Photo Mechanic Keyboard Shortcuts
Every Photo Mechanic shortcut, sorted by the job in hand
Photo Mechanic uses different keys on a Mac and on Windows more often than most applications. A shortcut remembered from one machine is often wrong on the other, so every row here shows both.
Photo Mechanic Keyboard Shortcuts is a free 9-page PDF quick reference with 171 shortcuts in 12 sections. Where a key is the same on both machines it spans both columns.
The shortcuts come from Camera Bits' own Keyboard Shortcuts articles for macOS and Windows. They are the defaults, and almost every shortcut can now be changed under Keyboard Shortcuts in Preferences, so a customised copy may differ.
What the reference covers
The Contact Sheet
Ratings, colour classes and tags
The Preview window, zoom and pan
The File, Edit, Image, View and Window menus
The Metadata (IPTC) Template and IPTC Info
Structured Keywords, Slide Show and the Photo Mechanic Plus catalog
Single number keys only rate and label photographs once single-key shortcuts are turned on in Preferences. The reference says so up front, because it is the first thing that looks broken.
Who it is for
These Photo Mechanic keyboard shortcuts are for photographers who ingest, cull and caption large shoots before anything reaches an editor. Sports, events and press photographers use it for speed, and the speed is in the keys. Tagging from the Contact Sheet, rating and colour classes, stamping IPTC metadata from a template and captioning one photograph after another are the jobs that repay learning the keys.
The PDF is searchable, so Cmd+F on a Mac or Ctrl+F on Windows finds a shortcut by name. Print it and keep it beside the keyboard, or keep it open on a second screen while you work. Each section starts from the job rather than the menu, so the keys you use together sit together on the page.
The contents page and the opening section of the Photo Mechanic reference
Find out more on Camera Bits' Photo Mechanic page.
Download it free, print it on A4, and keep it beside the keyboard.
