Jacki Vaughan created topic
2 years ago on Wed, Oct 9, 2019 at 10:24 AM
I would love to be able to pull up 3 or 4 images larger together to be able to show clients what 3 or 4 images would look like together for canvases, collage frames, etc. Similar to the compare 2 function, but being able to pull up more images together. Thank you! 
10 people upvoted this
Marziah Karch
Marziah Karch replied
2 years ago on Mon, Oct 14, 2019 at 9:45 AM
We don't have any immediate plans, but this is certainly something to consider. I'd be really interested in hearing from anyone who would be interested in something like this. So you'd mainly use this for client presentations? Could you tell me a little about yourself? How long have you been using Photo Mechanic, which operating system do you use, and what's your primary focus? (ie weddings, photojournalism, events, etc)
Thanks for the suggestion, Jacki.
Jacki Vaughan replied
2 years ago on Mon, Oct 14, 2019 at 10:56 AM
Thanks Marziah! Yes, I would use this mostly for client presentations. I've been in business for 19 years - did 11 years in weddings and now I do mostly senior portraits, with occasional families. I think I've been using Photo Mechanic for at least 10 years, maybe longer?
At each client's viewing session, I show the senior & their parents a slideshow first (in another app), and then we go through all of the images using Photo Mechanic - we look at them two at a time, so they can compare and choose their favorites of each set. Then at the end, they often would like to pick 3 or 4 to hang together on the wall, and they want to see how different images would look together. Currently my best way of doing this is to move the 4 that they are considering to the top of the contact sheet, and then make them as large as possible on my screen. Then I pull other options up to one of those four spots to show them alternates. It's much clunkier than the smooth process for showing them two at a time, so I would love it if there was an option to show 4 images at once and be able to click through to switch any of those 4 out, like I do when I'm showing two at a time.
I am on a 27 inch Mac, Catalina OS 10.15.
Please let me know if I can give you any other input that would be helpful, or I'd be happy to be a beta tester!
Marziah Karch
Marziah Karch replied
2 years ago on Mon, Oct 14, 2019 at 2:34 PM
Thank you. This does help. If you'd like to beta test, we do have an open beta for Photo Mechanic Plus here:
http://forums.camerabits.com/index.php?topic=12852.0 I'd be curious if using the collections feature in Plus might be an improvement over just using the contact sheet.
contact replied
2 years ago on Thu, Dec 19, 2019 at 9:42 AM
I am in desperate need of this feature. I have switched recently to PM from doing all of my culling in Lightroom. In LR I made heavy use of the Survey view where you can select multiple images and bring them up on the screen side by side. Since there is no equivalent feature in PM I am forced to continue using LR for some of my culling.
Currently I do my first pass in PM to tag all the usable photos (sharp, good expression, etc.). This still leaves lots of duplicate images that are too similar to each other, as well as sequences of photos that are too long (for instance I might have 12 good, usable images from a first look, however I want to get that down to 5 or 6).
The survey view is the perfect tool for this type of culling - when I can see an overview of a particular set of photos it's much easier to decide which ones I want to include and which ones to remove, compared to looking at them one or two at a time.
So right now I bring everything into LR and do a second cull where I can use Survey view to narrow down to a tight edit that clearly tells the story without being redundant.
I would really love to stay in PM for that second cull and then only go into LR when I am ready to start actually editing in the Develop module, but sadly as it stands I'm not able to do that.
Paige replied
4 months ago on Thu, Apr 29 at 6:34 AM
Hi, would love to echo this! I've been using PM to do all the heavy lifting of my culling for 2-3 years now and I am still dying for a feature like Lightroom's survey view—I want to be able to select multiple photos from anywhere in the contact sheet and view them side to side to compare with nothing else in the way. Would doubly love to be able to images around within that view to be able to compare similar images without having to move them a ton within the actual contact sheet. Even a few years into relying on PM I'm really missing this, and like @contact I'm often stuck making final choices in Lightroom because of it. Thanks so much!
Paulo Barbuto replied
4 months ago on Sat, May 1 at 5:48 AM
Another vote here! When culling wedding I often find myself trying to find that one picture of a large group where everyone has their eyes open (as an example), the ability to compare multiple photos would be great.
I
f we could zoom in and out and move the images independently would be even better.
Thanks!!
1 person upvoted this
Cedric Faulkner replied
4 months ago on Thu, May 6 at 5:29 AM
This would be a beneficial feature. Especially when a user has multiple monitors.
David Hoffman replied
3 months ago on Sun, May 16 at 9:43 AM
I'd like this too!
It's a feature that I miss from Media Pro. Cmd-/ would fill the screen with up to 6 selected images. They can be magnified/moved much as in a PM contact sheet. Very useful when quickly needing to compare similars for sharpness or nuances of expression.
1 person upvoted this
Frederic Hore replied
3 months ago on Thu, Jun 3 at 8:30 AM
I would like to add my vote for this feature. Frequently when taking multiple photos, be it if a bird, sunset or other subject, being able to have more than two up to do side-by-sde or comparison to quickly pick the best, would be purrrrrfect.
Graham Prentice replied
3 months ago on Sat, Jun 12 at 9:52 PM
Another vote for this one. Cameras get faster frame rates, and file sizes become larger. Hitting 20 frames per second with the R5 results in a large number of often similar wildlife/bird pictures, which need more aggressive culling simply to prevent your disks from filling up too quickly. This feature would be a life-saver.
