with a dedicated photo editing program, such as Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe Systems Incorporated.Adobe's 2003 "Creative Suite" rebranding led to Adobe Photoshop 8's renaming to Adobe Photoshop CS. Thus, Adobe Photoshop CS5 is the 12th major release of Adobe Photoshop...
, and a back-end cataloging tool, such as iView Media Pro or Extensis Portfolio.
Browsing
Photo Mechanic supports fast photo browsing and full color managementColor management
In digital imaging systems, color management is the controlled conversion between the color representations of various devices, such as image scanners, digital cameras, monitors, TV screens, film printers, computer printers, offset presses, and corresponding media.The primary goal of color...
. It is widely accepted among professional photographers as being the fastest tool for browsing and sorting files.
Categorizing
Photo Mechanic lets the photographer apply a "tag", "color class", or "star rating" to each photo with a single keystroke. This can be used later to filter photos by quality or classification.Metadata tagging
Photo Mechanic uses the concept of "IPTC Stationery." The user sets up a piece of "stationery" with the tags common to a group of photos, and can then apply them to any arbitrary set of photos. Many browsers and catalog tools allow users to apply metadata to photos; Photo Mechanic is distinguished by two attributes. First, the user interface is designed to make applying tags to large numbers of photos at once very easy. Secondly, Photo Mechanic can write IPTC metadata to many file formats. This includes proprietary formats such as CanonCanon Inc.
is a Japanese multinational corporation that specialises in the manufacture of imaging and optical products, including cameras, camcorders, photocopiers, steppers and computer printers. Its headquarters are located in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan.-Origins:...
CR2 or Nikon
Nikon
, also known as just Nikon, is a multinational corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, specializing in optics and imaging. Its products include cameras, binoculars, microscopes, measurement instruments, and the steppers used in the photolithography steps of semiconductor fabrication, of which...
NEF. Other keywording solutions typically cannot write keywords directly to the RAW file
RAW image format
A camera raw image file contains minimally processed data from the image sensor of either a digital camera, image scanner, or motion picture film scanner. Raw files are so named because they are not yet processed and therefore are not ready to be printed or edited with a bitmap graphics editor...
, but instead create a "sidecar" XMP
Extensible Metadata Platform
The Adobe Extensible Metadata Platform is a standard, created by Adobe Systems Inc., for processing and storing standardized and proprietary information relating to the contents of a file....
file. Photo Mechanic actually embeds the keywords in the RAW file itself. If preferred, Photo Mechanic can also create and maintain sidecar file
Sidecar file
Sidecar files, also known as buddy files or connected files, are files which store data which is not supported by the source file format.For each source file one or more sidecar files can be created...
s in addition to embedding IPTC and XMP into photos.