New features add to convenience and usability with the second release of the photo editing tool in EidosMedia's Méthode digital publishing platform.

Changes in the Picture Desk update draw on user experience and feedback to add new functions for selecting and processing images.

Product manager Marco Cetola says multichannel news operations are big consumers of photo content: "The need to feed web, print, tablet and mobile editions with the formats and sizes each needs can make the photo editor's job particularly onerous".

Picture Desk is integrated with Méthode and also with Adobe's Photoshop, allowing various levels of modification to be undertaken. A large central workspace is surrounded by slideaway panels showing picture 'collections', thumbnails from the one selected, and captions and metadata. A 'virtual' collection can be generated by a search query and photos appended to a news-planning topic.

An automatic crop generator offers a library of formats and dimensions, with a single-click presentation of the current image in that format, with options to accept, or zoom and pan to create a new crop, which can then be applied to the selection. All crops are 'soft' to avoid physical generation of multiple formats until needed.

Effects such as pixelating or blurring, can be carried out directly, while the Photoshop integration provides more advanced effects while synchronising information between the two.

Cetola says the new release enhances "both the quantity and quality" of the photo content that photo editing staff can create.