How to hide thumbnail hover buttons?

[photopilot77]

Hi there,

I'm getting to know Photo Mechanic 6 on Mac, and wondering if there is a way to hide the 4 buttons that appear over each thumbnail when the mouse hovers over it in the contact sheet?  I'm working on a small laptop, so those buttons get so compressed over the image, it's really hard to avoid accidentally clicking Rotate Left or Rotate Right when I'm just trying to select photos. Is there a hotkey or preference I'm missing?

I'm referring to the buttons seen in the screenshot from this support page:
https://docs.camerabits.com/support/solutions/articles/48000340686-how-to-rotate-photos

[ahoward]

There is not a hotkey to disable these buttons. My only suggestions at this time are to use alternative ways of selecting images (such as giving all relevant items a color label and then using the shortcut to select all items with that label), or bumping up the size of the thumbnails slightly. For me (and of course everyone has a different gauge of what is doable for them) it was only difficult to avoid the hover buttons when I set the thumbnails to the very smallest size (and at that point the thumbnails were barely visible).

[photopilot77]

I have to keep the thumbnails small so I can view bracketed images for HDR image sets in rows that are divisible by the bracket. Like if I have 7 bracketed exposures, sizing the windows and thumbnails so there are 7 images per row. Or for images bracketed in 3's, thumbnails 6 across or 9 across. With a 14-inch screen, unfortunately I don't have the real estate to expand the window further if I make the thumbnails bigger.

Is there a feature request already in existence that I can add a vote to? or should I create a new feature request post?  All the functionality in these buttons can be done with hotkeys or toolbars, so for users who do not want them to get in the way, it would be great to be able to turn them off or hide them.

[Kirk Baker]

I have to keep the thumbnails small so I can view bracketed images for HDR image sets in rows that are divisible by the bracket. Like if I have 7 bracketed exposures, sizing the windows and thumbnails so there are 7 images per row. Or for images bracketed in 3's, thumbnails 6 across or 9 across. With a 14-inch screen, unfortunately I don't have the real estate to expand the window further if I make the thumbnails bigger.

Can you take a screenshot that shows your thumbnails with the hover buttons interfering with selection?  Use the 'Attachments and other options' link when you're composing your reply to this message and there you'll be able to upload your JPEG format screenshot.

Is there a feature request already in existence that I can add a vote to? or should I create a new feature request post?  All the functionality in these buttons can be done with hotkeys or toolbars, so for users who do not want them to get in the way, it would be great to be able to turn them off or hide them.

Not to my knowledge, but you're welcome to make a request here: http://forums.camerabits.com/index.php?board=3.0

-Kirk

[Mick O (Camera Bits)]

And just to add to the above, if you're trying to select the row of all 7 images,  (what I would expect if you're trying to edit a group of bracketed photos for HDR) you might have better luck using the arrow keys to go to the first image in the sequence, holding down the shift key and then navigating with the arrow keys will allow you to select an entire range without having to rely on the error-prone touchpad or mouse.   Would this help at all?

-Mick

[photopilot77]

Hi Mick & Kirk, I submitted the screenshot in this feature request:

http://forums.camerabits.com/index.php?topic=15206.new#new

I hope it's easy to implement. I mentioned in the feature request that there's also a disruption to eye tracking effect I'm experiencing when the buttons flick on and off between thumbnails. I'm sure it's not a universal experience, but things that pop on to screen are known to draw the eye, as we've seen from the whole pop-up ad industry.

@Mick - you'd think I'm always selecting rows, but it varies. I organize photos shot by me and several other photographers, and because of the rushed nature of our photography, sometimes a folder will contain single exposures mixed in-between sets of HDR exposures. Part of my job is finding those bits that aren't part of the bracket set, and breaking them out to other folders so they're only filed with equivalent brackets. I'm usually organizing 2000-3000 photos a night at the end of a long day, and I'm in a rush to get it done so I can sleep before the next early morning, and I have to finish filing before the next day.  This is why anything that can reduce errors as I shoot my mouse around in a sleep deprived state is a godsend.

[Mick O (Camera Bits)]

I thought of other tips that may or may not help your workflow, as I sympathize with your plight.

Do the non-bracketed images that you're trying to find only come from certain photogs/cameras? If so, it takes ~2-3 seconds*  to divvy up any folder into subfolders by camera model or serial#.  Would that help?

If all your brackets are at one fixed shutter speed, but the singles are at different shutter speeds, that might also be a way to automate the sorting. Any other metadata cues that might help you?
 
Are you selecting these just by looking at the tiny thumbnails or are you using the Preview window first? If you're checking them out in the Preview window, are you aware of the 'w' shortcut when viewing images in the Preview window? If you turn off single-selection syncing**, you can do something like

1. Arrow keys to get to the first image in your session.
2. Spacebar to open the image in the Preview window.
3. Use arrow keys to move back and forth through images.
4. Press 'w' when there is an image you want to select.
5. Hit "Esc" to close the Preview window and all the individual, non-sequential images you pressed 'w' on are now selected.

(My hunch is that if you're dealing with mouse/trackpad mis-clicks a lot, this method might end up being faster for you, but just a guess. A few minutes of practice can make it very fast.)

I don't know if any of those can help at all, but that's what I thought of.

-Mick

* Steps: 
cmd-a
cmd-y
check "move"
select "Subfolder"
put {serial} or {model} variable in the folder name
(Optional: create Snapshot preset to reuse in the future)
Press return 


** Preferences > Contact Sheet > Uncheck "Synchronize single selection..."  in the lower right

[photopilot77]

Thanks for the suggestions Mick, I'm not actually trying to sort images from different cameras in the same folder. What I mean by sorting photos from several photographers is that everyone on the team has different levels of consistency in separating their image sets using in-camera folders, and everyone is shooting different types of photos for different purposes, so in all that chaos, there's no real automation to be done, I have to look with a human eye and parse out the stragglers that should be in a different folder.

The w shortcut is great to know about, I'm sure it will come in handy for other uses, but for this workflow, I try to stay in thumbnail contact sheet view without previews. I QC the images once in a while using preview, but I can see where the brackets go out of sync better from the birds eye view in thumbnails.

I'm getting from the many suggestions for alternative methods that is probably not an easy thing to implement?