Not quite getting it

[ThomasOwenM]

I do photography.  I'm used to using Canon's Zoombrowser EX to help me go through a collection of photos and choose which ones are keepers and which are outtakes.  However, I have other options that are supposed to be better, including Photo Mechanic 4.5, which I bought a while back, but never used. 

I shoot RAW+Jpeg.  I do it this way because usually I get sufficient quality from a jpeg and hence do my post processing from it.  However, sometimes I can't and then a RAW file offers me more control in Adobe Camera Raw (in Photoshop).  I don't want to do any actual editing of images in Photo Mechanic.  What I intend to do is go through the set of photos (in jpeg) and assign ratings to all of them.  Then I'll make a decision such as "copy all photos rated 4 or 5 to this directory."  Those will become my keepers, which I'll edit in Photoshop or PhotoImpact. 

Okay, so Photo Mechanic pulls up a thumbnail page of all my images.  I can double click on one to get a bigger picture of it.  Then the F key gives me a bigger one of it and hitting F again toggles back to the smaller one with the info and the histogram.  So I want to use the arrow key to go through each picture one by one and rate it.  However, I can't from the large version, or at least I haven't figured out how.  If I hit Esc, I go back to the thumbnail page and I can click on and rate each picture.  Isn't there some way to rate photos from the large preview?  Then once you have, is it possible to have all your pictures given a certain rating copied to a directory. 

I'm in Photo Mechanic 4.5 under Windows 7. 

[Kirk Baker]

Thomas,

I do photography.  I'm used to using Canon's Zoombrowser EX to help me go through a collection of photos and choose which ones are keepers and which are outtakes.  However, I have other options that are supposed to be better, including Photo Mechanic 4.5, which I bought a while back, but never used. 

I shoot RAW+Jpeg.  I do it this way because usually I get sufficient quality from a jpeg and hence do my post processing from it.  However, sometimes I can't and then a RAW file offers me more control in Adobe Camera Raw (in Photoshop).  I don't want to do any actual editing of images in Photo Mechanic.  What I intend to do is go through the set of photos (in jpeg) and assign ratings to all of them.  Then I'll make a decision such as "copy all photos rated 4 or 5 to this directory."  Those will become my keepers, which I'll edit in Photoshop or PhotoImpact. 

Okay, so Photo Mechanic pulls up a thumbnail page of all my images.  I can double click on one to get a bigger picture of it.  Then the F key gives me a bigger one of it and hitting F again toggles back to the smaller one with the info and the histogram.  So I want to use the arrow key to go through each picture one by one and rate it.  However, I can't from the large version, or at least I haven't figured out how.  If I hit Esc, I go back to the thumbnail page and I can click on and rate each picture.  Isn't there some way to rate photos from the large preview?  Then once you have, is it possible to have all your pictures given a certain rating copied to a directory.

Sure.  Down in the corners of the preview are a 5-star rating widget and on the opposite side a Color Class widget.  You can use the mouse to manipulate them.  You can also press the number keys to change the ratings/color classes.  By default pressing 0 through 8 will change the Color Class and pressing Ctrl-0 through 5 will change the rating.  The Accessibility tab of the Preferences dialog allows you to choose to primarily edit ratings or Color Classes.

HTH,

-Kirk

[ThomasOwenM]

Wonderful.  Thank you!  That clears a lot up.  Okay, one more question.  When I right click on an image and choose "Edit Photo," it opens the image in Corel PhotoImpact, which I must have chosen at some point as the default editor.  I edit photos in either that program or Adobe Photoshop or PictureCode NoiseNinja.  Is there a way I can have the choice of these three programs when I choose to edit a photo? 

[Kirk Baker]

Thomas,

Wonderful.  Thank you!  That clears a lot up.  Okay, one more question.  When I right click on an image and choose "Edit Photo," it opens the image in Corel PhotoImpact, which I must have chosen at some point as the default editor.  I edit photos in either that program or Adobe Photoshop or PictureCode NoiseNinja.  Is there a way I can have the choice of these three programs when I choose to edit a photo? 

Yes.  Open up Photo Mechanic's Preferences dialog.  Click on the Launching tab.  There you can set the default application to edit photos and movies, and below those two items is a button labeled 'Set...' preceded by the following text: "Assign specific editing applications for each file type:".  Click on the 'Set...' button.  Each of the file types that Photo Mechanic knows about will be listed and you can assign an editor to each image type, and at the end of the list you can assign a number of custom editors unrelated to a specific type.  All of these editors will show up in the contextual menu item "Edit Photo with" sub menu.

At this point you may want to read the version 4.5.4 manual:

http://www.camerabits.com/download/Photo_Mechanic_4.5.3_Manual.pdf

Also, a series of tutorials are available on our site as well, though they may point out features that are not available in your older version:

http://www.camerabits.com/site/tutorials.html

HTH,

-Kirk

[ThomasOwenM]

Terrific.  Thanks.  I downloaded it.  I didn't realize there was a manual.  I had attempted to use the help system in the program, but it just brought me to a web page.  A full-fledged manual is better. 

Your help is very much appreciated.