Rich,
When I used Windows Thumbsplus was my favorite and two of their features are not matched by PM and should be for the price.
The first is lining up a number of images on screen and moving both simultaneously so you can compare by zooming specific portions of the images for selecting.
Photo Mechanic can do this with two images at the same time in the Preview window. Just zoom in, align the two images how you want them and then turn on the "Locked Scrolling" checkbox. Now when you pan one image, the other one pans with it.
The other missing feature in PM is finding similar images. Thumbs plus can do this easily, but I haven't found this capability in PM. For the price they really should have this, especially when it costs three times as much as Thumbsplus.
I have ost 500gb of images, a number of which have been accidentally and carelessly duplicated. I want to find these superfluous images and clean out my files.
What criteria are used to determine if two or more images are similar?
As for the features of Photo Mechanic versus Thumbs Plus, I am sure that Photo Mechanic offers many features that Thumbs Plus does not offer and I am sure that Thumbs Plus offers many features that Photo Mechanic doesn't offer. I know of no one application that does everything that everyone would need.
The best I can offer you is to describe the problem you want to solve and make a feature request. Please be very specific and descriptive so that we will understand your needs.
And for the price differential, we price Photo Mechanic to what we feel is fair for supporting further development of Photo Mechanic and high-quality support for users of Photo Mechanic. We know that there are other choices in this competitive marketplace.
-Kirk