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Searching my images

Spicyjello
Hello,

How can I search my entire image catalog for keywords?

Seems that I can only search either a directly selected folder or a user collection. If I look under Folders > Catalog > Mac HD > Images..... This is the root of all my imported files. I cannot search the root and I cannot select more than 1 folder.

Along those same lines and knowing I can at least search a user collection. How can I create a User Collection of an entire folder and its subfolders. For example, 2015 with all its 25 subfolders and images. All I can figure is that I need to add each subfolders images individually. Please tell me this isn't the case. LOL

Thanks for the advice.

Troy
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Comments

9 comments

Date Votes
  • peter Frings
    There are 2 ways:
    - there is an "all images" folder near the top of the list. This shows all images in the catalog and allows you to search them with the search field of the browser or with the "advanced find" command. This is the most obvious method.
    - you can create a "smart album" if you have often-used searches. By default, a smart album searches all images.

    HTH,
    Peter.
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  • Permanently deleted user
    If you use "All images" with 200k files, you can at least go out and have a drink with friends before C1 has finished..... If it doesn't crash.
    This is a well known bug when compared to v9 version, and they are working at it, they say.
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  • Eric Nepean
    Keep in mind that in a Catalog, there are three sets of folders.
    The Library tool (on Library tab) is divided into 3 sections.
    At the top of the Library tab, there are the "System owned" folders, like All images and "Recent Imports"
    Below that, "User Collections"
    Below that, the OS folders ( on your drives)
    Typically, below that is the Filters tool.

    Searching is best done in user collections. For large catalogs, best if you remove the Filter tool from the Library tab, in many cases this will increase speed.
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  • Permanently deleted user
    [quote="Eric Nepean" wrote:
    For large catalogs, best if you remove the Filter tool from the Library tab, in many cases this will increase speed.


    Thanks Eric.
    Do you mean using the advanced search window instead of the filter tool ? And what speed does it increase ? Displaying "all the images" of the catalog, for instance ?
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  • Eric Nepean
    Yes, I mean removing the Filter tool, and replacing its function with the advanced search tool.

    What I believe speeds up is the refresh speed.

    What I have observed is that if the filter tool is active anywhere, I.e filter tool is visible, every time there is a UI refresh, all filter data is refreshed. Any IPTC metadata field can be included in a filter, there is a menu to select which are visible.

    However, this refresh isn't limited to just visible filters, all possible filters are updated.

    Recall that the filter tool doesn't just select images, it also provides an ordered list of all possible values and a count and a radio button for each value.

    The fundamental issue is that calculation of the filter data for a very large number of images for a metadata field with a unique value for each image (like "Title") becomes a very very large calculation, since the number of comparisons increases as the square of the number of images, and as the length of the longest field. So for 100k images, over 1000 million comparisons may be required.

    Could be why Capture One is the only vendor with a Filter Tool - it is very difficult to do correctly for large collections.

    Part of the issue is that filter data is calculated even for metadata fields not shown by the Filter tool, and part because the refresh and update is calculated too often. And Filter tool data should never be calculated for something like Title, because every Title is unique, resulting in a useless long list of possible values.

    Changing this requires some fundamental changes in SW, which will take some time to do without damaging other functions.

    This probably not the only performance issue, but will always be a contributor in a large catalog.

    So I put Filter Tool on its own custom tab, and only use that tab in the smaller user collections. Or not at all.
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  • Spicyjello
    Thanks for the advice!

    This all makes sense. I will be pushing the 50k limit and see how it handles that.

    I also have 20+ smart albums I want to create. Am I asking to much of C1 at the moment?

    Thanks again!

    Troy
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  • Eric Nepean
    [quote="Jonzinator" wrote:
    Thanks for the advice!

    This all makes sense. I will be pushing the 50k limit and see how it handles that.

    I also have 20+ smart albums I want to create. Am I asking to much of C1 at the moment?

    Thanks again!

    Troy


    My guess would be that if you set up those smart albums using the Filter tool, you will be increasing your problems, at least in the short term.

    It would probably go better if you set up those smart albums using the using searches from the advanced search tool (and not using preset filters)

    I would set up two or three albums, and then check how COP responds in general. Do some editing and browsing, whatever other activities you normally do. If no change, then continue and set up twice as many, check again and so forth.

    But if you start to observe a slowdown, then stop and re-evaluate.

    Don't invest the effort in changing everything before checking to see if it has an impact.
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  • peter Frings
    [quote="Eric Nepean" wrote:

    Could be why Capture One is the only vendor with a Filter Tool - it is very difficult to do correctly for large collections.


    Well, actually, it's not. Lightroom has a Library Filter (and quite a useful one) that works fine on a larger collection. My LR collection has 68K images (converted Aperture catalog, moved to C1 since end 2015) and the filter takes about 10s to load 4 different types of metadata (location, date, camera and keywords). During those 10 seconds the program is responsive and you can start to work. No beachball.

    However, the metadata filter does not include the description, so maybe they simply avoided the issue by not providing those fields with lots of variation. However, the Date filter shows 1954 different dates, neatly organised per year/month, just like C1. Similarly, the keyword filter shows all my keywords with image counts, and I have quite a few of them. Now, maybe those are indexed and faster to retrieve.

    So yes, maybe the retrieving and processing of the description data (or other) is too much. It's definitely worth a try.

    Cheers,
    Peter.
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  • Spicyjello
    Thanks of the feedback.

    How might I search all the images in a subdirectory. For example I want to search all then images in the 2017_Travel folder for 5 stars or a particular keyword? I notice I can't select more than one directory.

    For example:
    2017
    - Travel
    ----Hawaii
    ----Zion
    ----Arches


    Thanks!

    Troy
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