Multiple Color Classes able to be assigned to an image

[JamesD]

.

Request:

I would love it if more than one Color Class could be assigned to an image.

Background:

For years I used iMatch as my photo viewer/cataloger/manager.
And LOVED it.
But it’s PC only, so when I recently moved to a Mac I was forced to give up iMatch.
My goal was to hope to find something that ran on a Mac that was “close” maybe to being as good as iMatch.
How thrilled I was to find something that was actually (imo) better!
But there are a few things about iMatch that I do miss.
And one of them is being able to assign multiple “color tags” to the same photo.

I use the color tags to represent what I roughly think of as “edit states”.
Raw, tif negative, tif edit, jpeg negative, jpeg edit, b&w, infrared, down-rezed, etc.
More than one of my “edit states” can apply to the same image.

In iMatch the color bar under the thumbnail would just be divided in half, or in thirds, say, to show you the multiple color tags.

It would seem (to me anyway) a fairly simple feature to engineer.

IF, of course, anyone besides me would find it useful.

Thanks for the forum and a place to request this.

James

P.S. - Just want to say... there aren’t words for how much I love Photo Mechanic.
Tony Spore on the Olympus 4/3rds forum introduced me to it.
I believe, though, that he and most folks (my impression, right? or wrong?) use PM as an ingest/sort/cull/IPTC tool, but then move pictures to something like Lightroom.
For me, Photo Mechanic is the PERMANENT center of my image management, my sole viewer/cataloguer/etc.
I recommend it as such to all who still prefer the open/edit/save/close workflow to the new blackbox parametric editing programs such as Lightroom and Aperture.
Thanks to all behind this product.
Selah!

.

[Hayo Baan]

James,

One of the big problems with multiple colour classes would be that this would not be compatible with any other piece of software currently available. So I'm not sure it is going to be a good idea to implement this in PM…

Could you perhaps achieve something similar with keywords or any other IPTC/XMP field?

Cheers,
    Hayo

[JamesD]

.

One of the big problems with multiple colour classes would be that this would not be compatible with any other piece of software currently available.

Cheers,
    Hayo

Well see, I have this tiny little focus, just doing my work, my way.
I don't even have any idea what you are specifying re: ~not compatible with other pieces of software~
I assume "color class" is some kind of IPTC or XMP or FBI or CIA feature that all programs share and understand.

And now that I think about it...
iMatch had a proprietary feature called "Categories"
You could assign a particular image to one or MORE categories.
Sort of had the effect of working like a relational database as opposed to flat file (not really but sort of)
And then you could assign colors to your categories, and show them up under your thumbnails.

So... the "colors" in iMatch were just a feature of their "category" feature, not the actual "official" Color Class that all these other programs share.

I guess.
Sumpthin' like that.

Could you perhaps achieve something similar with keywords or any other IPTC/XMP field?

Cheers,
    Hayo

No, not really.
The way I used the colors bars under the thumbnails tied in with my own little versioning scheme I developed.
It was just a lightning fast visual way to pick out different versions of the same image from your thumbnails.

And I have found a way to keep my system working ~fairly well~ using one color bar per image in PM.
Just not quite as slick.

_ _________________ _


Thanks for the reply though.
I understand what you're saying.

And, like I said in my OP, there are a few things that I wish PM would do to make it "perfect" for me.
But it is still the best thing I have found, and I'm tickled to have it.

Best regards,

James

.

P.S. Hey... NEW REQUEST then:

Steal iMatch's "categories" feature, complete with color assignation to the categories!  

.

.