I’ve played with the demo for a very short while before realizing the positive effect it will have on my workflow. Combine the power of the existing version, the celebrated support, and the potential features of the upcoming 4.5, it was an easy purchase to justify.
As I’m currently figuring out how best to adapt my workflow to Photo Mechanic, a few wishes come to mind. I’ve spent some time going through the forum, so I don’t think any of these items have been addressed. If they have, just count my vote for that request.
1. I’d like to have more custom control with regards to the printable contact sheets. I’d like to be able to change the fonts, add logos to the header and/or footer and generally have more control with the gutters between the photos. It might be beneficial to be able to put a text block of sorts next to a given image, allowing me to use a contact sheet as an order form of sorts.
2. Speaking of contact sheets, I’d like to be able to add a
‘Page x of y’ type footer. I’ve tried using the following syntax:
Page: {page} of
{total}However, the special
{total} (or)
{totl} always gives a value of 0. Am I misusing this variable?
3. I’ve seen a little discussion on adding some BASIC editing controls. Although I have no desire to replace my image editors with Photo Mechanic, it could be very helpful if there was a
‘Quick Fix’ type option somewhere. Possibly in the ‘Save as’ dialogue. When doing event photography, the overall brightness and quality of the contact sheet or slideshow is improved when certain images could have an auto levels/colours/brightness applied.
4. When renaming a photo, would it be possible for the existing file name to appear in the renaming field, complete with variables?
5. I
think I’ve seen this one already mentioned: Logos in watermarks.
6. When browsing through photos in the preview window, I’d like to see a ‘
Picture # of #’ type counter somewhere, if not the title bar itself. This would be not unlike the ‘
Select: 1 of X’ that you have at the bottom of the main contact sheet.
7. It might also be handy to show your current folder somewhere within the preview folder.
8. Is it possible to apply IPTC data to photos within subfolders? Recurs across multiple folders.
9. I wouldn’t mind seeing
different keys for tagging/untagging. This may well be part of me being too cheap to buy a spanking new system, but I find that when quickly sorting through photos, it sometimes takes another second or two for the tag to register. By this time, I’ve hit the ‘T’ key a second time and moved on to the next photo inadvertently untagging the previously tagged image.
10. When moving or copying files, it would save me a little bit of time if a dialogue box popped up containing upwards of 10 possible predefined destinations. See
Irfanview for this
11. OK, feel free to ignore this one, but while I’m on a roll, here’s a final thought for today. When FTPing photographs to my server, a time saver would be if a text file of the links could be generated into a text file. This would allow me to quickly compose an email to my customer that contains direct links to the available images. Maybe it’s a little lazy, but currently I spend a bit of time cutting and pasting URLs manually to achieve this. Automation can be a wonderful thing...
12. I realize this may be more than likely MY system, but I’ve had Photo Mechanic unceremoniously exit and drop to the desktop when I’ve hit the escape key (possibly one times too many). I’m using Windows XP SP2. Really, not a big concern since there's never any data loss, however I was wondering if there were any other reported instances of this happening.
I realize some of these requests are either not practical or possibly a little obscure. I just thought I’d throw them out and see what happens. Thanks for your consideration and again a most excellent product.
