Thanks for the suggestions 
@Wellsyboy
Yes, better than both Lightroom and Capture One I think and there is one reason to that:
As I wrote above:
"Another not so well-known fact is how well PM really integrates especially with Photolab and the reason for that is that unlike both Lightroom and Capture One, Photolab works straight on the files in the folders. Both LR and CO uses a special import-processes that causes some problems when integrating with PM. I think PL is superior to both CO and LR in that respect.
Together with PM Plus Photolab can scale in a way Lightroom and Capture One not really can of just that reason a mentioned above. As I use them together, they work pretty seamless after I have activated âSynchronizationâ in Photolab. After that every change made in Photo Mechanic is instantly propagated to Photolab if you have them opened simultaneously." This is rock solid with Photolab but not all that reliable and fast with Capture One.
For example if I select say 10 files in PM and open them with Photolab 10 files are opened with Photolab - not so in Capture One. In CO it doesn´t work that way because CO will rather import these files than open them straight for editing.
Another very important thing is that PM keeps track of and handle all three âPhotolabâ-sets of files as a single set - both the image RAW-file, the XMP-file and the Photolab .DOP-files too. As you know JPEG, TIFF and DNG are XMP-compatible which means they all keep the metadata in the image files normally even if some software is able to tie an XMP-sidecar file even to for example a JPEG.
⌠and the last thing: Photolab âremembersâ every âExternal Searchâ regardless from which application you open selected files with Photolab. That is convenient sometimes and âExternal Searchâ is in fact stored in the same table in the Picture Library database as Photolab âProjectsâ so it´s no big task to create a âProjectâ of and âExternal Searchâ,. That way I feel Photolab is more open to third party application integration than some of the competition.
Why there is a point to use another âarchiveâ than the Picture Library. A monolithic database in Lightroom or Photolab is a compromise that causes problems sometime. When culling you want small fast files and when postprocessing you want 1:1-files. At least when I used Lightroom I was urged by the Lightroom guru Scot Kelby not to use full size previews - of productivity reasons when culling BUT at the other end the RAW-converter have to scale the previes when postprocessing so you can´t awoid that problem in an application that tries to do everything.
When you use an external specialized application, you relieve the converter from that problem. The image database can use its smaller previews and the converter the âfull sizeâ. In an application like Photolab that refreshes the previews as it is working straight towards the folders, folders with say more than 1000 files might take a while to open. In that case you can instead open say a houndred at the times and that way gain speed and efficiency if you have that kind of overloaded folders. That might be handy especially with slower computers.
thanks for your help
And you think that the beta testers didnât ask for templates?
Seems to be difficult to implement a template functionality.
Maybe next version who knows. (disclaimer i know nothing and seen nothing so pure guesswork.
Itâs true youâre right, I will have done so why not them too.
For those who would like to try out the PhotoSupreme, they offer a Lite edition which have some restrictions but can be explored to find out if it might be something one find interesting.
Iâm an IMatch user, and very pleased with the product. As @herman notes, thereâs a free 30 day trial Windows version available: Downloads - photools.com
(and @After using several different software programs over the last few days I have come to the conclusion that AI based culling is not for me (probably because I am a control freak!). I think Photomechanic is excellent for ingesting images, renaming files, metadata etc but it is not a patch on fast raw viewer for checking critical focus when culling - I just donât seem to be able to zoom to the same level in photomechanic without the file (the same file I might add) becoming pixelated. I canât help but think I am doing something wrong in PM with settings but canât work out what. I would like to get this sorted before committing to PM.
This is the task of a DAM program.
Photo Supreme, IMatch, LR and many, many others can do it. DxO does not have a DAM module and therefore metadata handling is not the focus of the software
I myself have been using Photo Supreme for many years because my preferred RAW editor (C1) doesnât handle metadata very well either
I mean PM only works with the embedded JPEG and not with RAW.
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No, sure - but my point was that it should.
I understand that very well.
Unfortunately, in my opinion, thatâs the situation: If someone needs management and correctly written metadata is important to them, then you need DAM software.
The best integration is with Lightroom, because DxO provides a plug-in for this. For all other programs, you have to build something yourself.
Maybe Iâm wrong, but I donât have the impression that DxO is interested in changing this. Everything can be included as a feature for future versions. But nobody can guarantee whether it will ever be realized.
And here is the main reason that PL doesnât. PL doesnât import files, it simply allows access to them from your disk. In fact, PL does nothing at all to your files, until you choose the folder that contains those files, when it indexes them to its database.
Some users, like myself, regularly work on other photographersâ files, and they (and I) would not be too pleased if PL suddenly applied the wrong copyright details because I forgot to select the correct preset.
So, even if PL supplied a metadata preset manager, you would still have to select which files you want those metadata to apply to.
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One thing one can do is to let PhotoMechanic sharpen the previews of the RAW-file previews. It think that helps. I guess the somewhat limited possibilities to zoom in to previews in PM is a compromise because the focus on speed and not on detail. Otherwise PM would have exactly the same problems with speed as Photolab
