Importing and Auto Renaming

Revised core features

We have released PIE 6.1 and PIE Studio 5.6.

The smart features for importing digital camera files and metadata-based renaming made our software so popular from the beginning. While keeping their simplicity, they are even easier to use now, with dedicated settings dialogs and the option to save and restore presets for frequently used configurations.

Along with various other improvements, this is a valuable update, also for the free version of PIE.

See the full list of changes:

Picture Information Extractor 6.0

“My Tags” and editor templates

Picmeta Systems proudly announces PIE 6.0 and PIE Studio 5.5.

Among numerous enhancements, the new “My Tags” feature is fairly powerful*:

  • Create your personal set of photo metadata. Instead of switching between EXIF, IPTC or XMP sections and scrolling through long lists, you can see the most important metadata at a glance.
  • Any tag added to “My Tags” is made available as column for the metadata list, for the report, and for renaming (in PIE Studio also for printing). These tags are also searchable.
  • You can rename tags. For example, use own tag names in the full metadata panel as well as in the editor dialogs.

Another much requested feature: Templates in the editor dialogs will greatly improve your productivity. Adding repetitive data such as photographer or copyright notice is now made easy.
Templates can also be used for adding predefined sets of keywords or categories, and you can apply various templates successively. It is very flexible.

*To configure “My Tags”, enable the full metadata panel in the main window (View menu or F4)

PTP/MTP Support

Connect any camera, iPhone and iPad

The latest releases PIE 5.8, PIE Studio 5.2 and Printstation 3.6 include support for PTP/MTP connections (Picture/Media Transfer Protocol). This allows to transfer, browse or print images directly from any camera, instead of using a card reader.

Please note
We still recommend the MSC (Mass Storage Class) protocol over PTP, because it is faster and more flexible. If your camera allows to choose between MSC or PTP, set it to MSC.

Browsing or printing images via PTP requires Windows Vista or Windows 7. Importing images via PTP requires Windows XP or higher.

Hierarchical Keywords

Sophisticated IPTC tagging

The latest releases PIE 5.7 and PIE Studio 5.1 provide unsurpassed keyword and category features:

Build hierarchical keyword and category collections
The list editor lets you add sub-items up to any level, allows to rearrange items by drag and drop, and supports copy and paste. The lists are saved in standard text files for easy archiving, sharing and backup.

Assigned tags are saved in the image metadata
What benefits would it have if assigned keyword and category tags were stored in an application database? You want to edit, reorganize and share your images. If the information is saved in the image metadata, you know it will always be there. You don’t even need PIE to be able to read it.

Assigned tags are displayed in their hierarchical context
The tree structure is not saved in the images, but rather recreated each time the metadata is extracted. This enables the best possible comfort within PIE while still maintaining full compatibility with any IPTC enabled application. You can even restructure the repository and it is immediately reflected without the need for updating the image metadata.

Comfortable batch processing of multiple files
Single tags can be added or removed while leaving other tags untouched. At this, the editor clearly indicate differing content of the files and what it will do.

PIE 5.6 Freeware

Free edition of PIE released

The latest version of the Picture Information Extractor is available as a free edition. PIE Free 5.6 has no time limit and offers all the features of the full version except changing metadata.

PIE Free extracts and displays all the metadata of JPEG, TIFF and almost any RAW format. It is also a lean and fast tool for importing and renaming, viewing, searching and organizing photos.

Download PIE Free

PIE Studio 5.0, Printstation 3.5

New layout features

With the latest update, Printstation and PIE Studio got an improved layout module with more features and a refined user interface.

Since the last update, the operation has become even faster thanks to a better cache system. Printing of large albums with many images per page is more efficient by means of a reduction of redundant data sent to the printer.

In the flexible grid mode, there is a new option to add a page background or a logo.

See the detailed list of enhancements:

Keyword Handling

Copy & Paste and better maintenance

Tagging image files with keywords became more productive. The keyword and category lists in the IPTC metadata dialog of PIE and PIE Studio now support copy & paste.

The feature can be accessed per right click or by clicking the icon at the lower right side of a keyword or category list box. Either selected keywords or the entire list will copied.

Additionally, the repository of available keywords is now saved in a standard text file, which can easily be backed up or moved to another computer. The file location is displayed at the bottom of the “Edit list” dialogs.

Rotate RAW images

Adjusting the orientation tag

Cameras without an integrated orientation sensor create images that need to be rotated manually. With JPG images, this could always easily be done with the lossless rotation feature of PIE.

The latest PIE v5.54 and PIE Studio v4.92 also support the rotation of RAW images by adjusting their orientation tag. This is done without creating XMP files.

Some modern cameras such as the Panasonic Lumix G-Series use the orientation sensor of the image stabilizer in the lens. With PIE, you can now get oriented RAW files (eg .RW2) even if you are using a lens without image stabilizer, such as the 20mm Pancake.

Layout Update

Zooming and panning within cells

PrintStation 3.4 and PIE Studio 4.9 allow to zoom and pan single images within the cell borders. You can now crop images or emphasize parts of it without ever changing the original files. Using this feature along with horizontal or vertical cell expansion as well as multiplication of single images will give you totally new possibilities for creating documentary or creative layouts – printed, as PDF or image file.

The new releases also include a number of fixes and faster layout operation thanks to a new caching system.