09-27-23 – Create Collections in Photo Mechanic Plus
09-13-23 – Contact Sheet Preferences
08-30-23 – Removing Structured Keywords in Photo Mechanic
08-16-23 – Filtering & Browsing in Photo Mechanic Plus
08-02-23 – The Photo Mechanic Extras folder
07-19-23 – The Knowledge Base

The post #WorkflowWednesday Tips appeared first on Camera Bits, Inc..

Background:

I have been a professional corporate photographer for 30 years. My firm is based in London, England, with an office in Oxford, and last year we worked on over 300 shoots around the UK and Europe. Our work includes headshots for websites and corporate marketing materials, but also photographs of people at work in factories, laboratories and numerous other work settings, bringing to life corporate stories for broader shareholder communications. For example, our photographs illustrate company annual reports, where we have shot mine-clearing operations in Bosnia and innovative power stations in operation in Finland. I have also photographed famous rock bands including Pink Floyd, Hollywood actors such as Kate Winslet, British astronaut Tim Peake and politicians including Chinese leader Xi Jinping and former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. We photograph on Leica cameras and lenses, finding them utterly reliable with great colour and sharpness in all light conditions.

Speed and efficiency are critical in corporate photography

The key to commercial photography is efficiency and understanding and meeting a client’s brief. Very often a CEO or board director will allow 30 minutes for photographs, but in reality, ten minutes into most shoots they will be interrupted by their assistant or a colleague, demanding their presence elsewhere. This means to be successful in my field I need to have taken some decent shots while I had their full attention!

If anyone wants one top tip, you can’t do this job without knowing your equipment inside out, including camera, lenses and lighting. I shoot everything on manual and that includes focusing and I have not used auto focus for over 10 years now. Colour temperature, exposure and flash are all set manually, if there is an issue with any variable it is simple and very fast to fix.

My other top tip before a shoot is a recce beforehand to work out where you want your subjects to sit or stand to ensure interesting compositions, and knowing where you’ll want to put your soft box for effective lighting and then decide upon the right depth of field.

Another tip is to avoid through-the-lens (TTL) technology, which creates a new scene assessment every time the shutter is pressed. This leads to major headaches in post-production, requiring each image to be reviewed individually. By shooting manual, if any image requires post production an adjustment to one image can be applied to them all and the job is done.

We love Photo Mechanic

Its metadata handling is extremely useful for tagging images. I know that newspapers globally use the software extensively, helping photographers keep track of all their imagery. Its remarkable speed allows thousands of images to be browsed easily and that really sets the software apart from its rivals.

Photo Mechanic can be used as the first package in the workflow chain when sorting images. At Piranha Photography, we use the software to decide on the final images before they are imported for processing and storing.

Once images have been imported they are immediately renamed as this is helpful for the client to be able to discuss and refer easily to particular photographs.

Photo Mechanic enables us to determine which files are to be imported into Lightroom. We find that despite all the improvements from Adobe to Lightroom it is still slow to generate thumbnails, and so we just work on the files which will be sent to the client, and this can reduce the number of images imported by 80%, a huge efficiency gain for us. Even Bridge as an image browser is slow in comparison to Photo Mechanic

Photo Mechanic Plus allows our clients who wish to refer back to older images to do so, we keep these in a visual/searchable database for rapid retrieval.

As you can see, Photo Mechanic is an integral part of our business, especially when travelling and working on laptops, as shoots are increasingly very tight on deadlines with no time to spare. But that’s the way we like it!

The post Photo Mechanic in Corporate Photography appeared first on Camera Bits, Inc..

Are you the type who wants to see it for yourself, and have the technical wherewithal to navigate the nuances of vintage OS emulation (Or, you have Mac OS9 installed somewhere?) If so, check out the installer for the original Photo Mechanic, along with some original photo files from a Kodak 1998 digital camera. (Ed. note – PMv1 was initially called “AP Viewer”)

Download APViewerInstaller.sit.hqx (Requires Mac OS 9 or emulation – see below)

Download DCS TIFF files ©1998 Dennis Walker

Note that we cannot offer our usual personal technical support, but here are some tips for running this PMv1 on a popular emulator:

1. Download SIT file and sample photos from above. (Note: You must ‘unzip’ the included photo folder before moving on to the next steps.)
2. Open a web browser and navigate to https://macos9.app/
3. Locate the SIT file and unzipped sample photos you downloaded, then click once to drag & drop anywhere onto the MacOS9 interface. The page will briefly darken as you drop the file but no other confirmation will appear.
4. On the MacOS9 ‘Desktop’, find the item “The Outside World” (Note: You may have to close some of the Sticky Notes to see it) and open it.
5. Open the “Downloads” folder, and you’ll find your ’AP Viewer Installer.SIT” file. Drag it to the ‘desktop’ and then double-click to unzip. Be patient during this step, it may take a minute or two. Once you see the unzipped AP Viewer Installer’ icon appear on the desktop double-click to launch.
6. Follow prompts to install. (Buttons to press, in order: “Continue”, “Continue”, “Install”, “Quit”)
7. After you select ‘Quit’, you’ll see the ’AP Viewer ƒ” folder is open in the upper-left portion of the window. Double-click the “AP Viewer” icon to launch and select the option to run as ‘Demo’.
8. On the next dialog that appears, select “viewing raw DCS photos” and click “OK”. Then, once again find “The Outside World” folder > “Downloads”> then select the sample photos folder to open.

The post Download the Original Photo Mechanic 1.0 appeared first on Camera Bits, Inc..

It was Sunday morning January 25th, 1998, and I was in The Associated Press’ trailer in the parking lot at Qualcomm Stadium, San Diego. Last minute preparations were underway for coverage of Super Bowl XXXII between the Green Bay Packers and the Denver Broncos – Favre vs Elway. Perfect! This was a big day for me and my fledgling company, Camera Bits (which was just me doing business as). AP was willing to give Photo Mechanic its first real exercise to cover this big game even though PM wasn’t for sale quite yet. It was at version 0.99 I recall.

So I was a bit surprised when Jim Dietz, my technology contact at AP, asked me to make just one last minute change to PM. I laughed at him because this is definitely not standard protocol. Normally everything is all setup and locked down by Saturday, and Sunday is to just get the job done. Making a new build of PM on game day sounded crazy to me, but Jim explained why it wasn’t such a big deal, and that he had faith in me. Back then it was important for AP to include the words “DIGITAL PHOTO” in some IPTC field (I can’t remember which one) if the photo was taken by a digital camera versus film. I frankly think it was a “be prepared” warning to AP’s members (newspapers) because the images from the 1.3 MP NC2000e camera were a bit low resolution, especially when the editors did a tight crop. But since AP’s Super Bowl coverage was all digital by then, Jim asked me to just “rubber stamp” every photo that PM processed with this IPTC field indicating a digital source.

It was an easy-enough fix (what us nerds call a “one-liner”), so I agreed and made a new build in the trailer on my laptop. Jim proceeded to test this build, but I had to give it a new version number and I was at 0.99. So I jokingly called it the “Elway Release” because I was rooting for Denver. Project Manager Howard Gros was not too happy to have to install the Elway Release on all of the computers in the trailer, and especially the laptops that were ready to leave for the stadium seats and end-zone to accompany the fixed-position photographers. Howard wasn’t upset that I called it the Elway Release (even though he was rooting for Green Bay), it was the last minute changes. But you have to get it right, and this would eliminate the chance of any NC2000e photo slipping into the system claiming to be “film” quality. These were definitely “digital quality” which had a bad reputation back then. Good enough for the newspaper rag apparently.

Fortunately everything went well as far as I could tell. Photographers on the field would have their 105 MB (my guess) PCMCIA hard disks rushed very carefully to the parking lot trailer by (“film”) runners in envelopes with a pre-printed name of the photographer and their quick note of what happened (e.g. “forced fumble on 20”). These photos would get ingested on one of the four AP “Piranha” servers (Windows NT boxes with 3 PCMCIA card readers each), the disks erased, and sent back to the photographers like clockwork. And sometimes the runners would have to swap out a freshly charged camera as well because the NC2000 (and all Kodak DCS 4xx cameras) had a fixed battery. Considering the cost of these cameras ($17,950, but discounted to $16,950 for AP members), I thought it was strange to see several just sitting on a shelf in the trailer – until I realized they were all being charged.

The Piranha servers would “ingest” the photos into folders onto the new AP Server (“Audrey”) with the last name of the photographer (e.g. “Martin”), and a unique number based on a “twin check” sticker. The twin check stickers came from a roll that had pairs of sequential 4 digit numbers that are used when developing film to maintain provenance. I thought it was funny that AP was still using film “technology” for digital, but it was all very well organized and efficient. The notes on the envelopes would help to find high priority moments, and the combo photographer / twin check number would give the editors the folder name (e.g. Martin-1234).

Meanwhile, in ’98…

The Oscar for Best Picture goes to:

And our team?

“…I was studying jazz vocal performance and music at Columbia College, working at a bar, skateboarding the quiet streets of the city in the wee hours of the night while listening to brit pop, and playing a TON of Nintendo 64.”

– Camera Bits COO, Katie W.

The photos from the fixed-position photographers (e.g. seated in endzone) took a very different trip to the trailer. Their trip was relatively immediate because it was wireless and no runners were needed (other than a camera swap of course). This was a first for AP to have wireless transmission from the field.

Each photographer in the seats had a “laptop operator” sitting next to them with a Mac laptop zip-tied to an upside-down milk crate. The crate held a battery (UPS), a BreezeCOM wireless link, and radio gear for voice communication between the laptop operator and an assigned photo editor in the trailer. I recall two photo editors assigned to the four fixed photographers, each editor covering two photographers. I know there were 6 wireless links using BreezeCOM technology (early 802.11), and the signals were bounced off repeaters from a light ring above the stadium. Howard recalls that during NFL’s “smoke test” on Saturday they discovered that AP was using the same frequency as the blimps and AP knocked out their video feed. AP changed to some Australian frequency to stop the interference. Funny now but not at the time for sure.

Although Photo Mechanic was running on these stadium seat laptops, the laptop operator was not in control of Photo Mechanic, or the actual operation of macOS for that matter. Those in control of the laptops were the editors in the trailer, using a remote control software called Timbuktu. Each of the two editors were managing three instances of Photo Mechanic: one on their own computer in the trailer, and the other two being Timbuktu views of the laptops in the stadium seats. Confused yet?

When an important event happened, or just during breaks, the photographers would eject their PCMCIA hard drive from their NC2000 camera and hand it to the laptop operator, who would radio their editor that a new disk was being mounted into the PCMCIA slot of the laptop. The editor would see this happen in their Timbuktu view of that laptop, and would open up that folder in PM, then browse the photos. When they found photos they wanted, they would copy them to a mounted folder on the desktop. This would initiate a lossless compression transfer of the RAW photo from the stadium seat laptop to the editor’s folder on their Mac in the trailer. After all desired photos were copied, the disk was remotely erased by the editor in preparation for more photos to be captured.

Meanwhile, in ’98…

Hot Music Videos:

Will Smith – “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It”

Madonna – “Ray of Light”

Barenaked Ladies – “One Week”

And our team?

“…I was in 3rd grade and liked playing roller hockey and PlayStation 1”

– Senior Manager of Technical Support, Andrew H.

Then, most importantly, the editor would warn the laptop operator that the hard disk (aka a spinning magnetic platter) was about to be ejected, because sometimes these disks would pop out of the laptop reader “unexpectedly” and with great intent. I have video of this behavior with my PowerBook G3 laptop (which still runs to this day). There’s no way a hard disk would survive landing on concrete stadium steps. The laptop operator (aka laptop “sitter”) would literally catch the hard disk then carefully hand the PCMCIA disk back to the photographer. This process would merrily repeat and the result was very fast delivery of photos.

All photos selected by the photo editors using Photo Mechanic were then sent to AP Server folders for the “preppers”, aka those who manipulate pixels in Photoshop, to open and process. All the incoming Kodak DCS RAW photos were “developed” using my “DCS Photo” plug-in. This was like an early version of Adobe Camera RAW. Rather than use Kodak’s Photoshop “acquire” plug-in, photos would come into Photoshop via my “file format” plug-in that only handled “.TIF” files that were obviously Kodak DCS RAW files not normal TIFF-formatted files. The beauty of this setup was that the photo editors were freed to edit photos without “living” inside of Photoshop (and Kodak’s plug-in).

Only the “preppers” needed to use Photoshop in order to manipulate pixels and recover an image as best they could due to the fact that these were digital photos. A big part of this “digital restoration” was the use of Quantum Mechanic, my Photoshop noise filter plug-in that greatly reduced high ISO noise. AP actually used a “simplified” version of this filter called AP Filter that only had low, medium, and high settings to choose from. Two years earlier at Super Bowl XXX, AP used a prototype noise filter I made called ColorClean.

After this big game and seeing Photo Mechanic get put to a real test with no problems, I decided to release Photo Mechanic the next week (version 1.0.1 was available for download on February 4th, 1998). The Associated Press distributed Photo Mechanic as AP Viewer for a few years along with AP Filter.

Meanwhile, in ’98…

Neilsen Rating TV Top Spot

And our team?

“I was working for NCE Computer Group (later purchased by Park Place Technologies) repairing mini mainframe computers and backup tape drives (4 & 8mm helical scan and QIC).”

– Technical Support Manager, Bob R.

I thought The Associated Press’ setup was impressive but I was just a “photo nerd” software developer – who was I to know how big this event was for AP and digital photography? I really felt like I was a fly on the wall, unknowing I would become a fly in the ointment. This was AP’s first wireless transmission from the field for a Super Bowl, first time computers in the trailer were even connected by ethernet. The first all-digital Super Bowl coverage for AP was XXX in Tempe two years earlier (which I witnessed and contributed to). I didn’t work for AP like everyone thought I did. But I took some pride knowing that all those photos were “seen and developed” by Photo Mechanic before being distributed world-wide by AP. I didn’t imagine it would be the first of 25 years for Photo Mechanic to be a central part of sports photography history. I like to joke that Tom Brady has been to 10 Super Bowls but Photo Mechanic has been to the last 25 of them.

As this was the process 25 years ago, you can imagine how much that has changed. I believe The Associated Press had a large advantage over their competition back then due to the fact they were the distributors of the NC2000 camera. Despite their expense, the ROI on this expensive camera was very quick, and that is why the Vancouver Sun and sister Calgary Herald were smart to be the first all-in newspaper adopters of digital in North America. The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle in Kodak-land followed soon afterwards but not because the photo department was eager to go digital – it was a decision made by management.

I would like to thank Brian Horton and Howard Gros for sharing their memories of that day. Thank you to Nick Didlick (then from Vancouver Sun), and Rob Galbraith (then from Calgary Herald) for helping to herald in this new digital era and for providing endless supportive ideas. Special thanks to the late Jim Dietz who worked with me to integrate PM into AP, and to the late Dave Martin who embodied the spirit of photojournalism and inspired myself and many others. Both Dave and Jim gave their lives to the pressures of covering big sporting events – I miss them both dearly. I also wish to express my deep thanks to The Associated Press for placing trust in such a small company as myself, and for agreeing to sell Photo Mechanic as AP Viewer.

This was the Super Day that kicked-off my career, and the game ain’t over yet!

Story ©2023 Dennis Walker

(Top photo in header is of Dennis Walker (center) with Rob Galbraith (left), previously Senior Photographer at the Calgary Herald, and Nick Didlick (right), previously Photo Editor for the Vancouver Sun, with Don Denton (back), previously Photo Editor at the Calgary Herald)

Photo captions by Brian Horton and Dennis Walker, unless otherwise noted.

Photo Mechanic / AP Viewer 1.1 (February 9, 1998)
Runs on MacOS 8.6 or MacOS 9
Both 68K and PowerPC (FAT binary)
Only browsed Kodak DCS RAW TIF files; no JPEG support
Included DCS Photo file format plug-in for Photoshop to convert RAW files

Kodak/AP NC2000e
Body: Nikon N90s with film motor guts removed and Frankenstein extension for digital
Sensor dimension: 1280×1024 (Kodak M3 sensor)
CFA: Bayer RGB (no anti-aliasing filter)
Format: RAW DCS TIFF only; JPEG not available unless military version
RAW details: 8-bits/pixel lookup into 12-bit mapping via gray response curve tag 0x123
Storage: removable PCMCIA, typically HD at 105 MB or less; later Lexar PCMCIA flash
Battery: fixed
Computer Interface: SCSI DB-25
Back of camera display: not present (no chimping here)
Sound recording: WAV
Exif data: no, not yet; camera settings stored in TIFF Image Description tag 0x10e
Nikon 10-pin: unavailable due to battery connection

The post Photo Mechanic 1.0 appeared first on Camera Bits, Inc..

An Overview of Reverse Geocoding

Reverse Geocoding is the process of converting a geographic coordinate to an easily understood address/place name. OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a “collaborative project to create a free editable geographic database of the world”.

Nominatim is a tool used to search OSM data for reverse geocoding. Camera Bits maintains a local server containing an instance of an OSM database of the world and Nominatim software used to query the OSM database.

As mentioned, OSM relies on collaboration from the user population to maintain its accuracy, similar to the Wikipedia model. Because of this it is possible that a location that you wish to reverse geocode may return with inaccurate or incomplete information. To correct this as a user, you have the ability to log in to the public OSM website and make edits to your area of interest. This can include: adding house numbers, updating businesses, correcting boundaries, etc. Some of the key steps in editing OSM data are highlighted at the end of this post.

Camera Bits Updates

We have recently completed upgrading the local Reverse Geocoding server to the latest version of Nominatim software (v4.2) as well as the latest OpenStreetMap (OSM) dataset of the world. These updates allow us to perform periodic updates of OSM data so that customers will always have the latest changes introduced by users around the world. It also allows us to enhance some of the data returned so that it is more usable by our customers.

A notable change that users will notice is that the IPTC ‘Location:’ field will have more detail after reverse geocoding.

Example: Comparison of ‘Location’ field data

Participation in Server Evaluation

In order to help ensure a smooth transition to the new server, we offer our customers the opportunity to try out Reverse Geocoding on the new server and look forward to any feedback you may have. We greatly appreciate your involvement.

To access the new Reverse Geocoding server during this pre-release phase, you must be running a build of Photo Mechanic with a build number of 6645 or higher. Please visit https://home.camerabits.com/downloads/ to ensure you have the latest build.

You will need to create the following file and save it to your computer (location will depend on whether you are a Windows or Mac user). Regardless of your platform, you will need to create a new plain text file called: PMDebug.txt.

Contents of this file should be the following line of text:

REVERSE_GEOCODING_SERVER 23.227.170.157

For Mac users, copy PMDebug.txt to the Photo Mechanic Preferences folder

To get there, switch to Finder. Then use the “Go to Folder…” the Go menu in the Menu bar. In the window that appears, enter:

~/Library/Preferences/com.camerabits.PhotoMechanic

and press Return. The folder should now be displayed. Copy your PMDebug.txt file there.

For Windows users, copy PMDebug.txt to:

C:\Users\<your username>\AppData\Roaming\Camera Bits, Inc\PhotoMechanic

To get there, open a Windows Explorer window and Navigate to the C:\ drive and double-click on each folder in the path above (first Users, then your account’s user folder, then AppData, and so on.)

Next, it is best that you verify that Photo Mechanic is able to access the new server and retrieve the proper information:

1. Ensure you have the latest Photo Mechanic (November 2022) and PMDebug.txt installed in the above location.
2. Launch Photo Mechanic.
3. Right click on an image and select “Set GPS Coordinates” from the pop-up menu that appears.
4. Enter “Camera Bits, Oregon” in the entry field underneath the map, click ‘Get GPS’ and then click ‘ACCEPT’.



5. Click the ‘…’ button (located to the right of the ‘Reverse Geocode’ checkbox) and verify the globe icons are green. If they are not, click the globe to the left of the name of the field that you would like to reverse geocode; the globe will turn green to indicate that it is enabled. Click OK to confirm your choices.
6. This will take you back to the ‘Set GPS Coordinates dialog. Click ‘Apply’, then ‘Close’.
7. You should now be back at the contact sheet. Open the Metadata (IPTC) Info dialog and verify that the Location: field looks similar to the example below:
   

If, after performing the above steps, the “Location” field only shows ‘472’, then either you are not running the latest version of Photo Mechanic or the application could not find PMDebug.txt. Please double check you installed things properly and try again. If there is still an issue, please contact Camera Bits Tech Support.

Editing OSM Database (Optional)

An addendum from the Development Team:

To learn more about how to edit OSM data, I suggest doing a web search for “openstreetmap edit tutorial”. There are numerous websites and YouTube tutorials available. Although I do not profess to be an expert in editing OSM data, I personally had to update OSM to include my house number which was missing from my home GPS location.

Disclaimer: OpenStreetMaps (OSM) is a third party resource that Camera Bits uses to perform Reverse Geocoding. Other than making use of the data on OSM, Camera Bits takes no responsibility for the accuracy of the data within OSM. Although OpenStreetMap has millions of users, geographic information is always changing, so it is always worth double-checking the results returned by our Reverse Geocoding tool, and updating the data yourself if you find an issue.

So, here is what I learned:

• Go to: https://www.openstreetmap.org/welcome This will take you to a Welcome page describing OSM features, as well as help information.
• You will need to create a free account in order to be able to edit the database. Click on Sign up to do so. Otherwise, you will not be able to perform edits.
• Once you are logged in, enter an address in the Search box.
• Verify it is within the area you are interested in, then click Edit -> Edit with ID
  

  You should now see a satellite image of your area of interest.

  

  Each red box denotes a house. If your residence of interest is missing any markings, then you can add them via the Area tool. You can then enter specific information for that location (such as house number and address).

  Finally, you publish the changes.

  Note: To see the changes in Photo Mechanic, you will need to wait approximately two hours for our local server to acquire your changes from the public database. You will need to restart Photo Mechanic in order to clear the cache that it stores, otherwise it will re-use the cached information from your previous query to that location when you re-apply Reverse Geocoding.

We hope that you get a chance to explore the updated Reverse Geocode server and welcome any feedback or questions you may have. Happy Photographing!

The post Reverse Geocoding Updates appeared first on Camera Bits, Inc..

What are Alt Text and Extended Description?

Alt text is a brief textual description of the content and function of an image that is placed within the HTML alt attribute and other places where text descriptions of visual content may be useful.

Extended descriptions (AKA long descriptions) are for complex images with a lot of relevant information contained within the image (i.e., charts, maps, diagrams). In this case, the alt text identifies and summarizes the content and function of the image, and the extended description continues the description to provide a meaningful text alternative to the image.

Doesn’t the Caption field already do this?

The Caption field may describe some visual content, but is primarily meant to add context or other new information to the image which is not immediately apparent just by looking at the image. Alt text serves a different purpose in describing the actual visual content to someone who may not be able to see the image.

Why are these important?

To answer this question, we talked to Caroline Desrosiers, founder of Scribely, an accessibility solutions agency that advises clients on improving accessibility to boost their business. Desrosiers says:

More and more people are realizing that accessibility features like alt text are not just “nice-to-have” features, but are crucial to winning content strategies, and more and more are becoming legal requirements. Derosiers again:

That’s for Web display right? Why are there metadata fields?

The IPTC’s recent addition of Alt Text (Accessibility) and Extended Description (Accessibility) into the Photo Metadata Standard makes it possible to embed accessible descriptions in the metadata of image files. This means alt text and extended descriptions can now travel with images wherever they go on the web. This helps content creators track and manage image descriptions across organizational ecosystems to reduce the duplication of efforts for employees and improve the quality of image descriptions for users.

Use of Alt Text and Extended Description in Photo Mechanic

In Photo Mechanic, the new fields are very visible in the default configurations for the Metadata (IPTC) Info and Metadata (IPTC) Template tools.

As with the other metadata fields, you can customize your Metadata (IPTC) Template and Metadata (IPTC) Info dialogs to hide, show, rearrange, or rename the various fields and get it set up how you need it. See the documentation: Accessibility preferences

Compatibility With Other Applications/Systems

Information entered into those fields in Photo Mechanic is added to the standard IPTC image metadata and available for any other application that uses IPTC metadata, like Adobe InDesign, Bridge, and Illustrator, as well as WordPress publishing tools like Media Library Assistant. Here are instructions by the author of Media Library Assistant on how to map IPTC Alt Text field to the HTML alt attribute for images displayed on your WordPress blog:
https://wordpress.org/support/topic/mapping-iptc-to-alt-text/

More and more prominent Digital Asset Management (DAM) systems, like Brandfolder, Media Beacon, MediaValet, MediaGraph, and Scaleflex / Filerobot, also support Alt Text in IPTC metadata.

Working with Metadata in Photo Mechanic

Of course Photo Mechanic can do much more than just read and write to individual metadata fields. The use of variables in Photo Mechanic makes it an unparalleled tool for managing and making use of metadata. See the documentation: Introduction to Photo Mechanic variables

The new fields map to variables so that you can work with alt text and extended description in different workflows.

{alttext} or {alt} will insert metadata from the Alt Text field into other fields as needed. They are synonymous.

{extendeddesc} or {extd} will do the same with the Extended Description fields.

The {alttextalt} or {alta} variable is a special variable that will insert the contents of the Alt Text field, but if that field is empty, it will insert the contents of the headline field.

Tips & Tricks

Finding assets with or without Alt Text/Extended Description

Photo Mechanic’s Find feature can be filtered to only show results from specific metadata fields. Because the Alt Text field often contains information about the visual content of the image that is not included in captions, this can help you find images that you may not have been able to find otherwise. See the documentation: Using the Find feature to search for photos.

You can also run the Find tool in Photo Mechanic with a blank search field, and restrict the results to specific metadata fields – allowing you to find all the assets in a Contact Sheet that don’t have alt text or extended description metadata.

Moving Metadata Around

Sometimes your headline field or your keywords field can be a good place to start crafting effective alt text. You can bulk copy the {headline} field or the {keywords} fields (or both) into the Alt Text or Extended Description fields for an entire group of assets by applying a Meatdata (IPTC) Metadata Template with those variables in the Alt Text or Extended Description fields. You can also copy the Alt Text or Extended Description metadata into other fields in cases you are working with DAMs that don’t yet support those fields.

Importing/Exporting Spreadsheets or HTML

If you have a spreadsheet of filenames and Alt Text descriptions that you need to apply to a large group of files, you can use Photo Mechanic and the Code Replacement feature to do that. See the documentation: Introduction to code replacements in Photo Mechanic

Use Photo Mechanic to generate CSV or TSV spreadsheets of all your image metadata using the Export… > Text feature.

The Export feature in Photo Mechanic can also generate complete HTML files based on templates you create, or HTML snippets for pasting into other systems. This is where the {alta} variable really comes in handy. If you are generating HTML for an image asset, something like <img src=”{filename}” alt=”{alta}” height=”{h}” width=”{w}”> can make inserting content for the Alt Text HTML attribute dynamic.

With this build update, we’re very excited to make Photo Mechanic an even more useful tool for adding, editing, and managing metadata, now including the important accessibility fields Alt Text and Extended Description.

The post Alt Text: New Accessibility Metadata Fields in Photo Mechanic appeared first on Camera Bits, Inc..

With that disclaimer out of the way, this tip will describe how to use Automator to create a “droplet” that will apply an ExifTool command to photos in Photo Mechanic. If you’ve read this far, I will assume you’re familiar with ExifTool, but if not: It’s a command-line utility written by Phil Harvey for viewing and editing EXIF data in digital photos. (Note: ExifTool can be run just fine on Windows as well as Mac.) Photo Mechanic, in general, treats EXIF data as sacrosanct and is not built to edit that particular type of metadata, but sometimes there are very helpful reasons you might want to work directly with EXIF data, and ExifTool is by far the most powerful tool for doing that. If you have certain ExifTool commands that you use regularly and want to streamline your workflow by running those commands inside of Photo Mechanic, you can.

Some types of repetitive tasks you might want to use ExifTool for:

• Copying information from proprietary “MakerNote” EXIF tags into standard IPTC fields
• Adding missing EXIF data for photos taken with vintage lenses adapted for digital bodies
• Adding EXIF data to scans of film negatives to add camera and lens information

This tip is not going to go into the installation and use of ExifTool. There are lots of other resources out there for that. (https://exiftool.org/#links) But if you are comfortable using ExifTool, we’re going to show you how you can run ExifTool commands on photos in Photo Mechanic.

First, we’re going to use Automator in macOS to create an ExifTool droplet. This will end up being a standalone app that will run a certain shell script on any files that are sent to it, or dropped onto it.

In macOS Automator, start a new application:

File > New
Choose “Application”

In the Actions pane, you can search for “Run Shell Script” and select that

In the Shell script area, set the shell to /bin/bash

And set “Pass input” to “as arguments”

Now for the script itself, it is very basic. When you set “Pass input” to “as arguments” that means if you send a list of files to the droplet, it will create an array ($@) of all those files. So with these two lines, we’ll tell our script that we’re going to run the script on each item in that list

for f in “$@”
do

Then we’ll type in the ExifTool command that we want to run, followed by the item in the list of filenames “@f” (in quotes so that it can handle any spaces in the directory path or filenames)

/usr/local/bin/exiftool -overwrite_original “-Subject+<Saturation” “$f”

Note that I added the full path to where ExifTool is installed.
In this example, the ExifTool command I use is specific to Fujifilm cameras. Fujis are well-loved for their film simulations, and they write the name of the film simulation into the “Maker Note” of the EXIF data under the Saturation tag. This ExifTool command copies the contents of the Saturation tag to the Subject tag and appends it to anything already there. The Subject tag shows up as Keywords in Photo Mechanic. I’ve also chosen to overwrite the original file since ExifTool will default to creating a copy of the file. The point, though, is that you can add any ExifTool command that you want to do into this script.
And then we have to end the script by saying:

done

Here’s what Automator looks like when everything is added

(Note that the $f is on the same line with the exiftool command.) Now you just have to save the app in Automator (File > Save). I called this one “FilmSim.” You should create a dedicated folder for the droplets that you create. You’ll tell Photo Mechanic where that folder is to look for droplets. In Photo Mechanic go to Preferences > Launching and at the bottom of that screen, you can select the location of your droplets. Note this was originally restricted to Photoshop droplets, but Automator droplets can also go here. In this example, I’ve created a folder called ExiftoolDroplets

Once the Folder exists and there are droplets in there, you can apply them in Photo Mechanic via the contact menu, usually accessed via right-click or control-click (macOS). So you can select any files in Photo Mechanic and send them to your droplet to apply that ExifTool command. Note: If doing this on a large number of files, it may take some time. You may see a spinning gear in your Mac’s menu bar, indicating that Automator is doing its thing.

After running the “FilmSim” droplet, I now see the film simulation in that item’s keywords.

Creating ExifTool droplets can really expand what you can do in Photo Mechanic.

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Please include attribution to https://shotkit.com/camera-survey/ with this graphic.

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We admire the work that Polly and the BWP community have been doing, and we’re excited to be showcasing photographers from the Black Women Photographers community here on our blog! Be sure to check out their thoughtful words, work and to connect with them! Head on over to the Black Women Photographers website to learn more about this amazing group, and if you’re hiring, reach out here to see how you can get access to the database.

This time around we connected with Danni Hadnott, a professional fashion, portrait, and lifestyle photog in the New York New Jersey tri-state area. Hi Danni, thanks for chatting with us. So we’ve checked out a lot of your fantastic work. Do you consider yourself primarily a fashion photographer?

If you know the industry, you can’t really make money at fashion – you can, but at higher levels and you really have to be commercial. So, I started to do a lot of branding and portrait so that’s where the money lies. [But,] I love fashion! That’s my dream. So yeah fashion, branding, and portraits.

How did you get into that? It seems like a tough area to break into.

[In the past,] I worked in the fashion industry for companies like Calvin Klein Jeans, Cole Hahn, Macy’s as a buyer and a planner, the business and marketing side of it. I took that, combined it with my artistic side, and started to work with small businesses. I like to say that I give them their own “fashionista moment” – we make it promotional, make it about business, but let’s make it fashion, you know? That’s really been a niche that I’ve tried to carve out. For the last year, I’ve been expanding it and that’s what my focus is now.

It’s tough going it alone these days, and it seems like collaboration is a big key to succeeding. What types of collabs are interesting to you right now?

I definitely have makeup artists. I have one or two main ones that I work with so we form a team. I’ll get a client that comes in and I’ll go to my [main one] because we work well together we can work together, we have that groove. It’s like that with the makeup artist, the hairstylist. We’re just launching our own creative service agency. I work with other photographers, too. As a photographer you have to do so many things, be a location scout, a manager, and all that, and I’ve been doing all that for myself, and now I can do that for other photographers as well. I definitely have some packages where I will include the makeup artist as part of it but you know that’s built into pricing and for the most part, they’ll just see I have people that they can hire. I’m always going to give them everything that they need to come up to have a successful shoot.

Oh wow, that’s smart. Where are you at in that process? What’s the name?

It’s called Noir Photography Studios, and it’s a partnership with Artistic Chad Photography. We have the website up and we’re in the early stages of launching, and we’ve done a couple of projects. We just did a whole fashion event. We worked with a team of fashion designers. We’re going to be working on some more projects.

That’s mega!

Yeah exactly!

What got you started in photography? When did you first pick up a camera?

I really was inspired by fashion magazines. My mom worked in marketing, she worked for Fairchild Publications, they published WWD. We had all these magazines around the house. I loved Vogue, I loved Bazaar, I loved all that kind of stuff. I always looked at that and I thought it was beautiful but I was kind of fascinated by: How did they create these pictures?
So I started to look into that aspect of it and I found out, you know, about photographers like Irving Penn, Gordon Parks, Richard Avedon. Those are some of my favorite photographers. Patrick Demarchelier! I love them because you can see the care and the time they took. Once [I] started to look into it, I thought they really did plan those shoots out. It wasn’t just – Avedon was sometimes a little bit kind of quick (snap) with what he would capture – but I love the mix of set-up and also the capturing of moments that happen.

It seems like you do combine a lot of different, sometimes contrasting experiences, into your work. Where does that come from?

I think that that started my first love of photography but I also was a child of an accountant so totally I like both sides. I ended up going to school, getting an MBA, going into finance. I really always had both sides to me. I guess it was 2009 and my family and friends did this huge Italy trip. Right before that trip, I was like: I’m going to capture the best pictures! and I went to B&H and I got my first DSLR Canon XSI, I think it was like 1600 ISO! I got a Tamron lens, I’ll never forget, 18-300. I took that camera I had never used, I learned it on the trip. It was the best! This is really what I want to do.
I ended up end up getting laid off that year because there was a recession here and I went to photography school. I went to ICP here in New York and I took tons of classes and just learned so much. I had some other friends starting out as bloggers and we were able to get into shows I really had no business being at, like Bryant Park, Lincoln Center just because I really wanted to be there and went in and got some experience shooting runway. I knew then that I wanted to be a photographer.

Let’s bring it back to the present day. When you go to plan out a fashion shoot, what is your process like?

We have a client coming in, we’re doing pictures for her business and the first thing I do is really just find out what’s the purpose and then I get some inspiration and I talk to them about what they feel like their inspiration is. I will do a Pinterest board but then there’s also a program called Milanote which I use. You can put your inspiration in there, you can put notes in there, you can set up all your people. That’s where you can see the planning side comes. I’m a little bit more organized, I would say, than a normal photographer. I love that program,

Do you ever run into creative disagreements with clients? How do you work through them?

I go back to my [media] buying experience because as a buyer you always had your own opinion, but it was always about what is the bottom-line, what’s going to sell, what was your customer looking for? I think that I’m not a traditional artist in that if you don’t take my opinion, if you want to do something little bit different, then I will work with you. Like, I don’t have to have my own way, and I think that helps me to be the best partner with clients especially because I want them to get what they want.

And, of course, now I want to ask you about your experience with Photo Mechanic.

The best part of it is the quickness like how quickly I can pull files up and we’re working on them. I’m on a Mac and we go into Capture One and I’m going to Lightroom and it’s the pulling in. Without Photo Mechanic, you know, it just takes so long but being able to pull that up, cull down, and use code replacements and rename [files]. It’s made a huge difference. It’s cut my processing time in half.

So good to hear! That’s why we do it! Thank you so much Danni!

Check out Danielle’s main site at
dannihadnottphotography.com
And her IG is must-follow:
instagram.com/dannihphoto
If you need creative services help, see what Noir Photography Studios has to offer:
noirphotographystudios.com/

This post was brought to you by Camera Bits, the makers of Photo Mechanic. To save yourself time culling and managing your photos and metadata, try Photo Mechanic free for 30 days here!

Enjoyed the interview? Go HERE to read more interviews with the wonderful women in this Black Women Photographers series!

The post Danni Hadnott: Black Women Photographers Showcase appeared first on Camera Bits, Inc..

Camera Bits, Inc. June 30, 2022

Camera Bits Welcomes Pablo Gonzalez-Gandolfi as Director of Software Development.

This reinforces Camera Bits’ commitment to developing new features and products that help professionals work with visual assets.

Hillsboro, OR. Camera Bits, Inc., makers of Photo Mechanic visual asset management software for photographers and small businesses, welcomes Pablo Gonzalez-Gandolfi as their new Director of Software Development. Pablo was previously the Software Manager at Verathon Inc. as well as being a past Application Engineer at Camera Bits, and he brings over thirty years of software experience to Camera Bits.

“We’re thrilled to have such a qualified, creative, and driven person like Pablo,” said Camera Bits Founder and President, Dennis Walker. “We have a lot of big ideas on our whiteboard and we know Pablo can help bring those new ideas to reality.”

While at Verathon, Pablo successfully led and managed the software team to complete multiple product releases. He also assumed the role of Scrum Master, coordinating the team’s Agile development process, along with writing code in his spare time. Camera Bits began the search for a new Director of Software Development when they identified key product goals that they had for the coming years.

“This is a great addition for Camera Bits,” said COO Katie Werremeyer. “We see a perfect fit for Pablo on our development team and look forward to his contributions to our products and to our company culture as well.”

Kirk Baker, Software Architect at Camera Bits, added, “The return of Pablo to the Camera Bits development team is most welcome. Pablo brings with him valuable skills, knowledge, and insight. With his help and guidance, we look forward to building a stronger development group and making even better tools for our users.”

Pablo received a Master’s degree in Computer Science from the Polytechnic University of New York in 1992 and has dedicated most of his professional life to the area of software development for medical devices. He enjoys participating in long-distance randonneuring events on a bicycle or Iron Butt challenges on his motorcycle. When not riding, he likes to spend time with family, traveling, taking photos, or just hanging out.

Pablo will be guiding new software development efforts at Camera Bits and will focus on guiding the development team towards tackling new challenges and building software that helps people get their work done fast.

About Camera Bits.

Camera Bits has been making software relied upon by professional photographers for over twenty years. Photo Mechanic is the industry standard workflow and metadata tool for photographers with serious deadlines and a need for absolute accuracy.

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