Generate Preview Question C1 20

SFA

January 09, 2020 17:48

All the Previews should be generated and saved in their base form and at the size specified in Preferences as part of the Import process.

HOWEVER C1 works by preloading the selected files (i.e. say a Folder's worth if that is the way your ar selecting images) into memory, taking a hit when selecting the files with the intent of making operation smoother and faster once everything is available in RAM (assuming sufficient RAM of course!)

The Preview is a base file onto which C1 will tack some additional data as it loads - like the specific edit data for a variant or the settings related to an Output Recipe.

Much of this will indeed be possible in the background and one can, potentially, start editing work on any files already loaded and made presentable as the task completes. However it's best to take into account the total load (all applications) on your system and decide whether to dive in or just wait a while until preparation is complete.

How quickly the files load depends on a number of factors including whether or not C1needs to resize them, up or down, to suit your native monitor resolution.

If you are opening all images in a very large catalogue things may take some time. A smaller subset in a folder or album - maybe not so long.

Personally I don't see the point of opening a huge catalogue every time I want to view an edit a few new images. So I use sessions and keep the numbers down.

HTH.

Grant

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Glauco Castro

January 10, 2020 03:22

Thanks Grant!

So, I have a relative good machine. It's a i7 7700k running at 4.7mhz. It has 64gb of RAM and a M2 SSD. My catalog is in a RAID10 drive, though, that runs directly on the motherboard (no NAS connect to my computer). Oh, and I just upgraded my graphic card to a RX 580, with 8GB of RAM. Eventhough I have a good graphic card, I still have two monitors running full hd. I intend to buy a 4k monitor, but I still don't have it.

Indeed, my catalog is big. I have 87k images in it. But I'm a wedding photographer, and this last wedding has 9k photos. As I come from Lightroom (R.I.P.), this is the way that makes sense to me (use catalogs, not sessions). Acctually, in LR I used to have one catalog per job, but when it was done, I would import this job catalog to a master catalog, which has all my photos. If it's faster, I could do the same in C1.

As I'm coming from LR, comparisons are inevitable. In LR, when you import your photos to the catalog, you have the option to generate smart previews or 1:1 previews (much slower). Yes, I know, they created this functionality because LR is slow as hell. But when I saw C1 generating previews only when I'm inside the folder where my photos are, it was strange to me. For example, in this wedding I'm editing, I have the wedding folder, three subfolder (three photographers), each photographer with two cameras, so each photographer folder has two subfolder, and each camera folder has subfolders generated by the camera (remember, each folder in the card can support up to 1000 images). I know, it's a lot of folders. But it's temporary. After I select my photos, I move the selected ones to a new folder called selected and the rejected ones to a rejected folder. In the end, I`ll have only the wedding folder with two subfolders, selected and rejected. In LR it's quite easy to be done, as I can select a parent folder and browse all it's subfolders. For example, if I click in my folder, I'll see all photos taken by me, no matter how many cameras I have or how many subfolders my cameras have created. But in C1, I have to click in each folder where the photos are. And that's where the generating previews is a problem. As the previews are generated only for the photos within the selected folder, I have to click the folder, wait for C1 to generate the previews, then click the other folder, wait the for the previews, etc.

Anyway, all I wanted was to have my photos loading faster so I could get to work faster.

BTW, my previews are set to 1280px.

Thanks again.

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SFA

January 10, 2020 04:44

It's early morning here and I should get to sleep .. but ...

If I were you (and I do shoot events but not weddings) I would use a session and then upload to your master catalogue (if needed) when the job is complete.

Do do as you did with LR and have a separate catalogue for each wedding.

I cannot think of a good reason for carrying the load of tens of thousands on images whose time has come and gone when working exclusively on a current project.

You may want to consider generating the Previews a little larger depending on the native resolution of your screens. You can set the preview to be a different size in the Preferences but the normal advice is to choose the size that is native to you main screen. Previews are generated at time of import but the preview and thumbnail processing usually will take a little longer than the basic import process.

If you set the default smaller you save a little disk space but C1 will likely feel a need to enlarge it before displaying at "view" settings. If you set the size larger it may be necessary to process the images to compress them to show at "view" size in the viewer.

Best to not have that extra processing until you actually open a file for edit and want to see the results at a different zoom ratio.

I would be VERY cautious about using a 4K screen and I suspect that working with screens of different resolutions may not be good for guaranteed performance.

You can see all of the images in a catalogue or session using the "All Images" option. Probably best to avoid that with an 87k catalogue.

If your have regular groupings you use check out the options for file naming on import, auto creation of named folders on import and then consider option for predefined Smart Albums that give you the sort of folder and subfolder views you are used to. (I can think of some reasons why the "drill down through all subfolders" functionality could be a pain but that's for a different time.)

I think, with a little bit of planning and experimentation, you can probably find some advantages from the Import functionality (Catalogue or Session ) that at the least balances out the feeling of loss from the lack of folder drill down.

The previews will have been created during import. However they are loaded (in so far as the system configuration can support the numbers of files) when you open a folder or a smart album, an album or All Images.

The base Preview file will then have current edit settings applied to it for that file (or indeed the Variants for that file if that should apply) before being fully displayed. This will normally be happening in memory in the background as you work depending upon what you are doing.

For example if you choose an Output Recipe that has a watermark visible the view of the images currently selected will be amended so that as you view them the watermark is visible. This does not regenerate the preview file on disk but is does change what is in memory and displayed on the screen.

There is more that could be discussed but I have to stop here for now.

I hope I have provided some suggestions that give you some potential insight to possibilities.

Grant

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Glauco Castro

January 10, 2020 15:05

Hi Grant. You sure did!!! Thank you! If you don't mind, as I'm a novice with C1, I'd like to extend a little more to this conversation.

So, you said some interesting things. First is a doubt that I really have about using monitors with different resolutions. You see, I'd really like to use a 4k monitor as I shoot with a D850 (46MP). I think I could benefit from a monitor with a higher resolution. But I can't afford to buy two 4k monitors, so I would keep my Full HD monitors. I don't think it would be a problem for the hardware itself, but I really don't know how the software would behave.

Another thing you said is about having a huge catalog, with thousands of photos but just to work with a few. Yes, it really doesn't make much sense, but I do need a catalog with all my photos, after all, that's the reason why we use catalogs in the first place, right? I don't mind working with one catalog per job and then importing it to the master catalog, as I already did it in LR. If the import process works fine in C1 (if it imports everything, metadata and edits), and it will improve performance, I can do it with no problems! I'll give it a try. I'll also change the size of the previews. Actually, I've changed to 1280px because I read in another thread someone saying that we don't need to generate the preview with the same size as the monitor resolution, because the area we use to see the photo is smaller, as we have all the tabs, menus, etc. But it makes sense to generate the preview in Full HD. Disk space isn't a problem.

Now, the most important part, that is where I'm still struggling, is the folder part in the catalog. That's where I'm still looking for the best workflow, which I haven't find yet. I'll have to study some more the import process to try to find a way to create those smart albums that will help me browse my photos more easily because I have to confess that the way I'm doing today is a pain in the ass. If you could elaborate a little more about what you would do regarding this matter, it would help me a lot.

Once again, thank you very much.

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Ian Leslie

January 10, 2020 15:12

I have been using both sessions and a catalogue. I posted about how I setup my sessions here:
[The Capture One forum has migrated to a new platform, as a result all links to Capture One related postsstopped working and have been removed]

Basically when I first finish a "job" (either a real job or a personal photo outing) I create a session. That lets me work on the photos easily on my notebook if I want to. After I'm done I move the session (and the photos) to their final location and import them into my catalogue. I'm pretty happy with the work flow.

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Glauco Castro

January 10, 2020 17:20

Interesting approuch Ian. I'll study it and give it a try.

Thanks.

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SFA

January 10, 2020 17:53

NNN636478045173271496 wrote:
Hi Grant. You sure did!!! Thank you! If you don't mind, as I'm a novice with C1, I'd like to extend a little more to this conversation.

So, you said some interesting things. First is a doubt that I really have about using monitors with different resolutions. You see, I'd really like to use a 4k monitor as I shoot with a D850 (46MP). I think I could benefit from a monitor with a higher resolution. But I can't afford to buy two 4k monitors, so I would keep my Full HD monitors. I don't think it would be a problem for the hardware itself, but I really don't know how the software would behave.

Another thing you said is about having a huge catalog, with thousands of photos but just to work with a few. Yes, it really doesn't make much sense, but I do need a catalog with all my photos, after all, that's the reason why we use catalogs in the first place, right? I don't mind working with one catalog per job and then importing it to the master catalog, as I already did it in LR. If the import process works fine in C1 (if it imports everything, metadata and edits), and it will improve performance, I can do it with no problems! I'll give it a try. I'll also change the size of the previews. Actually, I've changed to 1280px because I read in another thread someone saying that we don't need to generate the preview with the same size as the monitor resolution, because the area we use to see the photo is smaller, as we have all the tabs, menus, etc. But it makes sense to generate the preview in Full HD. Disk space isn't a problem.

Now, the most important part, that is where I'm still struggling, is the folder part in the catalog. That's where I'm still looking for the best workflow, which I haven't find yet. I'll have to study some more the import process to try to find a way to create those smart albums that will help me browse my photos more easily because I have to confess that the way I'm doing today is a pain in the ass. If you could elaborate a little more about what you would do regarding this matter, it would help me a lot.

Once again, thank you very much.

For the monitor question I think, based on what I have read rather than experience, you have to consider the challenges for the hardware first - notably the GPU. The way that C1 works means that for 2 different resolutions all calculations have to consider 2 completely different processing paths for all data being sent to screen. Also a 4k screen has to handle a lot more data. And whatever preview size you set the default file is likely to be under size or oversize for one of the screens, resulting in recalculation every time.

I would exercise caution.

Re the Folders consideration...

what would be your ideal optionS for working through a shoot by grouping images.

Note optionS - because in my opinion it is likely that no single set of HIERARCHICAL folder structure will provide what you could use and to "Smart" options must be part of the answer.

So you have first the Event.

If more than one day is Day the next level down? Then Photographer?

Or maybe Photographer then Day?

Is camera important? (Might help to speed up processing if sets of images are by camera?

Lens?

Location on site?

Time of day?

Flash or not? (Would it help to be able to group shots that used flash?)

In the import tool take a look at the "Import to" section and in that, or this part of the discussion, the Sub-Folder line.

Click on the ... icon to the right of that line to get some ides of what is available to automate the allocation of images to folders during the import process. (Naming files has much the same sort of potential).

Let's start with that and see whare it takes us.

Grant

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Glauco Castro

January 10, 2020 22:42

Great questions Grant!

About the 4k monitor, I'm aware that my GPU isn't the best one, but I think it's good enough for what I'd like to use. Anyway, now that you brought up this subject, I'll ask a friend to lend me his 4k monitor to test before buying!

Now, about the catalog. This is how I was working in LR.

I work with 3 photographers. I organize my folders as

Photos
- Wedding
- Client X
- Wedding Day
- Photographer A
- Camera 1
- Folder1
- Folder2
- Folder...
- Camera 2
- Folder1
- Folder2
- Folder...
- Photographer B
- ...
- Photographer C
- ...

1) When I'm culling, I select by photographer. So, I would click on folder Photographer A and see all his photos. From there, I would start selecting the photos I want (In LR, I would use Pick flag. In C1 I'm using 1 star).

2) After selecting all the files from all the photographers, I would create a Selected folder in Photos > Wedding > Client X > Wedding Day > Selected and move all selected files in there, no matter who it is and what camera took the photo. Then, I would create a folder called Rejected in the same structure (Photos > Wedding > Client X > Wedding Day > Rejected) and move all rejected files in there (no star).

3) After selecting all the photos, I would start editing those photos, but now I would filter by camera (I'm already doing it in C1 too).

So, my "problem" today is with step 1, because I have to click in each subfolder to see its content and select the files.

Regarding the importing process, first I create the folder structure in windows explorer until the photographer's camera (Photos > Wedding > Client X > Wedding Day > Photographer A > Camera 1). Then, still using windows explorer, I copy all the cards inside there. I do the same with all the cards/photographers. After copying the files, then I go to C1 and import using current location. Even in LR I'd never used the import copy option to copy the files from the card to the folder. I always copy before importing.

So, this is how I used to work in LR. If I could do something similar in C1, it would be great. But I'm open to other ideas/workflows.

Once again, thank you very much!

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Glauco Castro

January 10, 2020 23:05

Oh, I just remembered another thing that I'm used to do in LR.

I have many events in a wedding. So, in my previews example, the final folder structure would be like this:

Photos
.....Wedding
.........Client X
..............Pre Wedding
..................Selected
..................Rejected
..............Wedding Day
..................Selected
..................Rejected
..............Bridal Session
..................Selected
..................Rejected

So, after finishing the work, I would click on Client X folder, so I could see all its photos (selected and rejected), filter only those with a color tag (that I have already tagged) and export to deliver to the client. With C1, I would have to click on each Selected folder to export those photos.

Thanks,
Glauco Castro

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Ian Leslie

January 11, 2020 21:38

Check out projects: https://support.captureone.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002516677-Virtual-organization-of-images

You can create a project for Client X and create groups for the events and albums under that for the various selected and rejected and then create a single smart album that will show all colour tagged images in the project - which under a project will be restricted to just the one client's images.

Or without using projects, groups you could also set the Job Name to Client X and then create a smart album that shows images with Client X job name and your colour tag to find just the ones you want to export.

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SFA

January 14, 2020 04:10

Looking at your folder hierarchy lists for the previous posts I have been pondering whether there might be a perfect solution to propose but I suspect that it would need your detailed understanding of your requirements to even begin to attempt that so I have noted IanL's comments ans would add some ideas that should work in conjunction with those concepts (in catalogues) and in the slightly different options available for Sessions.

Without taking the time to re-do all of the indents to represent the hierarchy I take it that, potentially, you could have a folder structure as complicated as this: (In reality perhaps not but let's look at worst case.

Photos
.....Wedding
.........Client X
..............Pre Wedding

- Photographer A
- Camera 1
- Folder1
- Folder2
- Folder...
- Camera 2
- Folder1
- Folder2
- Folder...
- Photographer B
- ...
- Photographer C
- ...
..................Selected
..................Rejected

..............Wedding Day

- Photographer A
- Camera 1
- Folder1
- Folder2
- Folder...
- Camera 2
- Folder1
- Folder2
- Folder...
- Photographer B
- ...
- Photographer C
- ...
..................Selected
..................Rejected

..............Bridal Session

- Photographer A
- Camera 1
- Folder1
- Folder2
- Folder...
- Camera 2
- Folder1
- Folder2
- Folder...
- Photographer B
- ...
- Photographer C
- ...
..................Selected
..................Rejected

I would imagine that the interest for the hoot in your folder structure comes in at the Client folder. A will also assume that for weddings you might treat any repeat business from the same client as "new" client.

So importing the images would be to a Catalog or Session created in the Client Folder.

So in that folder, one way or another, C1 will create a Capture Folder, Selects Folder, Rejects Folder and an Output Folder by default. There will be "actual" folders and the virtual folders that act as links to the physical folders which are what can be seen in the Library tool.

In the Capture Folder you might then want to see 3 subfolders for Pre-Wedding, Wedding Day and Bridal Session if and when they or shot.

Simple to do at the time of import of a set of images.

The next level would seem to be Photographer.

If the Photographer had some personal information set in the camera that will be included in the imported metadata this can be used to create a sub folder during the import process. Likewise if their cameras have unique identifiers (Make, Model and serial number come to mind but they may also be given "names" of some sort, then that information should be available for automatic sub-folder creation on import.

For folder 1, Folder 2, etc. there may also be potential for automating folder creation and naming but without knowing what you might want to do there I would suggest that at least some sort of data and time naming might be useful for the folders.

Similarly you might want to do something along the same line aith file naming at this point to give multiple possibilities for managing the files.

Selected and reject folder might be something you want at each subfolder deepest level and that is of course possible. However looking at IanL's observations and considering things with potential naming flexibility and metadata filtering usage I'm wondering whether the simple select/reject options could be held higher up in the folder structure.

You have options to move the files to selects and rejects via keyboard short cuts and any folder can be designated as the current Selects folder or Rejects Folder in order to facilitate retention and use of the whatever structure you choose to set.

Furthermore if you establish a "standard" structure that you expect to use repeatedly you can save it as a template to be used when creating a Session or a NEW catalogue.

The template option may not be available if creating a shoot folder in an existing Catalogue. Perhaps someone has a work around for that but in all honest I would suggest creating a new session or catalog for each wedding (in the case of weddings) and adding the results to a master catalogue, if required, once everything is complete.

Whether your really need the "Photographer" folders and the lower folder levels under them I'm not sure.

For getting the job processed and delivered I would suggest NOT but the way you work with the individual photographers may dictate that the extended structure it the best way for you at this time.

I'll leave things there for now to see what you think.

We can discuss albums, smart albums and filters along with IanL's suggestions once you have had a chance to consider the ideas proposed so far and how you feel about them.

In case you have not experienced it for more about Automatic Folder creation and naming on Import see the Import Tool "Import To" tool section and or File naming in import check the Naming section.

Both of them offer token and free format text based naming options.

HTH.

Grant

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BeO

January 21, 2020 19:58

Ian, Grant,

The last time I evaluated to use a catalog of imported sessions was with version 8 I think.

If I remember correctly... What did not work at that time is to search over all images/filter/create smart albums across all sessions.

Each job/session in the main catalog is encapsulated if you will, and the catalog is not more than a dumb container for sessions.

Did this change meanwhile? I would like to work with smaller projects, the current ones, session or catalog I don't mind, but in the end, after inporting the finished projects into the main catalog I want the full "smart" funtionality as if I would have imported all Images directly into the main catalog in the first place.

Thanks, BeO

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Ian Wilson

Moderator

January 21, 2020 20:07

BeO wrote:
Ian, Grant,

The last time I evaluated to use a catalog of imported sessions was with version 8 I think.

If I remember correctly... What did not work at that time is to search over all images/filter/create smart albums across all sessions.

Each job/session in the main catalog is encapsulated if you will, and the catalog is not more than a dumb container for sessions.

Did this change meanwhile? I would like to work with smaller projects, the current ones, session or catalog I don't mind, but in the end, after inporting the finished projects into the main catalog I want the full "smart" funtionality as if I would have imported all Images directly into the main catalog in the first place.

Thanks, BeO

If you import the contents of your sessions into your catalog (or in may case, just the good images - I import the Selects folders) you should be able to search across them all. If you want to find absolutely all images taken in Paris, for example, you need to start by being in the All Images collection. Then you can filter for all images with Paris as a keyword, for instance, and also create an album or a smart album with the results. On the other hand you can also filter on subsets of your images. I have a smart album with about 5000 pictures of birds in it. If I select that first rather than All Images, I could then find all the bird images shot in Paris.

The whole reason I work with a catalog in the end (starting off with sessions) is so that I can search and classify images from many various times and places.

It is one of the strengths of a catalog.

Ian
(a different Ian)

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BeO

January 21, 2020 20:54

Hi Ian The Different,
😊

I use a catalog all the time for that reason, so I know this part. I would like to use sessions until I finished a project (2020 winter birding trip to Paris) and then import my variants to the catalog including keywords and all adjustments, raw files referenced, deleting the session folders completely. Theres is also a move of the raw files needed as the catalog, the adjustments folder and raw files reside in a different drive. The session should only exist temporarily, on a working drive, for culling and editing.
In the end I want the good images of all my birding trips to all capital cities during the last 10 years in that catalog and be able to search, as you replied, across them all.
Your reply is encouraging so I might give it fresh try.

Thanks
BeO

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Jerry C

January 22, 2020 04:34

There are several references above to folders in catalogs (I am not referring to folders in sessions). When referring to folders, can I presume you all are referring to folders on media (SSD, HD), not items in the user collections (groups, within which can be projects, albums and smart albums) that may have icons that look folder-like, but are not what C1 refers to as folders?

Jerry C

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BeO

January 22, 2020 04:43

NN635680879799322049UL wrote:
There are several references above to folders in catalogs (I am not referring to folders in sessions). When referring to folders, can I presume you all are referring to folders on media (SSD, HD), not items in the user collections (groups, within which can be projects, albums and smart albums) that may have icons that look folder-like, but are not what C1 refers to as folders?

Jerry C

As far as I am concerned, yes.

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Ian Leslie

January 22, 2020 19:03

BeO wrote:
In the end I want the good images of all my birding trips to all capital cities during the last 10 years in that catalog and be able to search, as you replied, across them all.
Your reply is encouraging so I might give it fresh try.

This is pretty much they way I work. In fact I have a tweak to the way I setup sessions so that I don't have a Selects sub folder under each of my projects / shoots. Check out my explanation here: [The Capture One forum has migrated to a new platform, as a result all links to Capture One related postsstopped working and have been removed]

When I import into my catalogue the files do not move on the HD and the catalogue does create a project for the new session which you can certainly use to keep the feel of just working on the session files - I think anyway I have not used it but they are all there in my catalogue. They way I look at them are in the library. From there I can drag and drop them into the albums I want or they automatically appear in the smart albums I have at the top level of the catalogue. etc. Just like you would expect.

Ian
(yet another Ian - how many are there anyway 😉

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BeO

January 23, 2020 22:29

Hi Yet Another Ian,
😄

Thanks. So I have a question: After you have imported a session into the catalog, can you still adjust your Captures and Select images? Can you define one output folder for the catalog instead of using the session output folders?

Don't want to bother you, I can figure out the whole setup by myself which I would like to do anyway, just not in the next time.

Thanks
BeO

EDIT:
If I understand correctly, a session will always have its special folders and files "nearby" the raw files, in other words the raw files are located within the sessions' folder structure, even if imported into a catalog.

I think what Iike about a normal catalog is the fact that I can have the raw files completely decoupled from the catalog and adjustments for two reasons:

1. I can move them around independently, e.g. catalog & adjustments on a very fast M2 NVME card and the raw folder structure and files on another disk, or even on a NAS (which I had in the beginning but not very fast; networks and NAS will get speedier though in the future)

2. If I want to switch to another raw converter, or DAM, or just want to develop one or the other raw file with another raw converter, and who know which it will be and what kind of files it will write where, I might end up with even more folders or additional files from this other converter, in other words mess up my "pure" raw folder hirarchy.

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Ian Leslie

January 25, 2020 20:41

BeO wrote:

Thanks. So I have a question: After you have imported a session into the catalog, can you still adjust your Captures and Select images?

Edit the images, yes. Move them between the selects folder and the captures folder, yes although I don't think the menu commands "Move to Selects" or "Move to Capture" will be there. You can drag and drop them between the folders though. Once you have imported a session into a catalogue you can / should no longer edit them from the session - see below.

BeO wrote:
Can you define one output folder for the catalog instead of using the session output folders?

No idea. I do not like my output to be inside my catalogue or my sessions. So my recipes put them in a completely separate folder and they are never in my catalogue or my sessions.

BeO wrote:

If I understand correctly, a session will always have its special folders and files "nearby" the raw files, in other words the raw files are located within the sessions' folder structure, even if imported into a catalog.

Yes, those files stick around but they are not used by the catalogue. Once you import your session the sidecar files' editing information is copied into the catalogue database. They are no longer referenced. If you open the session again
and do more editing those edits will not show up in the catalogue.

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BeO

February 06, 2020 11:19

IanL wrote:

BeO wrote:

If I understand correctly, a session will always have its special folders and files "nearby" the raw files, in other words the raw files are located within the sessions' folder structure, even if imported into a catalog.

Yes, those files stick around but they are not used by the catalogue. Once you import your session the sidecar files' editing information is copied into the catalogue database. They are no longer referenced. If you open the session again
and do more editing those edits will not show up in the catalogue.

And I assume if you edit images in the catalog the edits will not be reflected in the session's sidecar files either. Will at least the original session comask files be used for the layer masks, if you change an existing mask in the catalog?

I somehow feel this sessions within a catalog lacks some finesse. I would cheer if the following was true (please note the term "container" would be better than "catalog" as the latter somehow implies one catalog database file, as we know it from C1 or LR, but this does not necessarily be the only possible implemetation.

- Sessions can be "mounted" to a catalog. The catalog then has all the information about the session images, edits, and metadata
- images can be edited in both the catalog as well as in the session. These edits are reflected in both the catalog as well as in the session. Same for metadata and culling.
- sessions can be unmounted from the catalog. In this case all artifacts from the session and its images are removed from the catalog, but all edits to the images made from within the catalog still remain.
- you have all the DAM functionality available in the catalog over all currently mounted images

Mounted does not necessarily mean that the session or images are "online", but that you don't have unmounted (unlinked) the session from the catalog.

Then the sessions can be moved from one catalog to another (by unmounting/ mounting), e.g. from a my-last-5-years catalog to an archive catalog, or just deleted completely by just umnounting and deleting a session. You can open a session directly and work (edit or metadataing) on this project even after it is mounted without the need to open the catalog, or you can do some over-all (images) retrospective culling, image deletion, editing or metadataing from within the catalog from which you have access to all images of all sessions.

But, as I understand the current possibilities, the timing of the session-into-catalog-import is critical; by importing you create redundant information, e.g. the edits, which are disconnected/not synchronized. Redundency is maybe not a big problem but the disconnect is, and I assume there is no function to transfer the catalog edits back to the session, right?

Regards
BeO

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SFA

February 06, 2020 12:42

There would be no logical point in most use cases I can think of for linking edits in catalogues and sessions.

Once you have the images in a Catalogue if that is you final objective there is no purpose to the session versions.

Alternatively if you have a need to keep the session active then the Catalogue should probbaly NOT be changing anythin in the session.

As a further possible consideration bear in mind that a Folder (OS file system type folder) of images and their associated subfolder of adjustments is not constrained to exist in a single session. The same folder of source images COULD be associated with more than one session. The sub folder COULD contain edit information for different C1 versions.

To some extent the same is true for Catalogues - especially catalogues using Referenced source files. The same source files could be referenced by multiple catalogues but with each catalogue holding its own edit and IPTC information.

Now I would guess that few individuals would choose to work (regularly) in such a potentially complex situation - but some might.

In a Studio situation (I'm thinking of the Enterprise version) it's just possible that it could be more likely to be deployed (I would guess - don't know for certain.)

Either way defining options controls that can be well understood by all once they have been released to the wild could be an interesting challenge.

IMO.

Grant

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BeO

February 06, 2020 14:06

Hi Grant,

I do hear you, and some obstacles would probably have to be taken care about by the software design.

How would you setup your system to achieve the following:

You want to have a fresh, small C1 container for an event, a shhot, a week of shooting, a holiday. Make your culling, metadata, edits, maybe processing on the way.

Once you are done, and back home, you want to include this event into your overall container, having access to your images let' say of the past 12 months. you also want to throw out the oldest month to an archive. Repeatedly every month.

You want to be able to access all images in this 1 year container, do further edits (maybe new variants for a new output medium).

Now, once in while you decide to do the same with all your images of cars or eagles, not only from the last 12 months but also from the last 10 years, because you want to make a photo book or exhibition of cars or eagles, taking advantage of the new NR etc. in the new C1 version.

We all know C1 is best used with small containers, session or catalogs, 10 years for a busy shooter in 1 catalog is not what you want to deal with on a day to day basis.

The new shoot I would do in a session, at home I mount it to my 12 months catalog, month end I unmount my oldest session from 1year ago, eventually mount it to an archieve catalog to be able to see if I have enough good images of cars or eagles whenever I want, and if I have I either process from both the current and the archieve catalog separetely or mount the old sessions back into the current catalog, and process the eagle images from only one catalog, which is easier, right?

See the beauty in it?

But I understand this is not for everyone.

If there was a synhronisation feature, or an optional setting determining where to store the edits, session or catalog, and the possibility to export a session from a catalog (including the edits done in the catalog), this would support such kind of workflows, anyhting better than having two places where edits are stored, not knowing from each other. And I think from an IT perspective (which you have I think), redundant and unsynchronized diverging data is not a good principle.

Now, the "wild", including me, has to remember where the latest edit was done, in the session or in the catalog, and if you happen to mix this up in all the years, which can happen - at least to me -, you will be lost.

I stay with my opinion (at least for the time being), at least with the general idea, there should be one place only, for edits and metadata, at each point in time, (and if you have a multi user environment or multi session workflow for the same images then think about locking mechanisms), plus some foolproof flexibility in moving sessions in the context of a catalog in and out.

But maybe I do not grasp the whole picture of what is possible today, and maybe the use case / workflow I have described above is already possible somehow, so I really would like to hear from you how you would set this up.

Regards
BeO

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SFA

February 06, 2020 15:37

I tend to work only in sessions.

I have a few test catalogues lying around but only for testing purposes.

I keep the session in internal drives.

When lack of space becomes a problem I copy entire sessions to a NAS (in the past just to external drives) and when satisfied of successful transfer, delete from the internal drive.

I name the session for the "event" or activity. Uusally with some indication of date if it's not a continuing "open" project.

I name the files for the session. I retain that part of the file name on output processing.

These days I use keywords and other metadata. Older images lack them and may also have used different naming conventions in their time. So combining would require some preparation effort for consistency.

Some year back there was a thread about using a catalogue as a sales aid when in the road using just the Previews in the catalog and leaving the original files at home.

Combining that idea with a "Master catalogue" it seemed to be possible to consider creating a single catalogue as a collection of all (relevant) sessions but to make use of some smaller output jpgs rather than the full images and edits. This could be a relatively small catalogue in terms of disk space requirements.

The keywords would help to find subjects. The naming convention (and other references) would make finding a session easy (should it be necessary) and reworking an image could be limited to the session.

Lack of enthusiasm for going back to undertake retrospective keywording (finding the information required being one problem) means this concept has not yet been attempted. I keep thinking of it a s a Winter Project but every winter something else seems to get in the way of addressing it properly. That and the lack of real need. It's a "nice to have" not a necessity as far as I am concerned.

Should I ever wish to go back in time and look for images by content I will think doing it by eye with what I have today would take less time than undertaking proper catalogue working made fully searchable. But that's just my personal situation.

The one thing I really don not see a point for is having an entire all time catalogue as the basis of a Working Edits library.

Why load the process with 100k potential images, for example, when you are only likely to work on 1k of them currently?

No doubt occasional exceptions would require use of the back catalogue to edit one or two older images but for every day "new" work I just don't see why so much available data redundancy is necessary.

So in summary I get the impression that my session based workflow is quite similar to yours - other than I move things to "archive" disks when space demands require it rather than on a regular monthly basis. The concpet is similar, the action trigger points different.

But I don't use the catalogue part of the process at all.

Yours use of catalogues sounds logical.

In theory you can export back to Session using EIP files and then simply creating or adding them to a session BUT personally I think that is a level of complexity that may not always be worth the effort. I would need to give it some more thought to be sure of a useful answer.

However if one selected a series of images taken over a period of time and in different sessions to create, say, a print project, I think that I would be tempted to create a catalogue or session dedicated to the Print Project. It would be less complicated than trying to coordinate stuff across multiple locations with the benefit of being self contained and archiveable. And Lockable if a catalogue.

But that is taking us a long way off the original question that started the thread!

Grant

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BeO

February 06, 2020 19:03

Thanks Grant. Yes, I took us off the path so I don't respond now although it is an interesting discussion.

Regards
BeO

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SFA

February 06, 2020 19:43

BeO wrote:
Thanks Grant. Yes, I took us off the path so I don't respond now although it is an interesting discussion.

Regards
BeO

We could start a new thread in this section of the forum ...

That said I think it is one of those subjects that, given 100 people discussing it, only 2 will use the same process and the chance are they will likely be in a relationship and have only one computer!

🤓

I think back to my Father's efforts with slides (hours spent carefully selecting, adding to cassettes, numbering, writing notes, re-framing into plastic mounts, etc. Maybe twice a year the projector would come out - especially if friends or family were visiting - and the show would occupy an hour or so. After some years it was maybe once a year.

After he passed away I cannot recall looking at them at all. Maybe once for my Mother's benefit.

I have them now. Many of the images have badly faded colour and in any case are only marginally interesting.

I have about 2 retained hours of family 8mm cine film as well. Complete with what might still be synchronised audio tape commentary. Almost completely digitised (20 mins of commentary missing due to the tape format) and re-synchronised - until a disk failure lost the file and the copy seems to have vanished. The 8mm really were not very well converted. I might try again ... but I'm not sure anyone but me would be at all interested.

I'm fairly sure that many people in the world of photography, amateur or professional, will have similar stories to tell.

Grant

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BeO

February 06, 2020 20:31

Yeah, Family Heritage. That's the way it goes...

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Thomas D.

February 07, 2020 23:30

NNN636478045173271496 wrote:
Thanks Grant!

So, I have a relative good machine. It's a i7 7700k running at 4.7mhz. It has 64gb of RAM and a M2 SSD. My catalog is in a RAID10 drive, though, that runs directly on the motherboard (no NAS connect to my computer). Oh, and I just upgraded my graphic card to a RX 580, with 8GB of RAM. Eventhough I have a good graphic card, I still have two monitors running full hd. I intend to buy a 4k monitor, but I still don't have it.

Indeed, my catalog is big. I have 87k images in it. But I'm a wedding photographer, and this last wedding has 9k photos. As I come from Lightroom (R.I.P.), this is the way that makes sense to me (use catalogs, not sessions). Acctually, in LR I used to have one catalog per job, but when it was done, I would import this job catalog to a master catalog, which has all my photos. If it's faster, I could do the same in C1.

As I'm coming from LR, comparisons are inevitable. In LR, when you import your photos to the catalog, you have the option to generate smart previews or 1:1 previews (much slower). Yes, I know, they created this functionality because LR is slow as hell. But when I saw C1 generating previews only when I'm inside the folder where my photos are, it was strange to me. For example, in this wedding I'm editing, I have the wedding folder, three subfolder (three photographers), each photographer with two cameras, so each photographer folder has two subfolder, and each camera folder has subfolders generated by the camera (remember, each folder in the card can support up to 1000 images). I know, it's a lot of folders. But it's temporary. After I select my photos, I move the selected ones to a new folder called selected and the rejected ones to a rejected folder. In the end, I`ll have only the wedding folder with two subfolders, selected and rejected. In LR it's quite easy to be done, as I can select a parent folder and browse all it's subfolders. For example, if I click in my folder, I'll see all photos taken by me, no matter how many cameras I have or how many subfolders my cameras have created. But in C1, I have to click in each folder where the photos are. And that's where the generating previews is a problem. As the previews are generated only for the photos within the selected folder, I have to click the folder, wait for C1 to generate the previews, then click the other folder, wait the for the previews, etc.

Anyway, all I wanted was to have my photos loading faster so I could get to work faster.

BTW, my previews are set to 1280px.

Thanks again.

I've a 24 Core Threadripper 3000, 128GB ECC, and a RTX 5000 and would also like to have at least half of the cores working on generating perviews, but only one image at time gets gernerated after each other.

I think i will open a case to get this solved.

I'm also working on wedding stuff.

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