HEIC file format support

[exnav]

Apparently iPhones are using the photo format HEIC. Please consider adding support for HEIC files in Photo Mechanic.

[Kirk Baker]

Apparently iPhones are using the photo format HEIC. Please consider adding support for HEIC files in Photo Mechanic.

Unfortunately HEIF/HEIC are heavily patent-encumbered and have large licensing fees for developers that don't have access to an OS that doesn't already offer system-level support for the format.

Hopefully this will change.

-Kirk

[BaggyGreen]

Is there a seamless way to integrate a 3rd party HEIC>jpg conversion app that operates from within PM ?  For better or worse we now have iPhones and generate many images using them. Yet to be able to determine whether an HEIC or .jpg from the phones is better but definitely a value add if PM would handle both.

[Kirk Baker]

Is there a seamless way to integrate a 3rd party HEIC>jpg conversion app that operates from within PM ?

Not sure what you mean by "seamless way to integrate"?  If such an app existed and could be run from a command line then PM could be modified by us to do that sort of thing, yes.  If you're wondering if PM has a way to allow a user to directly do the same thing then, no, PM doesn't offer a way for the user to have PM run an app that performs a task.  Anyway such a thing would be doable.  Have you found some good command-line/terminal apps that do this and are free?

-Kirk

[jameskachan]

HEIF/HEIC support in Photo-mechanic would be appreciated.
iPhone has become a part of the photo-workflow, perhaps entirely for some, and in conjunction with other cameras.

Having the ability to cull and view these images along side others or by themselves is important, and I dont want to have to convert them before doing so.
Please consider supporting these formats as well.

[jmo]

I agree and support @jameskachan's comment and request regarding the ability to cull this popular format. PM is the best (practical as well) App and I hope it continues to adapt.

[swldstn]

I realize you can't support viewing and other attributes but is there any reason you can't support renaming while ingesting? I recently tried injestng and it moved the files to the appropriate directory but did not rename them like Photo Mechanics can do with all my other files.
Is it possible I had a setup issue or can it not handle that?

[Kirk Baker]

I realize you can't support viewing and other attributes but is there any reason you can't support renaming while ingesting? I recently tried injestng and it moved the files to the appropriate directory but did not rename them like Photo Mechanics can do with all my other files.
Is it possible I had a setup issue or can it not handle that?

Photo Mechanic currently has no handler for .heic files and treats them like any other unknown file and things like renaming are not going to occur.  The files will be copied, but variables won't expand, etc.

-Kirk

[ron_hiner]

I understand why you can't support them on Windows machines...  but would you consider supporting them on OSX machines?  I would assume the necessary decoding stuff is part of the OS.

[Kirk Baker]

Ron,

I understand why you can support them on Windows machines...  but would you consider supporting them on OSX machines?  I would assume the necessary decoding stuff is part of the OS.

We're considering supporting HEIC files on both macOS 10.13+ and Windows 10.  I don't know when we'll be able to begin that work however.

-Kirk

[jonwoods]

We were hoping that a new major release of the software (Version 6) would have addressed HEIC compatibility. I'd written a year or two ago to petition Camera Bits to adopt a major image format that's been out since 2017. Unfortunately, we cannot justify the investment in the 30 licenses we'd be buying without support for HEIC. Until that changes, we will continue to divert that investment away from Camera Bits to Adobe / Lightroom. Anything you can do to expedite that would cause us to move forward to not only adopt but evangelize the product.