Transferring From Adobe Elements - Keywords / Features / Help?

[egoldy]

I just switched to a mac, which I like, but been trying to find something to replace what I have een using with Photoshop Elements 6 from a keyword and image management perspective.   Was very disappointed with iPhoto and been trying a few others.   This seems decent, but a few questions:

1) How do I get all my keywords (that are present when I pull up any image in Photo Mechanic ?    What I liked about Adobe is the ability to have different groupings of keywords - places, people, events, etc.   I can then search for photos with "me, skiing, in Park City", etc.   Can this be done?   the keywords all seemed to come over into iPhoto, but flattened out instead of the structure I had within Elements.

2) I'm also a little confused about the file structure.   In Elements, I simply keep all my pictures in the same directory - I let elements and the keywords allow me to find the pictures I want.    Does PhotoMechanic still force a directory structure?

3) How does keyword tagging work in PM?    Can you drag photos to keywords and visa versa?

I'll probably have some other questions if I get committed to this.

Thanks,

Eric

[Kirk Baker]

Eric,

1) How do I get all my keywords (that are present when I pull up any image in Photo Mechanic ?    What I liked about Adobe is the ability to have different groupings of keywords - places, people, events, etc.   I can then search for photos with "me, skiing, in Park City", etc.   Can this be done?   the keywords all seemed to come over into iPhoto, but flattened out instead of the structure I had within Elements.

You can view your keywords with the IPTC Info dialog (click on the 'i' button that appears over each image when you move your mouse cursor over the thumbnail), by turning on the Info Tooltips on the View menu, by viewing them in the Info text of the Preview window, by creating a custom thumbnail label (use {keywords} as your label).  Various ways to view them.

Photo Mechanic uses Spotlight (a feature of Mac OS X) to do searches on your images.  You can use the Quick Search tool bar item, or the Search panel to do keyword searches.

2) I'm also a little confused about the file structure.   In Elements, I simply keep all my pictures in the same directory - I let elements and the keywords allow me to find the pictures I want.    Does PhotoMechanic still force a directory structure?

Photo Mechanic never has forced a directory structure and never will.

3) How does keyword tagging work in PM?    Can you drag photos to keywords and visa versa?

No drag and drop of Keywords.  You can use the Structured Keywords panel, the Keywords panel (both on the Image menu) or the Keywords field of the IPTC Info and IPTC Stationery Pad dialogs to add keywords to your photos.

HTH,

-Kirk