Camera Bits today has released a public beta version of Photo Mechanic v4.4.1 for Windows and Mac. The list of changes noted in the included Read Me are:

• The Revert TIFF-based RAW to original command now has an option to backup a photo’s existing IPTC/XMP (e.g. embedded by Photo Mechanic 4.4+) into an XMP sidecar file.
  
  
• Update IPTC/XMP now synchronizes the tag and color class between a RAW+JPEG pair.
  
  
• RAW+JPEG can now join across folders.  Add the folder containing RAW photos to a contact sheet along with the folder containing JPEG photos.  If the names match then the RAW and JPEG photos can be joined as RAW+JPEG pairs.  This is very useful for the Update IPTC/XMP command and image preferences like tag and color class.
  
  
• Fixed problems with certain variables used for folder naming in Ingest.
  
  
• (Windows) Fixed several problems and made improvements to the Favorites and Navigator panes.  Fixed a problem with drag & drop to Favorites folder not copying to the correct folder.  Creating a new folder in the Navigator now makes the folder visible and selects it for renaming.  Drag reordering of Favorites now shows an insertion indicator.
  
  
• Added a new “Remember folders...” command that remembers the state of a multi-folder contact sheet as a Favorite that can later be launched.
  
  
• Added a checkbox to Contact Sheet pane of the Preferences dialog that allows you to turn off the generation of high-quality thumbnails for speedy browsing of large TIFF photos.
  
  
• Fixed a problem where some photos would be skipped when performing lossless JPEG rotation.
  
  
• Exif thumbnails are now updated for Save As with the JPEG format.
  
  
• Fixed a problem with adjusting capture date/times on Nikon NEF files.
  
  
• IPTC Info navigates through visible items only, and it navigates through selected items only if the photo on entry is selected.
  
  
• Added a JPEG size estimator to the Send Photos via Email dialog.
  
  
• Brought back the (Mac) Command-Ctrl-F1 through Command-Ctrl-F9 or (Win) Ctrl+F1 through Ctrl+F9 keyboard shortcuts for filtering individual color classes.  F1 views all color classes.
  
  
• IPTC Info navigation now makes sure that the Contact Sheet that it came from scrolls to keep the current photo visible on screen.
  
  
• Added keyboard shortcuts for Select Rotated and Select Others (invert).
  
  
• Source and destination paths are refreshed after drag and drop copy/move to Navigator and Favorites folders.
  
  
• Fixed several minor crop tool annoyances when cropping in zoom mode.
  
  
• IPTC category lists with illegal UTF-8 encodings no longer hangs PM when clicking on the popup menus in the IPTC dialogs.
  
  
• You can now select and change or select and delete items from the IPTC Stationery Lists editor when the words have illegal character sequences in them (characters replaced by '?').
  
  
• (Mac) Fixed problems with setting Photo Mechanic as the application to launch for Image Capture.
  
  
• (Mac) Added 'Esc' key shortcut to close FTP Progress window.
  
  
• (Mac) Fixed problems with Color Class Filter widget when mouse is released outside the bounds of the control.
  
  
• (Mac) Having the Favorites/Navigator pane collapsed in Contact Sheet windows no longer causes a slowdown.
  
  
• (Win) Alt+] and Alt+[ now work as advertised in the IPTC Info dialog for Save & -> and Save & <-.