Havlik, Dan October 2011 ‘The Ten Best Photo Portfolio Apps for the iPad’, Photo District News, Volume xxxi, Issue 10, Page 28-31.  To view online – here.

Now everyone can turn their Android into a Lean, Mean, Photo Machine!

Press release here.

[MobilePRwire.com] Vancouver, BC –  Vancouver based Beanheads Consulting Inc. announces the release of Sort Shots for Android. Sort Shots finds photos fast for easy sharing. Mix-and-match photo searching criteria – tags (new or existing metadata), ratings or favorites – along with a sequencing preference to view the results. Share photos on Facebook, Flickr or Picasa or play a slideshow. Users love the app for its ingenious way to find their photos without having to scroll through their entire photo library.

Today Beanheads Consulting Inc., a leading provider of first-of-its-kind applications that provide photo searching on mobile devices, announced the release of its photo-tagging software, Sort Shots, for Google Android.

Sort Shots provides Android 2.2 & 2.3 users with a lightning fast way of finding their photographs. Users experience numerous benefits:

- Install and instantly begin finding photos using Metadata tags/keywords previously assigned to photos.
- Fast, easy image retrieval through unique photo and video tagging. Tagging options include personalized keywords, ratings, favorites, or type of media. Tapping on a tag provides instant results so users can further refine their search with additional tags and keywords.
- Sequencing options include file name, date, size or rating.
- Intuitive interface for easy tagging, searching, sequencing and sharing slideshows.
- Tagging functionality allows Android users to create and sort by custom tag layers. For example, a user can choose to sort by “People”, by “People –> Friends”, or by “People –> Friends –> Chris” depending on how general or specific they wish their search to be.
- Image sharing with Bluetooth and Gmail along with popular Web services such as Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, and Twitter.

“Overwhelming requests from Android users clamoring for Sort Shots on their device prompted us to apply our award-winning concept to this exciting platform. Now Android tablet and mobile phones users can quickly sort through thousands of images using personalized tags combined with an ingenious photo finding interface,” stated Christa Taylor, Founder & CEO of Beanheads Consulting. “The flexible interface allows users to mix-and-match their photo searching criteria – ranging from tags, ratings and favorites – and combine it with an optional sequencing preference to view the results. Sort Shots provides Android users with a superior photo searching technique”.

Device Support

Sort Shots for Android requires an Android device running iOS 2.2 or 2.3 device to run.

Pricing & Availability

Sort Shots for Android is now available through Google Marketplace under the “Photography” category. It’s priced at $2.99.

by Heather Kelly, Macworld.com Jan 31, 2011 6:00 am

The iPad’s minimal design and high resolution screen make it an ideal portable portfolio for photographers. Unfortunately, the built-in Photos app offers a very limited set of tools for organizing images, including no options for sorting on the go, and no ability rate or tag images.

Sort Shots iPad Edition is a $5 photo and video organizing and viewing app that picks up where Photos leaves off. With a major new update to the app released last week in conjunction with Macworld Expo, the app now has the ability to use existing metadata and EXIF tags—a feature iPad-owning photographers have long been clamoring for.
Sort Shots iPad Edition

This update makes it possible to find, order, and show photos and videos according to various metadata such as keywords, date taken, and rating. The sorting tools make it easy to assemble custom slideshows New ratings, keywords, or file names that are added within the app are kept intact upon export.

Photos can be imported into the Sort Shots library though iTunes, directly from the Photos albums, or over the free Sort Shots FTP client. Once the images are in Sort Shots, you can start organizing. All metadata is imported with the image, so if you added keywords or a star rating in Aperture, that information will appear in the iPad app.

When you’ve come up with a combination of search terms you want to keep (for example, all photos tagged “kittens” that are rated 3 stars), you can save the it as a custom sort. For professional photographers, this is a great way to save custom portfolios of your different types of work.

An older but still extremely useful Sort Shots feature is that it’s possible to drag and drop thumbnails to reorder images—a seemingly simple task that isn’t possible in Photos.

The Sort Shots app works with most popular photo management applications including Lightroom, Bridge, Capture NX, Aperture, and iPhoto.

Sort Shots – iPad Edition displays a photograph’s metadata/EXIF information including f-stop, shutter speed and tags. Additionally, Sort Shots is the only app to recognize photo tags from popular software providers including Adobe(R), Apple(R), Microsoft(R) and Nik(R).

Multiple search options include favorites, type, date and tags providing their users with a fun, fast and functional way of finding their photos. Users can choose one or more search criteria to sort by, then at their option, sequence, save, play a slideshow or upload their photographs to popular social media sites.

Users now benefit by:
* Viewing an image’s metadata/EXIF
* Importing an entire photo album from their Apple iPad
* Sort photographs based on an images timestamp

“Metadata is not only a powerful tool in the art and science of photography but also the most efficient way to find photographs” stated Christa Taylor, Founder & CEO of Beanheads Consulting Inc. “Providing users with this tool is a major milestone we are excited to offer our iPad users”.

Sort Shots will be exhibiting at MacWorld 2011 in the Mobile Apps Showcase in San Francisco from January 27 – 29, 2011.

Sort Shots – iPad Edition allows users to import images while retaining previously assigned metadata/EXIF keywords automatically. Users can instantly find and view photos by simply tapping on a word. Additional keywords can be added and exported back to their favorite photo software including Apple iPhoto and Aperture, Adobe(R) Lightroom, Photoshop and Elements, and Microsoft Photo Gallery and Expression Media(R).

Additionally, File Transfer Protocol (FTP), file renaming and a search feature (by tag/keyword or file name) have been added to provide users with a complete photo finding solution. Users can easily import and review full resolution photos and rate, rename and tag their images. Running a slideshow, e-mailing photos or uploading them to a favorite social media site is also a snap.

Keywords/Tags allow users to describe their photos for easy retrieval and can be combined with other criteria to find their photos. Adding additional criteria such as favorite photos, keywords, date and type of media provides instant results to users without having to search through their entire photo library. The full resolution image results can be viewed individually, uploaded or re-sequenced for a slideshow. Sorts and sequences can be saved for quick retrieval.

Version 2.2 New Features include:
* EXIF keyword support for Apple iPhoto and Aperture. Ratings from Aperture are also supported.
* File renaming
* FTP client
* Search by keyword or file name

“Sort Shots ability to utilize EXIF/metadata from Apple iPhoto and Aperture provides users with a dynamic, ‘on-the-fly’ photo portfolio using existing workflows. New features such as file renaming, searching capabilities and a more efficient method of transferring and finding photos on the iPad helps all photographers to sort and share their photographs.” stated Christa Taylor, Founder & CEO of Beanheads Consulting. “Expanding Sort Shots ability to utilize EXIF/metadata helps our users spend more time on what they love doing – shooting.

Press release can be found at:  http://prmac.com/release-id-15871.htm

Version 2.0  supports:

- Adobe Lightroom

- Adobe Bridge

- Apple iPhoto

- Capture NX

- Expression Media

We are working on adding additional software support – next one is Apple Aperture.

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Aug 30, 2010 in Photography

[prMac.com] Vancouver, Canada – Today Beanheads Consulting Inc., a leader in photo applications for mobile devices, is pleased to announce the release of Sort Shots – iPad Edition 2.0, the first and only iPad app that utilizes metadata information from photographs for easy image searching. Additionally, the latest release retains original image qualities including full resolution.

Sort Shots – iPad Edition allows users to import images via iTunes(R) while retaining previously assigned metadata keywords and ratings for effortless searching. Tags and ratings allow users to simply tap on the desired search criteria to instantly view the resulting images. At the users’ option, they may create and assign additional tags and ratings easy searching, sequencing and sharing. Tags and ratings assigned to images within Sort Shots can later be exported and utilized by supported software packages including Adobe(R), Bridge(R) and Lightroom(R). Utilizing metadata keywords and ratings makes searching for photos fun and easy while resulting in significant time savings for users.

Metadata keywords can be read by various software packages including:
* Adobe Bridge and Lightroom (import and export keywords and ratings)
* Apple iPhoto and Aperture (import keywords)
* Microsoft Photo Gallery(R) (import keywords and ratings)
* Nikon Capture NX2 (import keywords)

Sort Shots 2.0 retains the original image qualities including resolution to ensure the finest image viewing. Users have an option to choose between viewing original image resolution or an optimized version to maximize performance.

“Using existing metadata while maintaining original file quality provides our users with the most efficient yet flexible method to find and share photographs on their iPad. We strive to make Sort Shots the best way, for all of photographers, to display their images whether it be simply locating the images, customizing a slideshow, or sharing images on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr or Picassa” stated Christa Taylor, Founder & CEO of Beanheads Consulting. “Incorporating metadata tags and ratings created from popular software packages is a natural evolution of the Sort Shots platform”.

After a tough battle, our first release of Sort Shots with Metadata has been submitted to Apple.

Yes, METADATA/EXIF/IPTC/XMP and all those other wonderful and complex synonyms.

What version 2.0 will do:

It will automatically read an images tags/keywords from:

• Adobe Lightroom
• Adobe Bridge
• Apple Aperture
• Apple iPhoto
• Nikon Capture NX
• Microsoft Expression Media
• Microsoft Photo Gallery

It will automatically read an images ratings from:

• Adobe Lightroom
• Adobe Bridge
• Apple Aperture
• Microsoft Photo Gallery

If you export your images out of Sort Shots v 2.0, tags/keywords will remain with your images and be read with the following supported programs:

• Adobe Lightroom
• Adobe Bridge
• Microsoft Photo Gallery

Additionally, full image resolution is retained when importing your images!  If you want to increase efficiency, turn on the ‘Resize Image’ option under Settings.