Help with workflow (new user)
Hello. I would like to use CaptureOne as part of a workflow which also includes Lightroom and Photoshop. Looking to take advantage of the strengths of each in one workflow:
- CaptureOne as raw processor
- Lightroom for file management
- Photoshop for deep editing and integration with web and other creative work.
As I see it, I will import photos into Lightroom, grade them, and select the keepers. The challenge is in going to CaptureOne and then back to Lightroom, without a lot of duplication of effort and files.
Let us say I have a new folder in Lightroom with 100 photos, and I have selected 20 to work on and keep. How do I make CaptureOne aware of these files, without deleting the others, or moving them to a different location, then moving them back when I finish with C1?
I plan to process the C1 edits to .dng files, which I can further edit with presets, etc. in Lightroom. Yes, I could start the entire process with CaptureOne, but, in all fairness, LR is a much better file manager, and I am locked into it anyway.
Any thoughts will be appreciated...
- CaptureOne as raw processor
- Lightroom for file management
- Photoshop for deep editing and integration with web and other creative work.
As I see it, I will import photos into Lightroom, grade them, and select the keepers. The challenge is in going to CaptureOne and then back to Lightroom, without a lot of duplication of effort and files.
Let us say I have a new folder in Lightroom with 100 photos, and I have selected 20 to work on and keep. How do I make CaptureOne aware of these files, without deleting the others, or moving them to a different location, then moving them back when I finish with C1?
I plan to process the C1 edits to .dng files, which I can further edit with presets, etc. in Lightroom. Yes, I could start the entire process with CaptureOne, but, in all fairness, LR is a much better file manager, and I am locked into it anyway.
Any thoughts will be appreciated...
0
-
Hi there!
So this was (and still is to a degree) a sticking point for me when migrating my RAW processing operations from LR to CaptureOne.
So first we need to understand a few things.- There isn't really any CaptureOne equivalent to the LR->PS->LR roundtrip capabilities that you get when working inside of the Adobe workflow. That's just a benefit of staying with all Adobe products.
- There is no method of sending a file from Lightroom to be edited in C1 without exporting them as pixels (TIF/PSD/JPG) first from within Lightroom (which would of course defeat the purpose of using a RAW processing program).
- C1 is it's own RAW processor and those adjustments are not at all compatible/readable by LR/ACR so you have to export as pixels in order to retain the adjustments so the file will be visible to LR (which you'd have to do in order to edit in photoshop anyway).
So what this really means is that in order to have the workflow you've described, you would have to basically do the following:- Import your raw files in to LR to sort/tag/rate them.
- Create a C1 session that points to the folders that contain those sorted files and import all of the files (import in place, don't move them) in to C1.
- Perform RAW adjustments in C1 to the select files.
- Process out the files from C1 to pixels (PSD/TIF/JPG) to a directory of your choice.
- Import the pixel based files in to Lightroom
- Send the files from LR to PS for edits & save the files (so LR sees the edits)
- Export files for delivery from LR (or PS)
If you want to go with this flow (which I honestly think is pretty inefficient because it's just not how C1 is designed) then be absolutely certain that Lightroom is configured to automatically save metadata (or you're OCD about saving manually) and that C1 is configured to automatically load/sync metadata. If not, when you do your import/exports C1 won't be able to see the ratings you assigned in Lightroom.
Also - Adobe (for some reason) doesn't save color codes using the standard exif fields so... usually green and red color codes are the only ones that are going to come through. (that's Adobe's fault).
Everyone has to find their own flow, and for me Lightroom and C1 just aren't really compatible. I fully agree that the organizational aspect of LR is superior to C1 (even considering the new cataloging features that are in their infancy at best) but I've basically worked LR out of my rotation and essentially use C1 -> Bridge -> Photoshop for 99% of the work I do now because it's too much of a hassle for me to have multiple import/export steps.
I wish I could say Media Pro was a good alternative, but it's sort of fallen to the wayside in the development cycle (and it seems evident that it's cataloging features are going to be replicated in C1, and then Media Pro will probably be discontinued at some point anyway.
I'm sure that's not exactly what you were hoping to hear but I do hope it's helpful.
Let us know what you come up with!
-Brian0 -
Brian:
Thanks for your reply. I am working on it!
Normally I bring photos in from my card (via Lightroom to a Folder for the current year: 2013. Within this Folder are all of the images I have taken for the year. I try to immediately cull out the bad ones and delete them. Note: during import I duplicate everything to a massive folder on another drive, which is in turn backed up weekly to yet another drive. Now that I think of it, probably bad practice, as I am keeping those images I delete under scrutiny. Need to rethink this!
Anyway, the obvious step would be to instead import the images with CaptureOne. (LR has a Synch Folder feature which will keep the LR library up to date with C1 imports.) There are problems with this approach:- C1 is famously unstable as a library manager
I have import presets in LR and do not know if I can do this in C1 (can I?)
I don't know if LR will read the ratings that I apply in C1.
The converse of this is to import via LR, but I don't think C1 has that nifty synch folder capability, so I am looking at redoing a growing catalog of images as the year progresses — and importing more than a few dozen images into C1 takes forever.
On the plus side, I realize that all of my LR plug ins (NIK, PhaseOne, Topaz) use a tiff file anyway, so I am not missing anything in exporting tiffs back to LR.
The big issue for me is the file management strategy...0 -
I'll tell you where I am right now, although there are only opinions and no one right answer.
I import into Capture Once sessions (not a catalog) and use one session per project. I do my edit here an actually find CO7 to be very efficient at this. I also do my color and exposure adjustments in CO7. It may not be as easy as with Lightroom, but it is just as efficient once you adjust. Once this is all done in CO7, I export the adjusted selects to Lightroom as zip compressed tif files with a ProPhoto color space, just the way Lightroom likes them. I catalog, crop, print or export using Lightroom. I'm ok with my catalog only having finals in it and I don't mind having the tif images around should anything happen to CO7 or Lightroom (like deciding I don't want to be forced into a yearly licensing scheme).
It's not as easy as just using Lightroom, but you probably wouldn't be asking the questions here if you didn't see value in the quality of the CO7 conversion.0 -
Thanks. I have pretty much refined my approach to this:
I import from the card into Lightroom, rank my selects, and dispose of the rejects. Then I open C1 and import the new files. The only way I have figured out how to do this is by actually selecting them in the import dialog box. I make all of my raw corrections, and then process tiffs back to the folder that the raw files were in. Go back to LR and distribute, print, etc from there.
Besides the redundancy, I am missing out on some important tools. All of my VSCO presets, and others, are diluted. I use a D700 and several manual Nikon lenses, which do not have profiles in C1, as my X Pro 1 lenses do not. Same with camera presets.
I have tried hard to make this work. Fortunately, in the midst of my efforts, Adobe has upgraded LR and ACR. I have since made a pretty thorough comparison between C1 and LR, using both cameras. My feeling is that I can actually get better image quality now with Adobe, with the latest updates, while preserving the flexibility of my add-ins.0 -
Hi,
I am on a Mac and I am evaluating C1 with Media Pro versus LR 4.4, which is what I normally use. I do not use or ever plan to use any Medium Format cameras, as I am more than served by my D4 and Fuji X cameras, however shooting tethered is attractive for me. I also have a license for Photo Mechanic. My LR catalog has about 50k images and is about 600MB.
Friends whom I respect, have been telling me that C1 + Media Pro, is a more powerful combo than LR. I don't know, but I have an open mind, which is why I am here. 😊 I find that LR 4.4 stutters, and in my brief tests, C1 produces better images. Also I am told that MP (Media Pro) is happy running over 100,000 images, hence I am considering the switch over.
As a test, I imported, without moving, 2 years' of images into C1, which created a massive 35GB catalog! I must be doing something wrong here, because I didn't intend C1 to suck in the image files, only to index them.
I am looking to find a good workflow and if MP is indeed better with large catalogs, then I plan to use Photo Mechanic to sift the failures then import all into a temp catalog for C1 processing. Then merge that into the main C1 catalog of ALL images, and export to LR as TIF anything for publishing. Does this make any sense???
I would welcome any feedback. Thanks in advance,0 -
I'm not so in tune with the C1 catalog, but 35Gb cannot be your 50K images.
I'm using MP and its catalog for my 60~65K images is roughly 6 Gb. This greatly depends on the size of the previews. I know this is the case for C1 as well and i've read on these forums that C1 seems to need some more room for a similar catalog than MP, but i don't know that for a fact.
MP is a (more) pure asset management system than C1, certainly right now. The cooperation between the two is really good as far as image files go. MP can hold much file formats and seems to offer (for the moment) more cataloging options.
It also seems to be that P1 is working to further integration of MP and C1, maybe on catalog level. But, only they know of course 😉0 -
Hi Paul,
You probably used the option to store the imported files in the Capture One catalog. With this option, Capture One actually moves the imported files into the catalog and manages them there. I'm thinking you probably wanted to store the files in their current location so only the previews would be stored in the CO catalog.
Also, if you are going to work with Media Pro you made need to used Capture One session rather than the new catalog based approach. Media Pro and Capture One session can be set up to exchange information, but I don't believe this will work with the catalog.0 -
My intention was certainly not to copy the files, but I might have miss-configured it, that's very possible.
I am also probably confusing C1 v7 Pro, which I thought includes MP and is integrated within it. I guess, I should just delete the big catalog, and try with a new one, with the right settings?
Update:
I just checked the settings of the Import of the catalog that went to 35GB (that was with 16k images).
I had: Include subfolders Yes; Store Files: Current Location; Backup: unticked; Auto Adjust: ticked
I will try again, with Auto Adjust set to off.0 -
I understand the confusion completely, I've been debating this with myself for many weeks. Capture One 7 Pro supports both the new catalog based approach and the older session based approach. Session are well understood and pretty much bullet proof, but you are just going to work one session at a time. Catalogs are more like Aperture and Lightroom in that they store information for a much broader set of images in one database. Catalogs are new and don't have all of the capabilities of media pro. I also haven't found a end-to-end workflow for Photoshop integration that works well with catalogs yet. But, the raw conversion is amazing and browsing the images seems very quick. I won't say which is better, I suppose it depends on what your shoot and your priorities. 0 -
So, are you saying that one needs to buy C1 v7 Pro PLUS MP??? Or is the Catalog in v7 Pro = C1 plus MP? 0 -
The new catalog system in CO7 includes, in my opinion, about 30% of what Media Pro could do. I don't know for a fact, but I have to believe that they will be expanding these capabilities. So, if it were me I would be using the catalog and believing that there are more capabilities to come. CO7 sessions plus Media Pro is an option, but I only went there because you mentioned Media Pro in your initial post. Media Pro has been around long time and is very full featured. If they put all of those capabilities into the catalog system of CO7 if will be an amazing solution. The catalog was all new just a few months ago so we will just have to see where Phase One goes with it.
I apologize if I confused things further.0 -
Absolutely no need to apologise 😊 I can get confused without anyone's help. hehehe
Anyway, I recataloged 2 years (16k) images over night, and the catalog was 170MB. More to my liking.
In both cases C1 never completed the task, and was stuck on the beach ball and had to be Force Quit. However restarting seemed not to have any side effects.
I'll have to download the stand alone MP product to evaluate that too. We, the users, are spoilt for choice. I am already looking at LR 5's Beta and some preview tutorials, and it is awesome in its features. But it does fall short of C1 in raw processing, and with more bloat, comes slowing down and more chance for bugs.
So much to play with, and so little time 😊0
Post is closed for comments.
Comments
12 comments