Workflow from 2 computers?

Brandon Harris

• April 25, 2014 03:45

--Warning, this is a bit long and confusing.. If you'd rather not read it, please just let me know how you manage shooting/editing on multiple computers and then ultimately merge the two sets of images together into a final catalog/session.

Ok, here we go.

After watching the latest webinar (which was fantastic, btw), I started using sessions. I like the self-contained directory structure and it fits my work better. However, I'm at a bit of a loss as to how I'd merge a session from one pc (say my mac laptop) with a 'parent' session on my windows desktop.

For example, I have my parent session called 'April 2014' on my main desktop PC. It has several sub-folders, like 'General', 'Dog', 'Street', etc.. When I import images into the session day after day, I select the dog photos and import them into the 'Dog' session sub-folders, street photos go into 'Street', etc..

Now lets say I go on vacation. I bring my macbook with me, shoot some images, edit them in a new session called 'vacation'. Since I know I'll be merging this into the main 'April 2014' session, I create session sub-folders called 'Vacation Day 1', 'Vacation Day 2', etc..

Now what I do to merge this into my main session on my desktop is to copy each session sub-folder (day1, day2) to my main PC, into the session folder. These new folders are now at the same hierarchy (file system) as the others (dog, street,etc). Now I just drag the new (vacation) folders into the favorites tool-bar area, and they populate into the main session. The ratings come across, etc.. The problem here is that the settings/adjustments do not! (like white balance, exposure, etc..). I had hoped these changes would be in the .cos files, but I think they're actually in the session database file.

I haven't found a solution for this yet.

If you use multiple computers to shoot / edit with Capture One, how do you manage this, and ultimately get them into a single catalog or session for safe keeping? Should I be looking at using a main Catalog, and then just importing individual sessions every now and then?

Thanks for reading, please let me know if I can clarify things, I know that was a bit confusing.

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  mli20

  • April 25, 2014 07:57

  I have chosen to use an external harddisk which I connect to whichever computer I happen to be working on. Saves me the copying, not to mention a lot of time.
  
  Cheers,
  Mogens

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  Brandon Harris

  • April 25, 2014 14:11

  I finally got it figured out.. What I was doing wrong, was moving images on the laptop into the 'Selects' folder. The settings / adjustments are actually in the .cos files, like I thought, so in order to get this to work how I wanted, I just can't use the 'selects' feature (or I have to manually merge the laptop/desktop 'Selects' folder contents). I'll will just have to use ratings/color tags to denote 'selects' if I'm going to subsequently import this child session into a parent session.
  
  So for the record, merging two sessions looks like this..
  
  Open your parent session. Choose import, and import the specific 'Capture' sub-folder on your child session (these 'Capture' sub-folders are created only in 'Tethered' mode, I believe they're just in the root session directory/folder if not using 'Tethered' mode.).
  
  For me, this means copying my child session folder up to a network drive, then pointing my desktop Capture One instance to import this network directory (and not the root level directory, just the actual sub-folder with the images I wanted).
  
  This will import all of the images from the child session into the parent session. You may need to check the 'use previous adjustments' box in order for any changes made within the child session images to get them to apply when imported into the parent session (I didn't try NOT checking the box, as checking the box worked to import all my changes/adjustments).
  
  This will create a new Favorites album with the directory name in the parent session, and the images will come intact with the star rating / color tags, etc.. They'll also now be populated in 'All Images' and any smart folders / searches you make across the parent session.

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  John394

  • June 08, 2015 00:39

  I have a similar topic so I will just post it here...
  
  I have a MacBook Pro used for session tethered shooting, adding additional Capture subfolders for each shot in the day. I need to be processing images as the shoot is happening and doing it on one computer is just to slow...
  
  What I am testing... After "Shot 1" is done on the MacBook I copy that folder to an iMac that I have networked running it's own session. I make the Shot 1 folder a favorite and if there has been any ratings or adjustments they show up on the iMac. I do final tweaks if needed and process out the files.
  
  Now at the end of the day my iMac session becomes the "Final" and I back it up. What the iMac session doesn't do is show there are subfolders in the Capture folder's drop down menu. They are in the favorites because I add them there. I assume this is because I am adding the folders through the "Finder" and not in the C1 Library. Will this cause me any issues later besides the generic library folder structure? Am I missing other important things? I could "Import" the files over the network and then create subfolders in the iMac session, it's just an additional step and C1 has so many of those extra steps...
  
  Finally I will add the daily sessions to a master catalog for that client... Any thoughts on this are welcome!!

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  BOO

  • June 08, 2015 10:38

  Using EIP files could be also another workaround to make sure that all your settings are with your files I guess...
  
  But I would rather copy whole folders...

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  John394

  • June 10, 2015 03:16

  I was thinking of the EIP route but have never tried it. I work for a photog that drags images (not folders) between computers and its a small nightmare to keep track of where things are to backup. EIP probably suits his "Workflow" 😊
  
  Yesterday I did actual importing of files to my iMac session from the camera/laptop and it keeps the session pretty tight and organized. I didn't make organized shot folders on the camera laptop. Instead I just had them shoot into the capture folder and did all the organization on the iMac after importing. It does take longer to import than to copy the folders over the network but I'm only dealing with a couple hundred images per shot at the most so it's not bad.

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