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IMPORT PRESETS: Preset for Imports

Comments

13 comments

  • woefi

    +1

    If you have different clients and put the footage in each ones catalog, you obviously need to switch around the import settings every time you return to work for the other client.

    Maybe _some_ clients have the same naming scheme and just another "root" folder, but some other ones need, maybe shorter file names or folder structure that is flatter.

    In Lr Classic I always had the option to save the import setting under a choosen name, to quickly switch all settings with one click. This goes back, maybe, fifteen years ago?

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  • Brian Jordan

    Are you using Sessions or a Catalog?

    If sessions (which seems from the brief comments to be the more appropriate), this is already possible.  Create a Session template with all the folders, favorites, etc. set as you like.  Use this template for your next session and everything will be set as you want.  You can create as many sessions templates as you want.

    Import tags have their own button on the import window. Save User Presets at bottom right.  Set your tokens as you want and save them.  1-click recall.

    What else are you looking to save as this "preset"?

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  • woefi

    Brian Jordan

    Honest question: ist this the reason that we still don't have this functionality in catalog based workflows? Because: "just use sessions"? 

    I have to admit, coming from Lr, my starting point was always catalogs, and only recently started using sessions a bit. While sessions may be very convenient for some temporary workflows, can we have a little convenience for catalogs as well?

    • First: save the last import settings WITH the catalog, so if loading another catalog, it defaults to use the last import settings of the ACTIVE catalog NOT the last import dialog the app used.
    • Second: add a "master preset" button on top (or bottom) of the import dialog to recall/save all settings, paths, naming schemes with ONE click.
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  • Brian Jordan

    First up, I’m not affiliated with Capture One. So no inside info on why we have X but not Y.

    I asked if OP uses Sessions because there’s functionality there that doesn’t exist in Catalogs. Some of that functionality may address the request. I was also pointing my question at OP but, as I’m posting from mobile, I cannot address them directly.

    As to “I came from LR”, I, too, came from LR. I struggled quite a lot with CR in my early days because LR didn’t do *this* thing *that* way. Finally I reset my Capture One workspace back to default (I’d shoehorned it into this LR-esque approximation) and went back to square one. I sat aside what I knew about workflows in LR and actually learned Capture One. This book helped a lot. https://rawcaptureguide.com/ Your mileage may vary but I feel safe in thinking that you’ll find things in Capture One that you didn’t know existed.

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  • woefi

    Sorry, Brian Jordan, the Moderator badge led me to believe you actually had deeper connection with CO.

    Yes, I too, have "reset" many of my workflows and let fresh air in, to work efficiently with CaptureOne. It's always good to be open minded about new software and potentially better ways to do things. That's why I tried sessions and appreciate its existence as a plus of CO over Lr.

    But you would not really say that everyone now should use sessions who previously worked with catalogs, would you?

    As I see it, catalogs are a more "permanent" solution for footage you come back later in the years to work on and reuse the images. Sessions are a rather temporary approach for single shootings before you finally move them to your catalog. (as even David Grover describes in this older article)

    Nevertheless, I think as the OP argues, catalogs deserve a more flexible import dialog with master presets.

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  • Brian Jordan

    woefi

    No problem.  It's a reasonable mistake to make.  That's why I try to point it out from time to time.

    Sessions?  Nope.  Definitely not for everyone.  But I also don't see Sessions as a stand-alone, either-or completely independent of Catalogs.  Of course I have my family catalog that all that stuff gets sucked into but pretty much everything else starts life in a Session.  I do my winnowing and editing there then suck everything that makes the cut into a catalog.  Sessions get archived just in case but I seldom if ever need to refer back them.  Any "keeper" images get pulled into my main catalog which is foldered by year.  I feel like this gives me a more streamlined catalog containing images of moderate to high importance while everything else is shuttled off to an archive disk.

    As to metadata, I freely admit that I use a 3rd party for all** metadata maintenance.  Basic copyright info comes in from the camera and is imbedded in the raw image.  I don't use Capture One for any metadata.  Previously I've used PhotoMechanic.  Recently trialed Excire.  Switched to it wholesale just a week or so ago.  It does pollute the keyword file quite a lot but it also adds keywords that I've begun to find helpful - and that I never thought to add.  So there's good and bad.  I do wish Capture One would up their game but I fear that's not sexy enough from a marketing standpoint to warrant the deep development I'd need to see to step away from a 3rd party.

    **Edit:  Star and color tags and filenames are maintained through Capture One.  Keywords, IPTC, everything else is managed by Excire (previously PhotoMechanic).  Maybe I should note also that filenames contain the original image date so it's easy for me to refer back to the original session if I need to.  A client can simply give me the date of the shoot or I can look at an image name from my catalog and quickly reference back to the session if I maybe decided I wanted to dig a little deeper for more images from that shoot.

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  • woefi

    Kevin Robbins did you get any feedback from CaptureOne about this request? Or are you using sessions

    I'm begging for 3 years for this to be added.

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  • Kevin Robbins

    I use sessions and I also use templates, but my understanding is that Templates save folder structure, albums, and collections. I would like to save naming schema, presets to apply on import, saving location, etc.

    Also, I would like to have this at the IMPORT stage not the Session creation stage. I would like my Import presets to be selectable everytime I import into a session or catalogue, not matter what that session or catalogue is. I shouldn't have to create a new session or catalogue to change the import presets.

    Why?

    Let's say I'm working on a SINGLE PROJECT at multiple locations in multiple cities and I use those locations frequently enough to want to keyword them and change the description on import, instead of having to manually change them or create separate sessions for the same project.

    If session templates save import information, that is news to me, but I might do some testing and make a video about it.

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  • Walter Rowe
    Moderator
    Top Commenter

    You can create naming templates and using them during import. You can create metadata presets including keywords and apply them during import.

    You cannot create different "sets" of all these things that you configure in a single selection to use for different scenarios – set up Capture One for fashion, set up Capture One for product work, set up Capture One for Client XYZ, etc.

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  • woefi

    Walter Rowe

    You cannot create different "sets" of all these things that you configure in a single selection

    Exactly.

    I imagine this would be so simple to implement from a technical point of view because it seems to only affect the UI and no underlying database structure. I wonder what's blocking this...

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  • woefi

    ... it's literally the equivalent functionality to output recipes: you make just one selection and it sets up all the underlying parameters at once.

    scratching my head.

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  • Walter Rowe
    Moderator
    Top Commenter

    I imagine it is not as simple in reality as it seems in concept. So many of the tools have "recent history" they remember and they default to the last value in the import dialog.

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  • woefi

    default to the last value in the import dialog

    Alternatively, this would be the next best solution for me: if these settings would be remembered LAST USED PER CATALOG not per app.

    So I would have Catalog#1 remembering that I put all my photos in "Client#1 / YYYY-MM-DD"
    and Catalog#2 defaulting to "Client#2 / YYYY / YYYY-MM / YYYY-MM-DD
    and Catalog#3 remembering its last used "Client#3 / <insert_keyword>

    Well, but this, I would imagine, would require that these settings would be saved inside the catalog SQL, which would require adding keys/tables to the DB-file, so maybe the original idea was easier to implement... but who knows.

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