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moving a specific variant into an album

James McCarthy
Hello,

I am trying to wrap my head around how CP1 v11 handles variants and albums. I have so far found that it is not possible to moved a specific Variant of a RAW file into one album and another Variant of the same RAW file into another album. CP1 just moves all the variants for that RAW file into the album(s). These are also NOT virtual but destructive in both the album as well as catalog.

Hopefully someone can offer some advice to a workflow for this scenario:

1) Imported RAW file (A)
2) Made Variant1 of file (A) with color adjustments
3) Made Variant2 of file (A) with a new crop
4) Made Variant3 of file (A) black and white

Inside "User Collections" I have the following albums: 1) Web - Color, 2) Web - Black and White and 3) Square Cropped

So I "showed" the viewer, selected the correct folder in the "Library" and found Variant1. I dragged it to album 1. However, what happens isn't what I expected. I expected Variant1 to be inside album 1. Instead, album 1 now shows (3) photos which are all the variants of file (A). So I did the same thing with Variant3 but dragged it to album 2 and again there were all 3 files of RAW file (A) and not the single Variant3 (black and white) photo which I again expected.

Why is this? And, is there a way to do what I have described above in CP1?

Thanks for you help.
2

Comments

11 comments

Date Votes
  • Stephen Christy
    I am a fairly new user of Capture One so there may be other ways of achieving what you want but it occurs to me that one way of doing it is to use colour tags. If you tag each variant with a different colour you could then create three smart albums based on the respective colour tags.

    Stephen
    0
  • SFA
    The most flexible option here with the widest capabilities would probably be the use of keywords and smart albums. Other IPTC fields could be used but keywords are likely the most portable for use with output files, etc.


    HTH.

    Grant
    0
  • Ken Bates
    NNN636440420055972050 wrote:
    Hello,

    So I "showed" the viewer, selected the correct folder in the "Library" and found Variant1. I dragged it to album 1. However, what happens isn't what I expected. I expected Variant1 to be inside album 1. Instead, album 1 now shows (3) photos which are all the variants of file (A). So I did the same thing with Variant3 but dragged it to album 2 and again there were all 3 files of RAW file (A) and not the single Variant3 (black and white) photo which I again expected.

    Why is this? And, is there a way to do what I have described above in CP1?

    Thanks for you help.


    What's worse is that if you delete the "extra" variants in a specific album, Capture One will delete that same variant in ALL albums, leaving you with no copies of that variant anywhere. Worse yet, if you do anything else after that (such as deleting the other excess variants in the other albums), there's no way to recover since you don't have multiple levels of Undo.

    I'm not sure if this is a bug or just poor software design on the part of Capture One, but it's a real problem when you want to have specific variants of an image in different albums.

    - Ken
    1
  • James McCarthy
    SFA wrote:
    The most flexible option here with the widest capabilities would probably be the use of keywords and smart albums. Other IPTC fields could be used but keywords are likely the most portable for use with output files, etc.


    Thanks!
    This is exactly what I have been doing. It's a different way of thinking for me, but so far I am adapting and somewhat liking it. I am sure as I learn how to manage my keywords better I will enjoy the filter power of CP1.
    0
  • SFA
    jamesmccarthy wrote:
    SFA wrote:
    The most flexible option here with the widest capabilities would probably be the use of keywords and smart albums. Other IPTC fields could be used but keywords are likely the most portable for use with output files, etc.


    Thanks!
    This is exactly what I have been doing. It's a different way of thinking for me, but so far I am adapting and somewhat liking it. I am sure as I learn how to manage my keywords better I will enjoy the filter power of CP1.


    There is for most people, myself included, a natural tendency toward pseudo "physical" presence of "things" in neat, well defined containers that one can visit and pick from. But we want that without the "clutter" of the contents and multiple containers.

    Relational databases and their derivatives allow this de-cluttering but only if we work with their approach if they are to offer maximised efficiency.

    It's sort of the same with data silo folders. Utterly pointless in many ways BUT if that is what you are used to (and for most it is since the cameras often deliver things that way) it is probably how all one's digital photo assets are stored. Or at least appear to be stored.

    What makes the issue most complicated is the use of multiple applications to access and manipulate the assets - unless they can function through a common asset manager. If they can - for example the asset manager allows you to pick an image and then choose which application you want to use with it - you don't need the data silo folders or any from of segregation. If they can't then you do - at least to some extent.

    The obvious exception is where you have applications that are unable to work on each other's files thus requiring the use of an intermediate file. However one could argue that although physical separation of files (even if not where they are stored) in that situation is unavoidable the use of coding - like keywords and other codes opportunities - can enable image grouping within a Digital Asset Manager that pretty much no clever system of pseudo "physical" grouping could comfortably replicate.

    The biggest downside, for most people, is the need to commit to the methods of a single DAM and the work entailed to get it to purr along as one would like with a view to using it for a very extended period. Decades, say.

    As we know the software industry and all that it consists of tends to be rather short term compared to expectations. Those "physical folders" we have come to know and love as logical filing systems seem to be one of the few things that exhibit both widespread use and longevity . That makes them potentially portable in a simple way without reliance on a complex application to extract the contents into something human understandable.

    Sometimes it's a tough call ...


    Grant
    0
  • Ian Leslie
    jamesmccarthy wrote:
    1) Imported RAW file (A)
    2) Made Variant1 of file (A) with color adjustments
    3) Made Variant2 of file (A) with a new crop
    4) Made Variant3 of file (A) black and white

    Inside "User Collections" I have the following albums: 1) Web - Color, 2) Web - Black and White and 3) Square Cropped

    So I "showed" the viewer, selected the correct folder in the "Library" and found Variant1. I dragged it to album 1. However, what happens isn't what I expected. I expected Variant1 to be inside album 1. Instead, album 1 now shows (3) photos which are all the variants of file (A). So I did the same thing with Variant3 but dragged it to album 2 and again there were all 3 files of RAW file (A) and not the single Variant3 (black and white) photo which I again expected.


    Wait what - this doesn't work? I am not at my computer but that sounds very wrong. User collections should allow you to put one variant in one collection and another in another.

    Don't get me wrong I get what you guys are talking about wrt smart collections - I use those too - but arbitrary user collections should also work as expected. And I do not think "drag one variant to a collection and all variants of the image become members of that collection" should be expected.
    1
  • James McCarthy
    IanL wrote:
    jamesmccarthy wrote:
    Don't get me wrong I get what you guys are talking about wrt smart collections - I use those too - but arbitrary user collections should also work as expected. And I do not think "drag one variant to a collection and all variants of the image become members of that collection" should be expected.


    Unfortunately it's just how it works. I have had to heavily depend on "tags" (specific to variant) inside "projects" to organize my photos. Otherwise the entire variant set will be shown.
    0
  • Ian Leslie
    I have added it to my list of feature requests 😊
    1
  • Michael Müller

    I saw that the post is already from 2 years ago, but I have the same problem now and I just wondering if this is a bug or just a poor software design on the part of Capture One?

    -1
  • FirstName LastName

    Five years after the original post and this is still a basic, fundamental, inexcusable issue.

    What gives, Capture One? What reason is there for ignoring this basic issue that makes no sense?

    This is something extremely, extremely basic that Lightroom has always done right, and is one of the reasons I continue to use Lightroom for everything except tethering (the only function where Capture One has better design).

    0
  • OddS.

    > nameless user: What gives, Capture One?

    Surprise! You are not talking to Capture One staff.

    0

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