Switching
Will my workflow break?
The question that actually decides this, and the one nobody in this category answers properly. Here is the whole answer.
There is nothing to migrate. Lamplit has no catalogue and no library — it reads folders that already exist and writes standard metadata back into them.
Synchronised XMP plus legacy IPTC-IIM inside JPEGs, XMP sidecars beside RAW. That is the same dual-write a wire desk expects, which means the switching cost is not a conversion step — it is retyping your stationery pad once.
Item by item
What comes across
Read the “Doesn’t” list first. It is the one that decides this.
Comes across
- Star ratings
- Written as XMP, and as legacy IPTC-IIM inside JPEGs. Lightroom, Bridge and exiftool all read them.
- Colour labels
- All eight, on the same 1–8 keys. Photo Mechanic uses eight colour classes plus none; Lamplit writes the same eight.
- Captions and IPTC fields
- Synchronised XMP and legacy IPTC-IIM (APP13) for JPEGs, XMP sidecars for RAW — the same dual-write a wire desk expects.
- Everything already in the file
- Writes patch in place rather than rewriting the block. Metadata another tool put there — Lightroom keywords, an exiftool field, a Photo Mechanic caption — survives the write.
- Rotation and crops
- Rotation persists as EXIF orientation for JPEG and as an XMP sidecar for RAW. Crops are non-destructive and baked in at export. Your original pixels are never modified.
Doesn’t
- Your stationery pad and code-replacement files
- Lamplit has its own stationery, {variables} and =code= replacements, but it does not import Photo Mechanic’s files. You retype the pad once.
- Collections and catalogue entries
- Lamplit has no collections and no database, so there is nothing for them to land in.
- Saved filter and export presets
- Both engines are rich; neither remembers a named preset yet.
- Anything that depended on a contact sheet
- Contact sheets do not exist in Lamplit at all. What is still missing is listed in full on the comparison page, under where Photo Mechanic still wins.
Settle it yourself
The ten-minute test
Do not take our word for any of the above. This costs you nothing and it is the only evidence that counts.
- 01Pick a shoot you have already delivered.Nothing is at stake, and you already know which frames you chose — so you can tell whether the tool agrees with you.
- 02Cull one folder in Lamplit. Rate, label, caption.Use the keys you already have in your fingers — ratings on the modifier chords, colours on 1 through 8, deliberately the ones you know.
- 03Open the same folder in Photo Mechanic.Check the ratings, the colours and the captions are where you left them. They are written as standard XMP and IPTC-IIM, so they should be.
- 04Check something Photo Mechanic wrote earlier is still intact.This is the real test. Writes patch in place, so an older caption or keyword should have survived untouched.
That is the whole migration risk, and you can settle it in ten minutes on a shoot that has already shipped. If any of it fails, we want to hear about it more than you want to tell us. Before you start, the full shortcut reference is one page and prints onto one sheet.
The cost
What switching actually costs you
Retyping the stationery pad, and losing contact sheets and the histogram — neither of which Lamplit has. If your workflow ends in a printed sheet, or you cull on exposure rather than on the picture, that is a hard stop and you should stay where you are.
What you get back is $149.00 a year against $79, a current interface, and an ingest that byte-verifies both copies before it tells you the card is safe to format. That Photo Mechanic price was read off Camera Bits' own pricing page on . Whether that trade is worth it depends entirely on which of those missing features you actually use — which is why they are listed first.
Questions
Before you move
Will Lamplit break the metadata Photo Mechanic already wrote?
No. Writes patch in place rather than rewriting the metadata block, so a caption Photo Mechanic wrote, keywords Lightroom put there and a field exiftool set all survive a Lamplit write. This is the single most important property for anyone running both tools on the same shoot, and it is the reason you can test us without risk.
Do I have to import or convert anything?
No. There is no catalogue and no library. Lamplit reads folders that already exist on your disk and writes standard metadata back into them. Nothing is “migrated” because there is nothing to migrate into — you point it at a folder and work.
Can I run both on the same shoot?
Yes, and for the first few jobs you probably should. Both tools read and write the same standard metadata, so you can cull in one and check in the other. That is the whole test.
What about my stationery pad?
It does not come across. Lamplit has its own stationery with {variables} and =code= replacements, but it does not read Photo Mechanic’s files. You retype the pad once. For most photographers that is twenty minutes, and it is the largest single cost of switching.
What if I switch back?
Then you switch back, and everything Lamplit wrote is still readable, because it is all standard XMP and IPTC-IIM. We have no format of our own and no database holding your work hostage. That is deliberate — a tool you cannot leave is not a tool you chose.
Try it on a shoot that’s already out the door.
The beta is free. That is the only fair way to judge a culling tool, and the only way to run the test above.
The signup form isn’t connected yet — we’d rather show you a dead button than quietly drop your address. It goes live with the first beta wave.