Importing existing image library into C1 - Sessions?

rob.jones

• October 05, 2015 18:35

Getting back to things after some time away and I decided on Capture One. After reading through the Session vs. Catalog articles, posts, etc. I think sessions fit the way I work. My main computer is a MBPro Retina with all my images on an external HD backed to a NAS, sync'd to a portable HD for remote work/editing. Plan to shoot tethered too at times. I usually immediately dump my CF cards to my MBPro (if working remote), then use PhotoMechanic for culling, sorting etc. So when back and connected to the image library HD I could just move the dump folder into C1 as a session.

I previously was following a workflow laid out in one Krogh's books. I have my entire image library on an external HD organized in folders with a unique job #/desc (and now date) for each project/shoot which contain the RAW files. These were just folders; I wasn't using LR or C1. Inside of those folders are subfolders for the edited "master" versions of the files (derivatives) usually in PSD format. Subfolders for print or web outputs etc. So what is the best way to bring these into C1? It seems that it would be best to retain the structure and have each job/folder represent a session? From my understanding, creating each of these as a session C1 will try to move all the RAW files into the Capture Folder of the new session folder? So then I would have two parallel image libraries and could retire the original? Or is there a way to leave the existing folders/images in tact, but have C1 identify them as sessions and create the requisite subfolders? Any help or tips would be welcome and let me know if I'm not being totally clear.

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  OddS.

  • October 06, 2015 06:34

  Rob7 wrote:
  ...use PhotoMechanic for culling, sorting etc.

  
  
  I am not able to answer your "best way" question, but I think you are right about viewing a session as a folder, the session name is also the folder name. A predefined structure of subfolders exist inside the session folder (Capture, Output, Selects, Trash) and you may have sub-subfolders.
  
  Capture One does not seem to care about who or what created the session folder and subfolders. I ingest from Photo Mechanic to a folder G:\C1_sessions and for each ingest I point PM to a session name and Capture folder. PM will if necessary create a new target session folder, the Capture subfolder (and sub-subfolder if I prefer to have one) and copy image files to the target folder. Example: I use PM to ingest images to G:\C1_sessions\October2015_festival\Capture
  
  At first, C1 is not aware of the session folder created by PM and C1 will not treat it as such. In C1 I do File->New Session and type the name of the new session name, October2015_festival. C1 finds that the folder G:\C1_sessions\October2015_festival exists and the Capture subfolder also exists. C1 creates the missing session folders (Output, Selects, Trash) and creates session-database file G:\C1_sessions\October215_festival\October2015_festival.cosessiondb
  
  It appears I can now work with session October2015_festival as if every step had been done in C1. I can add more images to the session's Capture folder (using PM ingest or copy, for example). It also works the other way around, reate the (empty) session in C1 and add images to the Capture folder later. I can also have images in session sub-subfolders like G:\C1_sessions\October215_festival\Capture\Day1, G:\C1_sessions\October215_festival\Capture\Day2 etc.
  
  When I no longer work on a session, it is time to register the session images in a C1 catalog to benefit from a more "global" search feature etc.
  
  I realize it does not answer your question, but it may perhaps spark some ideas.

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  rob.jones

  • October 06, 2015 14:35

  OddS wrote:
  

  Rob7 wrote:
  ...use PhotoMechanic for culling, sorting etc.

  
  
  I am not able to answer your "best way" question, but I think you are right about viewing a session as a folder, the session name is also the folder name. A predefined structure of subfolders exist inside the session folder (Capture, Output, Selects, Trash) and you may have sub-subfolders.

  
  
  Actually you did answer my question! I sort of rambled and didn't ask the exact question which is will C1 recognize those already-existing folders and add the missing elements. So your described workflow is perfect and answered everything, especially too how to handle the PM ingest.
  
  The last statement also provided me with a good idea of adding the sessions into a master C1 catalog for searching etc. Wasn't thinking that far ahead. Since my MBPro is my main computer, has sufficient drive space, I might keep the sessions locally while working with them, backing up to the NAS when connected and then move the sessions to the C1 Catalog on the external drive for 'archive' and searching purposes. Thanks!

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