IMatch

We’re happy to announce the release of IMatch 2021.16.2 and a compatibility update for our IMatch Anywhere product line.
See the detailed release notes for an overview of all new features, changes and bug fixes.

Highlights in this New Release

There are the most important enhancements and new features in the new edition of the digital asset management system IMatch from photools.com.

Favorite Enhancements

1. Alt + left-click now triggers the “Goto” command, where available (folders, categories, collections, events, people).
2. Event Favorites now have a primary action (add to Event) and secondary action (remove from Event). This only works if the Favorite was created for a file-based event.
3. People Favorites now have a primary action (link to Person) and secondary action (un-link from Person).

Content-aware (Smart) Cropping for Design & Print

When you set the Batch Processor or Design & Print to fit an image into a specific size or container (e.g., fitting an image into a square container), cropping the image vertically or horizontally is usually required.

Both features offer multiple ways to align the image and to control where to crop, e.g. top/left or bottom/right.
This version of IMatch introduces a new Smart mode which tries to prevent relevant portions of the image from being cropped.

Consider the following example: Left side: Fill and Center. Right side: the new Fill Smart mode:

The image is automatically horizontally shifted to prevent the faces from being cropped.
This new option will be useful for situations where you process images with different arrangements and sizes in an automatic fashion.

Collection Performance

Performance improvements for collections when adding / removing files to/from collections, e.g. setting, removing or toggling a rating.
Under some conditions (and for larger databases), changing a collection by adding/removing files could take several hundred milliseconds (up to half a second), which could impact user’s workflows.

Map Panel – Support for Drag and Drop

You can now assign GPS coordinates to files by simply dragging the files from a File Window into the Map Panel.

LibRaw Update to support Olympus OM1 Raw Variant

Yes. Olympus introduced yet another proprietary RAW variant with their OM1 model.
And they don’t provide a WIC codec for their cameras, which means that WIC will support this camera only when Microsoft updates their WIC codecs…

LibRaw thankfully supports this new format in their latest version (not in their official snapshot release). We’ve decided to integrate this version into IMatch for timely support for the OM1 variant.

ExifTool and the new IPTC Mapping Guidelines

Updated ExifTool to version 12.41, released on April 7. 2022. Read the ExifTool release notes here.

IMatch and ExifTool now implement the IPTC Photometadata Mapping Guidelines version 2202.1.
See https://iptc.org/std/photometadata/documentation/mappingguidelines/ for more information.

New duration Variable formatting function

The new duration function calculates the difference between two timestamps in units and outputs the result. For example:

{File.DateTime|format:YYYY:MM:DD hh:mm:ss;duration:now,years,one year,$ years,less than a year}

This variable calculates the difference between the File.DateTime and the current date and time, and outputs:
one year, if the difference is more than 0 but less than 2 years,
n years, if the difference is equal or greater than 2 years, where n is the number of years, and
less than a year, when the difference is less than a year.

This variable can be used for a multitude of purposes, e.g. showing a “How long ago did I create this image?” in File Windows, Design & Print or other features.

New Workflow Categories

We have added two new categories to the IMatch Workflow Categories:
No Author (with the formula "@MetadataTag[creator,novalue]") and
No Headline (with the formula "@MetadataTag[headline,novalue]").

See the detailed release notes for an overview of all new features, changes and bug fixes.