Camera Bits Releases Photo Mechnic 4.6.2 – New Version Adds Support For New RAW Files And Other Enhancements
Camera Bits today released the latest update to their popular Photo Mechanic image browser. Version 4.6.2 adds support for new camera raw file formats as well as several exciting new features. Long favored as the image browser of choice by photo journalists for its speed and incredible metadata support, Photo Mechanic 4.6.2 adds support for embedding GPS data, customizable HTML and Flash export templates, live wireless ingest and integrated support for popular photo sharing sites.
Unlike Aperture and Lightroom, Photo Mechanic works off folders in any location without having to import them first in to a database. It is also the only application that actually can embed user supplied IPTC data in to any RAW file during download, thus ensuring that photographer’s copyright and caption information always stays with the original image, where ever it may eventually end up.
Photo Mechanic 4.6.2 is a free update for any customers that have purchased licenses for Photo Mechanic on or after February 1, 2008 (or February 1, 2007 for educational licenses) Click here for the update. There is also a 20-Day free trial version available click here for the trial version.
New licenses for Photo Mechanic cost $150 (USD) and can be purchased on the Camera Bits website www.camerabits.com
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Below is a list of changes made to Photo Mechanic for Version 4.6.2, released November 9, 2009.
Improved support for Canon EOS 7D and 500D models.
Added support for RAW files from the Olympus E-P1, E-620, E-450, and E-420 models.
Added a preference to prevent modification of (non-DNG) RAW files when making metadata changes to tag, color class, and crop (although the TIFF rotation tag will be updated when rotating a photo). The crop is now stored in XMP for RAW files and can be read by Adobe applications such as the Adobe Camera Raw plug-in.
PhotoShelter uploader now allows the creation of hierarchical archive folders and uploading into any folder at any level.
Structured Keywords are now read from and written to the lr:hierarchicalSubject bag for better cooperation with Lightroom and other applications using this new de-facto standard.
When deleting Exif metadata with the Delete Metadata tool, if the XMP is not deleted as well then any Exif metadata in the XMP will be removed.
Added {mediatype} or {mtyp} variable for the type of media (e.g. “still” or “video”).
Added {parentfolderpath} or {pfpt} variable that returns the full path to the parent folder of the folder of a photo (i.e. 2 levels up). Useful for saving photos to an adjacent folder of the parent folder.
Shortcutting the Uploader dialog now works much faster.
(Mac) Command-Ctrl-Option-U now skips the Upload dialog and adds the selected photos to the current upload queue.
When saving a copy of transmitted photos via an Uploader template, the sub-directory now accepts and expands variables.
Zenfolio Uploader now allows files with multiple periods (’.') to exist in filenames and will now upload them. Widened the “Destination Zenfolio Account” popup menus to allow more room for deeper hierarchies.
Sorting in Contact Sheet is now numerically sensitive (e.g. abc10 comes after abc9). Useful when you don’t have leading zeroes before a filename sequence.
The Copy dialog now has an option to clear the Move checkbox each time the Copy dialog is opened. The Copy dialog now changes button and window titles when the Move checkbox is changed.
(Mac) By default all Navigation Services Dialogs are run in a separate process. Reliability should be improved for Leopard and Snow Leopard.
(Mac) For Snow Leopard, added a new Service that enables the “Browse with Photo Mechanic” contextual item in the Finder.
(Mac) Fixed an issue where Photo Mechanic would use 10% CPU time when idle on Leopard.
(Mac) Arrangements for Contact Sheets whose folders contain accented roman characters now work properly.
(Mac) Arrangements are no longer automatically updated unless an Arrangement has been made.
(Mac) Finding in filenames for files whose names contain accented roman characters now works properly.
(Mac) Uploader image processing no longer bothers to generate Finder icons since they wouldn’t be used anyway.
(Mac) The Quick Search toolbar item now has an option to revert to the original Contact Sheet folders.
(Win) Child dialogs created by Uploader templates now operate modally correctly and no longer allow access to the parent Uploader window.
(Win) Revealing paths in Windows Explorer now works with paths that contain non-ascii characters.
In the Preview window, you can swap the W and H constrained crop dimensions with the keyboard shortcut Option-X (Mac) or Shift-X (Windows).
Convert RAW to DNG now works correctly when a specific output folder is chosen.
Fixed an issue where XMP sidecar files would be assigned to DNG files. This had the side effect of causing file naming collisions when burning a disc containing a DNG file, XMP file, and a RAW file with the same base filename.
Now recognizes little endian marker when parsing Photoshop’s Exif data.
Updating XMP now sets Exif date/time if they exist already.
{cropwidth}, {cropheight}, {xc}, {yc}, {aspectcrop}, and {aspc} variables now work correctly on RAW photos that have crops on them.
Filenames of Proxy files are no longer converted to lower case.
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Author: John Omvik
John is a professional photographer, technology editor, consultant and photography educator based in Santa Cruz, California. In addition to working as a photographer, John has also held senior marketing roles in the digital imaging industry since 1996 contributing to the success of a number of innovative products that have improved the user experience for both consumers and professionals. With almost 30 years of hands-on experience and industry background, John brings a unique perspective to the latest news and product reviews featured here on The Mac Create Network.
