Quo vadis C1?
It's so quiet in the software department at capture one. Rudimentary updates, nothing earth-shattering, where is the big innovation that was announced? The competition is currently flooding the market with features that IMHO you don't necessarily need for a good result. Stable, process-optimized workflows and intelligent work steps that support but do not slow down the entire system - this would be a first step for an enthusiastic C1 customer community. I have the impression that C1 focuses on program options that are only used by a few users (e.g. Panorama) instead of, for example, implementing more effective noise optimization or expanding the program for plug-ins. We agree that C1 is at the core one of the best RAW converters, but it is sometimes very time-consuming to achieve an optimal result. It is very disappointing today that despite the most modern hardware, a program shows the spinning wait cursor during operations.
If the new update doesn't essentially deliver more stable, faster features, but is loaded with even more unnecessary options, I'll have to take a step that I actually wanted to avoid.
How does the community think here?
Greetings
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I agree that Capture One's performance is very poor, particularly with larger catalogues, and it regularly becomes unresponsive even with simple tasks such as searching, switching tool tabs, selecting albums/folders, hovering over styles, etc. It seems that this has no priority at all, at least according to support there will be no improvements in this area any time soon.
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Exactly. If you like Capture One you are going to have to buy a faster computer. The net impact of more AI is hard to predict, but inevitably the more sophisticated software becomes, the more computer resources it requires. Complicating this, software companies value features over efficiency as users want the software to do more of the editing work. So, as computer power improves, software code bulks up. It is a zero sum game with respect to efficiency. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
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Unfortunately, a faster computer does not solve Capture One's performance issues, at least not when it comes to handling of catalogues.
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My experience is different, but we may not be talking about the same things.
I recently moved Capture One from my iMac Pro with 64 K RAM to a Mac Studio Ultra with 128 GB RAM. My 65K catalog and referenced files are on an OWC NVME SSD. The external SSD lets me access on my desktop or MacBook Pro interchangeably. The Mac Studio's internal SSD would transfer faster, but this is not a practical problem.
On the iMac Pro, over the past couple of iterations of Capture One up to the current 16.2.5.9, there has been a slowness when moving from one image to another, slower with higher resolution imagers. When browsing between 50 MPx images, it could take up to 3 seconds to display the next image at full resolution unless I paused for 3 sec before going to the next image (Capture One loads the next image while you are viewing the current image). Editing also had annoying delays as the display caught up to the slider.
With the Mac Studio, it takes less than a second to view an image at full resolution when browsing from one image to the next. The delay is usually not noticeable because in browsing images, one usually pauses for that long to take a quick look at each image. There are no delays in editing. Sliders work smoothly. Displaying All Images takes under 3 seconds as does a search on a key word.
In other words, Capture One works like I think it should have worked on the iMac Pro. With better coding, it could work even faster.
Over time, computers compensate from a lot of software limitations. A bit over 30 years ago I wrote a database program that took 90 min to complete and print 25 reports. The computer was the rate limiting step. 20 years later I ran it on my Mac Pro (using XP via VMWare Fusion) and it took 90 seconds to complete, and the printer became the rate limiting step.
I think current hardware has become so fast, that it is overcoming Capture One's limitations even with Capture Ones limited ability to use multiple cores. Of course, it is like using a blunderbuss to kill a gnat.
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Over time, computers compensate from a lot of software limitations.
Yes and no. If your old computer needs time X to execute a function F with N images, the new computer which is twice as fast needs only X/2 time. Ok.
But can the new computer which is twice as fast perform the same function in time X for twice as many images?
Maybe. That depends on the order of the algorithm, and if it is a bad algorithm for the problem in question then it might not.
Computers evolution typcially result in a constant performance improvement factor (like the 2 times as fast from my example) but algorithms are often worse than linear if N increases.
Therefore, that is the most important thing in software:
With better coding, it could work even faster.
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Good point. Computer improvements can be defeated by bloating software with inefficient algorithms. I have the impression that as computers get faster, coders lose the need to be efficient. It does stimulate new computer sales. Hummm.
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Interesting opinions. The problem will be this - over the years, C1 has developed from a relatively efficient converter to a jack of all trades without the core procedures being adapted to the circumstances. The market today demands work simplification, intelligent algorithms that cover almost every eventuality (see LR with background blur). As a SW developer, you are forced to actually map these functions optimally, but due to the evolved structure of the entire program, these effects now exist that we experience every day.
The hardware is becoming faster, the compilers are becoming more efficient, the code for the hardware is so efficient that even in machine language (assembler) only small speed advantages can be achieved.
Another criterion is that today's software does not run exclusively on a modern operating system, but many, many tasks have to share the processor time and therefore performance suffers.
Furthermore, the code should also run optimally on different hardware structures (Apple silicon, Intel) and this is exactly where IMO the problem of C1 has been over the years.
Intelligent adjustments in graphics support (Open GL, Metal) and use of the GPU efficiently programmed can bring immense speed advantages. This hasn't happened in the past for many updates.
So what is the result of C1 today - a bloated program that thinks it has leased the hardware exclusively for itself and is not even making optimal use of it.
What would be my conclusion - optimize the core of the RAW converter to the hardware, completely redesign the DAM and integrate every additional options (HDR, panorama, NR .....) as a plug-in. You can choose it or leave it.
The performance of C1 will become significantly worse with every update that promises new functionality and the gray hairs will increase significantly.Greetings
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I see no issues with loading images or adjusting parameters, both are reasonably fast here – on a MacBook Pro M1 Max 64GB (most of my image files are 35-60 mb and located on an SSD, internal and external). The performance issues I experience are with catalogue/database handling, i.e. Capture One regularly becoming unresponsive with larger catalogues, even with insignificant actions such as switching tool tabs.
Assuming that a computer that was twice as fast as my current computer would reduce the unresponsiveness by 50%, this still wouldn't solve the problem. Up to 30 seconds' unresponsiveness when switching tool tabs would still be unreasonable, as would 10 seconds' unresponsiveness when performing a simple search.
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Thomas, now I see what you mean. I think the unresponsiveness with tab switching and searching are two different problems. The former is a conflict of the code with your setup and the latter is just inefficient coding.
Some iterations back whenever I tried to edit my keywords, the beachball spun forever and I had to force quit Capture One. Speeding up the computer will not shorten forever or meaningfully nearly forever. I have not observed the specific unresponsiveness you have with my 65K+ catalog on either my Mac Studio or previously iMac Pro. In fact, I have not seen any such problems as my catalog grew from 20K images to 65K. The support folks would be deeply interested in what is going on with your system and installation.
As to the delays when searching, this is not a the sort of software petit mal seizure you describe when changing tool tabs. With Capture One, a lot depends on the search structure. Searching on a particular parameter, like a keyword or a few keywords, is much faster than searching on any occurrence of a word in any parameter field, which appears to require an inefficient iterative process where Capture One searches each parameter one after the next. Capture One is not going to qualify for competition in the search olympics. In fact, any time Capture One has to examine the entire catalog (backup, show All Images, Search), it is slower than the last version of Aperture running on Lion with my old intel Mac Pro. This is where faster computers reduce the wait time, but do nothing for code that sends them down blind alleys.
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I agree that unresponsiveness with tab switching and searching are likely to be two different problems, but in my experience none of them occur with small catalogues, only with larger catalogues, so at least they have this in common. Also with a larger catalogues, Capture One always becomes unresponsive the first and sometimes also the second time I hover over a style; with a small catalogue I see no such unresponsiveness.
As for my setup, I've seen the same unresponsiveness across many different catalogues and different versions of Capture One. I've tried erasing the internal hard drive in my computer and reinstalling everything (not just restoring a backup, but manually reinstalling everything), and it was exactly the same. So right away I doubt that my specific setup is to blame. Though there could of course be something that I've overlooked.
I've been in contact with support about this for a long time, and I've sent them all the data and documentation I could think of, but the only explanation I've been able to get out of them is that Capture One isn't optimized for larger catalogues, and as they aren't planning to do anything about it, the only thing to do is to split up larger catalogues into smaller catalogues. So now I've split up my previous catalogue, 65k+ like yours, into smaller catalogues, the largest of which now contains 28k+ images, and I see exactly the same unresponsiveness with this catalogue, only for shorter durations.
As for unresponsiveness when editing keywords, as you mention, I see this too, but usually only with the first such edit after opening Capture One.
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You are suffering from a problem people like me are not seeing. I think if this were common or even typical of certain support requests, it would get prioritized. Most of us do not have problems with large catalogs. The limitations Capture One have not gotten worse as my catalog has grown. The fact that you are having serious problems other do not could be considered a sentinel event -- something that no one anticipated could happen as a result of multiple unpredicted factors interacting in a unique way. In a way, it signals a software/computer interaction waiting to happen on a larger scale, which is why I think the support staff would be justified in investigating it instead of telling you that Capture One does not work well with large catalogs. This would not be an explanation, it is an excuse. And it would simply not an accurate one -- there are many users with 100k catalogs or greater who do not have the problems you are having. It is also not a good excuse -- the point of a catalog is to support functions that are global, like searching, culling out color coded or starred images, organizing images into projects and albums. Making you break it up into bite-sized portions defeats its purpose.
An effective solution to your problem might prevent a bigger problem down the line.
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I agree completely, having to divide a catalogue up into several smaller catalogues makes organizing and locating images unnecessarily difficult and time consuming.
The reply I ended up getting from support seemed very much like a way of brushing me off so they wouldn't have to deal with the issue. I had hoped they would at least have been able to say something more specific about the cause of the issue.
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They may be betting you are the only one in the universe to whom this is happening. This could be true if it were a RAM problem in your computer. If so, they might have suggested that and suggested trying it on another computer. Ultimately, if it is a problem with the code being unable to support a particular hardware configuration, it could be a canary in their coding mine or worse, a mine in their code that might or might not show up in beta testing.
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@ Jerry C
It's almost presumptuous to explain to the customer that he has to split the catalogs once they reach a certain size and at the same time demand almost €200 for a software update. The catalog problem is the result of an evolved database structure (SQL) that cannot cope with the requirements of a comprehensive search query. The support department knows exactly the limitations of its application, but has to reassure the customer and at the same time has to offer unsatisfactory solutions.
I don't feel like dividing my 120k+ catalog into sub-catalogs because many of my searches only work successfully across the entire library.
We have had this discussion for many releases and nothing changes. If an IMAC with 128GB RAM and 4TB SSD takes several tens of seconds for a search query, then it is a problem with the application and nothing else. And if it works for many users and not for others, then the application is programmed sloppily!
My opinion.1 -
I may be the only. Though I have seen Capture One users write about various sorts of unresponsiveness, I haven't seen anything completely similar mentioned.
Unresponsiveness when searching, on the other hand, seems to be a general issue. I assume fixing it would require a lot of work replacing legacy code.
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I agree. What good is a catalog if it cannot be efficiently searched? Anything but a very simple search for a single entry in a metadata field on the entire database is frustratingly slow. Fixing it probably requires a whole new database structure aside from better coding.
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Just a short addition. Regarding unresponsiveness the first time you hover over a style after opening Capture One, I'm not the only one who has this issue – see this topic: As you pause your cursor over each style, Capture One freezes.
As mentioned above, I only see this with larger catalogues.
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I do not have these problems with my 65,000+ image catalogue. Hovering over styles and moving the mouse from style to style is instantaneous without any delays. Details are in this post:
Are you running 3rd party enhancements in the background and if so, could these interfere with Capture One as it gets larger?
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(I've replied here: As you pause your cursor over each style, Capture One freezes.)
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