Importing photos
I'm brand new to Capture One 20. I want to import photos from my SD cards using the same format I've used with Aperture and Lightroom. In those softwares, I would simply import all the photos from the card as "year, month, day, camera name, and a few keywords". The entire Aperture or Lightroom catalog would then appear as simply a list of each import as a separate folder.
In Capture One 20, I'm confused by Catalog Collections, Recent Imports, User Collections, Folders. Can I just use the "Folders" tool for all my imports? If so, how do I do that?
Thanks for your help.
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I did watch those videos. They are oriented toward a professional photographer (weddings, assignments, etc.). Those videos assume I want to create Catalogs or Collections as a starting point. I don't. I want a much simpler structure based on the idea that each import is a folder, labeled with the date and a few key words. No new Catalogs, no Collections.
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Have a look at Sessions. Each session is a discrete folder (you can see them all shown in Finder).
That is what I do: shoot, import into a session, select/process/output using that session.
I have left Aperture in the rear view mirror (reluctantly), and find that sessions work easily for me. I could create a catalogue (or multiple catalogues) from my various sessions if I want to search across them (a la Aperture), but I have not needed to do this yet.
I did create a "master" session using the keepers from multiple sessions (a season of rugby games), and then deleted all of the source sessions. I could have created a catalogue for that, I guess, but I am used to sessions and like self-contained nature of the session.
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Jamie,
Bear this in mind.
Folders are folder as understood by computers and their file managements systems as means of replicating what they do with stored data packets (one image file will likely consist of many packets scattered across a data storage drive or possibly drives) by humans who are more used to Filing Systems for "paper" records.
Or maybe no filing system and a reliance on memory.
Or something in between - a mix of all the options it you like.
Everything that is NOT aligned with the Computer Operating System's method of forming a human recognisable structure from its random storage - So the Collections, Recent Imports, Albums, etc., etc, are simply ways of grouping part of the random data store into other useful reference lists. Thing you may want to group together.
Some of these things you create yourself. Albums for example.
Some of these things you simply define the rules for collation and get the system to do the work for you. Smart Albums for example.
Recent Imports are simply Albums, created for you, that groups all of the images imports in one import action. It a convenience, especially in a large Catalog, to allow you to quickly access and work with your most recently imported images without having to do anything to find them amongst thousands of others.
Your import process may have automatically distributed these images far and wide into "Folders" in the system. Folders are a human convenience. Not a computer convenience per se. C1 does not really need them but humans and other applications might.
You can use the Recent Imports to process the new files in whatever way you choose. They will still be members of the recent import collection for that date and time but may join several other groups of images as well.
The rest of the groupings - Collections, etc., are also there simply to allow you to gather things together into a "pot" of images that you wish to work with at the same time. The allow you to create different groups and combine those groups if you feel the need to do so. They are "virtual" groupings in general. The files do not move around unless you choose to have them move around in the "filing cabinets" by placing them in different folders.
Might I suggest that the easiest way to get to grips with the concept is break things down into single features and just learn about them one at a time - probably starting with folders since they are likely to be familiar and then adding Albums and then Smart albums which may also be familiar.
Recent Imports I have described above. Very simple as a concept. Once you have processed the recently imported images they probably have no purpose but it may be useful to keep them for a while just in case you feel a need to go and look for "something imported around the middle of last month" for example. The import date and the image capture date can be very different.
The grouping options are there for convenience. You don't have to use them unless they are useful to you.
HTH.
Grant
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