As you can see in the quick video above, Photo Mechanic is fast. The source images in that example are on a RAID-1 external hard drive, so I don't even have the benefit of the super fast random reads of an SSD. You'll throw your computer out the window waiting for previews to load in Lightroom (and don't get me started on waiting for the 1:1 preview to load in case you want to zoom in).

The one downside is you're unable to view your images with any exposure adjustments or edits applied. This can be a little problematic when trying to inspect detail on intentionally underexposed images, but for me that's usually a relatively small number of images.

Setting up Photo Mechanic

In order to get the most out of Photo Mechanic, you have to optimize it for speed through a few settings.

Bear in mind this guide will be done in MacOS. If you’re a Windows user, the settings should be similar and the locations of things should be relatively similar, but may not be exact.

Once installed and opened, head into your ‘Preferences’