I do this in the camera. In my opinion that is where it should be done, then every image file is copyrite protected.
Sure.
And you can do it with a partila preset.
Pascal
What is a partila preset?
Partial Preset
The difference is that PhotoMechanic is faster, more scalable and is optimized for just culling and metadata maintenance during more than 20 years by the most demanding users there is out there.
People that value their time donât use general tools like Lightroom, Bridge, Capture One or Photolab for demanding metadata work, they almost all will use PhotoMechanic instead.
So you set up the metadata and then create a partial preset? A bit like the preset that sets the lens correction only, or lens correction plus detail only and applies it as the default to the RAW file?
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Got it - after looking at it I get why it would be a necessary tool for a pro. Would love to have this but canât really justify the high expensive for what I do.
I donât use metadata, but thatâs what Iâd do.
Pascal
As I wrote - it depends of how you value your life and time. I think it is by far the best investment in software I ever have made.
I once, more than 10 years ago, started using Lightroom for an attempt to create a better order among all my many tousand pictures - a private photo archive. I pretty quickly gave up that thought when I realized how dull, slow and ineffective a software like Lightroom was for that task.
Professionally I happened to work practically, before I retired, with developing a DAM for the pictures and historical documents and publications of the City Museum of Stockholm. That way I learned during seven years the demands efficient metadata maintenance puts both on users and a DAM-solutions in order to work.
A system like that costs several houndreds of thousands of U$ to buy and implement. I can say I could not believe my eyes when I first read about Camera Bits releasing PhotoMechanic Plus 6, almost four years ago, based on the very same basic XMP (Extensible Markup Platform) - metadata standard used in Corporate DAM-system. The introprice was just under 200 U$.
Today I have about 75 000 pictures i two archives - one for ready made and developed metadata marked pictures with say over 25 000 pictures. The rest is just basically marked so I can make joint searches when I need over the entire archive - a thing totally impossible to do with any RAW-converter because they canât scale. These monolithic designs can only handle one single database/archive at the time while PM Plus can handle many in a totally transparent way.
The only thing you need to do to achive that is to check the checkboxes at each database you want to be able to search simultaneously in a joint search.
Both Lightroom and Capture One are unlike Photolab in reality single point of failures where backups of the mono database is crucial and a must but both PM and Photolab can easy restore metadata just by reindex the distributed XMP-data and Photolab has a backup of editings in the DOP-files too so that far more recilient.
It takes many ours building a working picture archive even with good and effective tools like PM Plus and that is time many people donât have and I did not have it before I got retired and if you donât have that don 't even think of starting building one. But I reached a point where I asked myself what the f_ck I was going to do about that mess and I found a good starting point just in descriptively named session folders - in my case it was pictures from many many trips I have made over 50 years.
If you start somewhere there it it doesnât take so long to create something useful that you always can refine and develop when you do have the time.
Are you sure?
I think presets do not contain any IPTC info. Even if you add IPTC settings to the preset file manually, they are ignored (PL7/Win).
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Yes I confirm the keywords and IPTC are not supported in the presets, which is a shame.
As the data already exists, it seems to me that it should not be complicated to implement.
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In the DOP files, IPTC âsubsectionâ is on the same âlevelâ as the Settings subsection, both being in the Items subsection. In the database, only the Settings are stored (at least for Windows). If PL has to recreate the DOP file, it uses Settings from the database and creates IPTC subsection based on the raw file metadata, which is quite logical. When I had to fix my copyright data, I just used the procedure described by @Ian78 (if I remember correctly). In my case it was easier and quicker than developing a suitable script to process the dop files. Ability to customize IPTC in presets wouldnât hurt, though.
PS: I donât use XMP files.
Does Photomechanic integrate well with PL?
The other thing I have noticed when trying out Photomechanic is that I decided to compare the culling between PM, PL, and Lightroom classic. All the marketing bangs on about how much faster it is to cull in PM and I have also heard in the DXO stuff that I looked at before buying into DXO world was that PL was also faster then Lightroom. I have compared them using the same folder of images and I found Lightroom the fastest (due to auto advance function and only having to press one button to pick or reject), followed by PM (for same reason except you donât pick or reject option you have to rate it which involves two keys on the keyboard) and PL bringing up the rear with a definite lag between images and no auto advance function. I had standard previews loaded in Lightroom classic. I do like the look of the metadata functions in PM but they seem to be aimed at pro photographeers shooting high volumes of images (sports, weddings, photojournalists etc etc )
I use Fast Raw Viewer for culling which is faster than ALL others I have tried. FRV also has some interesting options for culling like moving âdeletedâ files to a sub-directory in case you change your mind. To top it all FRV is cheap and has other useful features for culling like edge detection and detail detection for evaluating focus.
Thanks Keith - will take a look
too basic in camera and too fiddley
Had a couple of days to review Photomechanic - I now see what you meant - Agree1 - Probably gonna get this now in spite of the cost. SO much you can do with it! Will be interesting to see it with PL but I suspect I probably wonât be using the Photo library as much in PL now
Photomechanic will be going subscription soon!
As @KeithRJ mentioned: the Photomechanic proposition will change shortly.
There are some alternative DAMs with lifetime licenses on the market though.
Lifetime meaning it will run until an Operating System change forces you to upgrade 
I donât know how well they will fit your requirements.
Culling speed seems to be important for you, the only way to find out is to try.
Both paid programs I refer to have a free trial period, so you can see if their performance is good enough for you.
- Photools IMatch, only available for Windows.
I used it for many years until I migrated to the Apple universe, I can highly recommend this program. - Photo Supreme, available for Windows and Mac.
I use this now on my Macs, fits all my requirements and much more than that
- Digikam, a free and open source program.
Lots of people like it, I have no experience at all with this application.
Hope this helpsâŚ