TABLE OF CONTENTS
Variables in Photo Mechanic are placeholders for metadata information contained in a photo. For example, {filename} is a placeholder for the actual filename of a photo, so the value of the {filename} variable will be different for each photo.
Variables can contain metadata automatically created by your camera, such as the aperture setting, or it can contain information that you have added, such as the text inside an IPTC metadata field like the Event field, User/Client variables, or a color class label name. Variables create a powerful way to automate your workflow by using variable placeholders for tasks such as batch renaming files during ingest or by including a metadata field's variable into the textbox of another metadata field instead of copy/pasting the same information in multiple places.
Structure of Variables
Photo Mechanic variables are structured inside curly brackets {} and contain only the metadata within the variable, so if you are using variables to add information into a sentence, for example, you may want to add space characters before or after a variable, such as:
"Photo by {byline}." When renaming a file, you may wish to add underscores _ rather than spaces to separate fields, such as:
{locationtaken}_{clientname}_{colorclass}_{sequence} Finding and Adding Variables
If you know the name of a variable, you can type it in full, including the curly brackets {} into a text box. You can alternatively select the 'Variables...' button found in many windows within Photo Mechanic that contain user-editable text boxes to open the Variables window. The Variables window contains a list of all variables and their respective descriptions. Double-click on the name of a variable in the list to add it to the active text field.
A full list of variables can also be found at: List of Photo Mechanic Variables.
Example
When ingesting photos, one common way to use variables is to automatically rename files. This example uses the {date} and {seqn} variable. Using underscores between words instead of spaces in this example is an optional way to create web-friendly file names.
If the photo being ingested was shot on October 31, 2019, the final file name would end up being MK10-31-19_CraterLake_0001. The next photo would be MK10-31-19_CraterLake_0002 and so on. The {date}variable information comes from the capture date of photo according to camera or file creation time. The {seqn}sequence variable is a counter that increments +1 for each image the variable is applied to. You can change the starting number and method of counting by selecting the Set {seqn} var... button in the ingest window.
