Late yesterday Camera Bits released Photo Mechanic 4.0 for Windows , a complete revamp of the photo browser that is better known among Mac-based newspaper and wire service photographers and is the first update of Photo Mechanic on the Windows platform since January 2002. Fortunately, the new release has been worth the wait: v4.0 is shaping up to be a rock-solid pro image browser.























Photo Mechanic 4.0's near-full screen preview mode

In classic Camera Bits fashion, the final, final v4.0 will emerge through a series of updates in the weeks ahead. The initial release browses JPEGs and TIFFs only; the ability to see thumbnails and previews of most digital SLR RAW formats is not switched on as yet. Colour management support is also slated for a near-term update.

Still, there's plenty to like in yesterday's v4.0 release, including a preview mode that offers ACDSee-like speed by reading the next photo into memory as the current one is being viewed, a spellchecker for the caption field plus virtually all of the essential image transfer, browsing, captioning and renaming features of Photo Mechanic for Mac.

Photo Mechanic 4.0 for Windows is US$150, and supports Windows 2000 and Windows XP only. Those who registered the previous version of Photo Mechanic for Windows after September 11, 2001 are eligible for a free update to v4.0. See the Camera Bits web site for upgrade details, which vary depending on when the previous version was purchased. A fully-functioning, time-limited trial version is also available.

Late last month, Photo Mechanic for Mac was updated to 3.2.4 . The changes since v3.2.3 affect only the use of the program's customized America 24/7 mode. Photo Mechanic 4.0 for Mac is pegged for release sometime later this year.