Photo Mechanic

What do you like best?

- It renders previews instantly

- It makes it possible to flip through an entire photo shoot in a fraction of the time

- 1:1 previews are also rendered instantly so it's easy to check sharpness and focus

That's the bulk of what it does, but it does it to perfection.

Note that I'm still using Photo Mechanic 5. I uninstalled PM 6 because it was slow and buggy.

What do you dislike?

- There's no way to flag a file as rejected

- The interface is dated

- Version 6 is extremely buggy. (Or it was as of last fall when I uninstalled it.)

Recommendations to others considering the product:

If you're worried about the learning curve or changing your Lightroom workflow, give yourself a little push. Once you've figured out the software (it's not too complex) it will save you SO much time.

Also, don't be turned off by the dated interface. It's much more powerful than it looks.

What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?

I used to do my entire workflow in Lightroom, which takes a while to render every single photo. That added up quickly. Photo Mechanic cuts the culling stage down to 25% - 33% of what it would be in Lightroom. It handles huge folders like it's no big deal. There's hardly ever a lag.