Camera Bits, Inc.

Hello, photographers! We’ve got some development news to share with you, so let’s get to it.

Universal Binary Beta Available Now for Existing Licenses

Update 2 July 2024: There is an update to the Limited Public Beta of Photo Mechanic with Apple Silicon support to expand availability. See the details here: https://forums.camerabits.com/index.php?topic=16261.0

Update 1 July 2024: A new Beta was posted to include the updated built-in raw renderer

The long-awaited “universal binary” build of Photo Mechanic and Photo Mechanic Plus for macOS has started internal testing and is now released in a Limited Public Beta. This is the so-called “Apple Silicon native” version for people with new Apple computers with M1, M2, M3, etc. chips so that Photo Mechanic can run without using the available Rosetta 2 emulation in macOS. As noted many times, Photo Mechanic has run very fast under Rosetta 2 emulation because it is not a processor-intensive application. The read-write speed of the disk drive where photos are being edited is typically the main “bottleneck” for Photo Mechanic performance. And, initially, the Apple Silicon version felt no faster than the emulated version, but our developers have since found some optimizations that have improved the speed significantly. We believe there may be more optimization to come with more development time. Updating the app for native compatibility also allows Camera Bits to develop new functionality that takes advantage of newer macOS features.

This project has taken significant work for Camera Bits developers, as it was not just a matter of recompiling source code for the newer chips. Large sections of code had to be rewritten from the ground up and meticulously tested to make sure they matched the high standards of the current Photo Mechanic program. But, the fruit of all that labor will soon see the sunshine. We’ll announce the full release when Beta testing and any subsequent fixes have been completed.

The Limited Public Beta of the universal binary version of Photo Mechanic and Photo Mechanic Plus is available for users with current subscriptions, and for users who have purchased perpetual licenses after 11 March 2024. The Beta requires at least macOS Ventura or newer.

For people with subscription licenses and perpetual licenses purchased after 11 March 2024 who want to try the limited public beta of the AIO installer of Photo Mechanic, head over to this post in the Announcements area of the forum: Photo Mechanic Universal Binary Beta. Please never use any Beta software when you’re facing imminent deadlines or on mission-critical projects. We also recommend using the Beta only with copies of files. Beta software is a risk and comes with no guarantee of functionality. Users of the beta of Photo Mechanic can provide feedback and report issues by leaving comments on the forum post or through normal Photo Mechanic Support channels.

Once this process is complete, we anticipate being able to devote more time to improving the Photo Mechanic experience with new and improved functionality and helping you get more work done fast.

BUILD UPDATE: 7578

For those not ready to try the Beta version of Photo Mechanic and Photo Mechanic Plus, there is a build update to the All-in-One Photo Mechanic app posted for download with many tweaks and some bug fixes. A reminder that All-in-One (AIO) builds are only for people who have subscribed to monthly or annual plans for Photo Mechanic Standard or Plus, or for purchases of perpetual licenses after 11 March 2024. These are a few of the changes:

1. Added: Support for Olympus E-M10 Mark III S ORF files
2. Fixed: Incremental Ingest no longer allows matching RAWs and JPEGs to be ingested separately
3. Fixed: PM now picks up GMT offset from xmp:CreateDate if not in photoshop:DateCreated

You can see the full release notes here: Photo Mechanic 2024.6, build 7578. Note that this build update is not yet Apple Silicon native. We recommend everyone with a subscription license or newer perpetual license update their builds as soon as is convenient.