Portland, Oregon – October 26, 2011 – Camera Bits, Inc., a pioneer in the development of software for professional digital photographers, is previewing the latest editions of its popular photo workflow software, Photo Mechanic 5 and Photo Mechanic Catalog, at PhotoPlus Expo 2011 in New York City from October 27 – 29. Current and prospective users of the Photo Mechanic software line can expect to see new features that will ultimately make their photo editing experiences even more efficient and effective. Camera Bits will also host in-booth (# 367) demonstrations for Photo Mechanic 5 and Photo Mechanic Catalog.

Whether covering a presidential inauguration or the biggest game of the year, professionals rely on Photo Mechanic for their most important photography assignments. The software has become a mainstay for photojournalists seeking a reliable solution to help them efficiently browse, caption and manage batches of digital images. Photo Mechanic is one of the most popular photo-editing tools used by professional photographers around the world, with most news agencies and press photographers standardizing their workflow around the software.

Expected to be released publically in early 2012, Photo Mechanic 5 and Photo Mechanic Catalog boost the already lightning-fast browsing capabilities that professional photographers now depend on to process and edit photos in just minutes. The software enables users to quickly compare multiple images and retains all the features that Photo Mechanic users have come to know and rely upon. The new Photo Mechanic Catalog enables rapid photo searches through the Catalog, as well as multi-user capabilities, especially useful for large organizations needing to identify, tag and publish photos on tight deadlines. New features of both versions include :

Photo Mechanic 5:

• New and improved professional look and feel with additional features in the main contact sheet view.
• Non-modal preview window can be kept open on a second monitor. Thumbnail strips can be either on top or on left.
• Crops can now be rotated to arbitrary angles to match the horizon, and the crop that is stored is compatible with several other popular applications.
• Previews can display blown/clipped highlights and underexposed/clipped shadows.
• Movies can be played internally and frames can be extracted with a crop applied.
• New and improved Export plug-ins.
• Ingest can now automatically begin upon flash card mount.
• Improved speed of browsing and operation by using internal database caches for user command and “sort/filtering” preferences.

Photo Mechanic Catalog:

• The SQL database backend provides top-notch speed and search flexibility. Search through hundreds of thousands of photos in seconds.
• Proxles are stored separately from the SQL database files so the catalog size is only practically limited by disk space.
• The Scanner tool lets you select folders to scan for photos and movies, and also lets you ignore folders that you don’t want scanned. Photos and movies that are discovered are added to the catalog.
• Photos can be added to the catalog during ingest and live ingest.
• Searches can be as simple as entering a few words, or can be very complex queries based on dates and times, keywords (or their absence), and can be specific to certain IPTC metadata fields.
• Catalogs can be shared with multiple users on a LAN (Local Area Network).
• Designed with the capability of world-wide access to support advanced applications such as remote editing.

“Our team at Camera Bits is always looking for new ways to optimize Photo Mechanic so that professionals can both improve the quality of their work while saving valuable time in the editing process,” said Dennis Walker, president & founder of Camera Bits. “We’ve worked tirelessly to make sure the new features of Photo Mechanic 5 and Photo Mechanic Catalog will help improve the workflow of the many users who have come to rely on our solution over the years. We have been looking forward to sharing the results of our hard work with the public and are preparing for a very exciting sneak-peek at this year’s PhotoPlus Expo.”

Throughout PhotoPlus Expo 2011 at the Camera Bits booth #367, Jamie Rose, international photojournalist and Director of Momenta Workshops, whose work has appeared in USA Today, New York Times and Time Magazine, will hold multiple sessions demonstrating the basic and advanced features of Photo Mechanic, providing users with time saving tips in order to fully leverage all the capabilities of the software. Jamie’s speaking schedule is as follows:

Thursday, October 27

• Intro to Photo Mechanic, 1:15 p.m. & 3:45 p.m.
• Photo Mechanic for Professionals, 1:45 p.m. & 4:15 p.m.

Friday, October 28

• Intro to Photo Mechanic, 1:15 p.m. & 3:45 p.m.
• Photo Mechanic for Professionals, 1:45 p.m. & 4:15 p.m.

“Each year Photo Mechanic allows us to edit hundreds of thousands of images quickly and efficiently,” said Tim Rasmussen, Photo Editor of the Pulitzer Prize winning Photography Department of the Denver Post. “I put Photo Mechanic to work during the World Series as it allowed me to single handedly edit up to 10,000 images per game coming in from 6 different photographers, while captioning, cropping and transmitting each from a single program. The speed that Photo Mechanic renders previews allows our staff at the Denver Post to move through their photographs extremely fast while saving time for the more important task of shooting images.”

If you are a member of the media and would like to receive the latest version of Photo Mechanic, please contact the sales department, or to download a public demo, please visit http://www.camerabits.com/site/downloads.html.

About Camera Bits

Camera Bits is a pioneering provider of software for professional digital photographers. Technology visionary and president/CEO Dennis Walker founded the company in 1996 with a simple purpose – design powerful, intuitive software that will improve the workflow of the digital photographer. Camera Bits’ industry standard Photo Mechanic is a photo browser and workflow accelerator that to-date is unmatched in its vast capabilities. To learn more about the history of Camera Bits, the technology behind its software, the man behind it all, please visit www.camerabits.com or call (503) 547-2800.