My wife wants to se our photos - Best solution?
Hi
I have done some reading in this forum, looking for a solution that solves our needs here, but haven't found one.
- We have approximately 40.000 images
- So far they have been stored on my PC
- My wife wants (edit)access to those images as well
- I prefer NOT to work with multiple copies of the same image files
- Having the original images on a NAS is preferred/needed
- Images have metadata - keywords etc.
- Images are organized in collections - We can rebuild that if/when needed
- It's not possible for her to use my PC - I use it all the time 😉
Original idea was like this:
- Import images to C1
- Having ALL images in one catalog
- Place C1 Catalog on NAS
- Re-create collections (manually)
- Have C1 on 2 PC's - pointing to the catalog DB on the NAS
- Only use 1 PC at a time to open catalog DB and edit images
Problems right now:
- Importing performance is slow
- Performance issues because of catalog size (Start and use of C1)
I am aware that a NAS is slowing things down, and I have read other posts here regarding poor performance. I experience the same issues as other have described in this forum. System gets more and more slow when importing. System is slow when opened, and the system does not use all RAM. Instead I see a lot of I/O to the NAS.
And recently I have seen errors (system hang)
I have considered several solutions.
It seems that C1 will locate the folder: \Cache in the same folder where the .cocatalogdb file (the catalog) is located. For me that means on the NAS. So I have been looking for a configuration that I could change, to have that \Cache located on something like c:\C1Cache - where c:\ is a SSD drive. I didn't find a solution here.
Another option is to use one system for the DAM job and then C1 for the editing job.
I just dont like it, cause I will the be dependent on those two systems ability to align now and in the future.
And the idea was to have everything in one system.
I can create a virtual C1 PC, that both I and my wife can use. But this seems more expensive and requires more work. That was not the idea.
If i split images into several catalogs to improve performance, I cannot do search and cannot create collections across all images....
Any ideas anyone???
Background:
For years I have been using idImager as a DAM tool. That means keywords are embedded in our image-files, and they hold different kind of metadata. Originally I chose idImager because I could sync metadata between a database and the images.
IdImagers successor is Photo Supreme. I considered using that, but at the same time I found C1's RAW converting and editing features to be attractive (I use Fujifilm X - and C1 handles this very well indeed).
I prefer to keep the original images untouched, and then create versions when I do editing - or making non destructive editing.
From time to time I go back to old images. I may have got new tools or new skills, so I can then re-edit an image and mage it even better.
Using PC with i7@3.50 & 32 GB RAM & local SSD.
Using C1 version 9.1.1 64 bit on Win 10
Kind regards
BCH
I have done some reading in this forum, looking for a solution that solves our needs here, but haven't found one.
- We have approximately 40.000 images
- So far they have been stored on my PC
- My wife wants (edit)access to those images as well
- I prefer NOT to work with multiple copies of the same image files
- Having the original images on a NAS is preferred/needed
- Images have metadata - keywords etc.
- Images are organized in collections - We can rebuild that if/when needed
- It's not possible for her to use my PC - I use it all the time 😉
Original idea was like this:
- Import images to C1
- Having ALL images in one catalog
- Place C1 Catalog on NAS
- Re-create collections (manually)
- Have C1 on 2 PC's - pointing to the catalog DB on the NAS
- Only use 1 PC at a time to open catalog DB and edit images
Problems right now:
- Importing performance is slow
- Performance issues because of catalog size (Start and use of C1)
I am aware that a NAS is slowing things down, and I have read other posts here regarding poor performance. I experience the same issues as other have described in this forum. System gets more and more slow when importing. System is slow when opened, and the system does not use all RAM. Instead I see a lot of I/O to the NAS.
And recently I have seen errors (system hang)
I have considered several solutions.
It seems that C1 will locate the folder: \Cache in the same folder where the .cocatalogdb file (the catalog) is located. For me that means on the NAS. So I have been looking for a configuration that I could change, to have that \Cache located on something like c:\C1Cache - where c:\ is a SSD drive. I didn't find a solution here.
Another option is to use one system for the DAM job and then C1 for the editing job.
I just dont like it, cause I will the be dependent on those two systems ability to align now and in the future.
And the idea was to have everything in one system.
I can create a virtual C1 PC, that both I and my wife can use. But this seems more expensive and requires more work. That was not the idea.
If i split images into several catalogs to improve performance, I cannot do search and cannot create collections across all images....
Any ideas anyone???
Background:
For years I have been using idImager as a DAM tool. That means keywords are embedded in our image-files, and they hold different kind of metadata. Originally I chose idImager because I could sync metadata between a database and the images.
IdImagers successor is Photo Supreme. I considered using that, but at the same time I found C1's RAW converting and editing features to be attractive (I use Fujifilm X - and C1 handles this very well indeed).
I prefer to keep the original images untouched, and then create versions when I do editing - or making non destructive editing.
From time to time I go back to old images. I may have got new tools or new skills, so I can then re-edit an image and mage it even better.
Using PC with i7@3.50 & 32 GB RAM & local SSD.
Using C1 version 9.1.1 64 bit on Win 10
Kind regards
BCH
0
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Hi BCH
Not sure that my reply will be satisfying for you, but I'll explain how I do for a similar need. Up to you to see if you can pick some ideas.
You didn't tell if your wife has her own PC ?
And does she want to access all images permanently or does she accept to access only a part of them at a time ?
My husband has his own PC and I have mine. For years I was the only user of Capture One, in Session mode.
Now he has more free time, he is interested in documenting some of our holiday photos.
So we installed Capture One on his PC and he created his own session.
We copy a folder, for instance Vacation_YYYY-MM (with its CaptureOne subfolder), from my PC to my husband's so he can add all useful metadata (he could either modify image settings of course). By the time he works on this folder, I don't modify anything on the corresponding folder of my PC.
When his work is complete, we copy the CaptureOne subfolder of Vacation_YYYY-MM from his PC to mine and then I can work again on the folder Vacation_YYYY-MM. When my own work is complete, I export our preferred jpeg files to a gallery. My husband is then pleased to watch the gallery, he is not interested in accessing permanently all raw files (too many for his taste. 😉 He prefers to see a selection in the gallery, well presented, with useful metadata displayed near by).
For your need, compared to ours, I see several differences :
1) I am the main user and all raw files are on my PC. My husband works temporarily on a copied folder and, after having copied the side-car files back to my PC, he can delete the whole folder from his PC. He does not need to access all images at every moment.
Not sure that your wife will accept to be a "secondary" C1 user and to see only a part of your images at a time. 😕
2) An other difference is that you work in Catalog mode, I work in Session mode. In the case your wife would accept to work on some folders only, I suppose you can export them with their side-cars as a session your wife could work on and then import her modified session to your catalog. After that, you export some other folders and so on...
Regarding the fact of duplicating raw files, we do not see it as a problem since we copy a small part of them at a time and Capture One never modifies them. The only constraint is that I must not modify on my PC the Capture One settings of the copied images until my husband return his work to my PC. Since I have many many other folders to work on, it is not a problem for me. 😊
Hoping this could help.
Best regards
Epipactis0 -
Hi Epipactis and others,
Thanks for your reply.
It actually gave me one idea, that may improve performance a little, though it will cost some hard disk space and it will require some synchronizing.
I'm currently trying to use our NAS so that my catalog is placed like this:
v:\CaptureOne
The .cocatalogdb file is here, and so are the folders:
v:\CaptureOne\Cache
v:\CaptureOne\Adjustments
v:\CaptureOne\Originals
So far I have had image files that are not located in the \Originals folder, but on
v:\Images\yyyy\mm
I am allowed by C1 to choose where my images are located, but I cannot choose where my \Cache is. It will always be in the same folder as the .cocatalogdb file. (which is where I can choose it when I create a new catalog)
I wrote that I only want ONE copy of the images. If I change this principle to only having one instance of recipe and metadata for each image, I may locate the images in two synched folders. One on each PC, but keep the .cocatalogdb on the NAS.
This is kind of crazy, and contradicts normal IT principles, but if I/O is the bottleneck, and hard disk space is "just" a matter of money, I can live with that.
Unfortunately it does not solve the presumed I/O problem with the \Cache folder.
This solution can perhaps be extended...?
While the \Cache folder holds +20 GB of data, the .cocatalogdb file holds only 200-300 MB so far.
So maybe the solution for now will be to use two folders in sync with images on the two PC's, and then have the .cocatalogdb file as the file to swap between the PC's, depending on who needs to work with the images.
That will create double of everything, including cache, and I feel like an idiot, but maybe it works.
Before going that direction, I'll need to find out how to handle the other two folders. - And I might contact Phase One for a few suggestions regarding where to place the cache files and how to create an efficient database structure. (I write that because I have tried to import 4.000 small images to a collection on my SSD disk. In the beginning this is pure sprint, utilizing all CPU, but then suddenly, everything slows down, down, down to pure craap. And my problems unfortunately basically derives from a poor design on the organizing part of C1. It simply does not like large numbers).
And Yes, my wife will prefer to be able to edit and organize images on more permanent basis (so will I), and she will do it on her own PC. - though, we talked about buying a dedicated pc for image editing.
Note: I have tried to find something in regedit, that had the \Cache, and I have been looking for config files with \Cache, but I found nothing yet.
Any help will be appreciated.
Kind regards
BCH0 -
Hi BCH,
Well, I believe C1 is not designed for several users working on the same catalog concurrently and certainly not as a client / server application. Atlhough you can store the originals as well as the catalog with associated folders on a server or NAS, it is recommended to store the catalog (and folders) on a local drive.
This having said, why bothering both of you with the performance disadvantage by storing the catalog on the NAS, you could store the catalog (and its folders) on either your or her PC and "share" the folder and thus one of you benefit from the local storage, let's say on yours. If you dedicate a separate SSD for that matter I/O performance on your PC would probably better if she works with C1 even if you work on your PC doing other things.
If you share the same Cache (catalog and its folders) remember to set the preview size in C1 according the higher resolution of both your PCs.
btw, 40k images is a lot for a single C1 catalog, avoid working without filter or without collecions (avoid "all images"). Good luck.
CHeers
BeO0 -
Hi BeO and Others,
Thanks for the reply.
I guess I'll have to rethink this situation.
When moving to C1 in the first place, it was because of the image editing features and handling of raw files from Fujifilm cameras.
Then I found out about C1's cataloging features, and decided to make things more simple by having everything in one system.
I did not migrate all images before considering a NAS solution as well, in order to be able to share a catalog (one at at a time)
Though, I did read a lot about the options regarding larger catalogs, and I think I found several places where this option was mentioned as valid.
Like the documentation here:
It says:
"-Numerous small catalogs with a number of albums and folders can be confusing, especially if you’re working on multiple computers, or have one or more operators with access to the computer or hard disk. Working from one or two large catalogs may be simpler and more appropriate for some users.
-Having one master Catalog does not limit the number of images that can be stored, and, as a virtual organizational tool, it means that Albums, Projects Smart Albums and Groups can be implemented very effectively."
Or here:
with statements like this:
"42K, is not a big catalog number by any stretch. My own catalog has about 17k images in it, opens in 1-2 seconds and operations are fast."
However, I may not have paid enough attention the more critical writings about catalog size.
I had hoped for at no hassle solution with the NAS.
I may now look more for a solution like the one BeO mention with the share, or even a solution with an external SSD disk with SATA interface, that can be swapped between machines.
This may make it possible for us to share the images, but I guess we'll still experience performance issues with certain combinations of large amounts of imports, wrong size of previews and...?
Any input on this idea?
Kind regards
BCH0 -
Hi BCH,
External SSD should work too if you always map it to the same drive letter. Given the number of images it should be a fast SSD/connection like USB 3 or SATA III. Take the biggest preview size of both computers (screen resolution) and this should be fine too.
Cheers,
BeO0 -
Hi,
I have used BreezebrowserPro and Downloaderpro for years. Look for them on
http://www.breezesys.com/about.htm
Allows you to browse, select, move and lots of other stuff.
Also allows you, if set up correctly, to branch into CapOne or Photoshop.
Install on multiple computers.
Might suit you.
Have a great day
Paul0 -
Hi,
Thanks again.
I decided to go for an internal SSD solution in my PC. The network will be the bottleneck then, when my wife is editing images, but 90 % of the time I'll be working with the images.
An external USB3 or eSATA was perhaps also an option, but while the USB3 has plenty og throughput, I am not sure it handles I/O good enough with many small files like lots of preview files in a cache directory.
And there seems to be very few external disks with eSATA. They are all USB3.
For the decision, it was also nice that we should not handle cables and the external SSD-device.
So I checked my PC. It's one of the first models with PCIe, 3.0 so I could go for a solution using NVMe instead of the SATA. But a solution like the Intel 750 would block the airflow to my GPU. So I ordered a normal fast SATA SSD ☹️.
I'll update this thread when I have it installed and have done some testing.
Kind regards
BCH0 -
Hi again
I promised to make an update here.
As mentioned, I ended up with a new and dedicated SSD for my image files, and I tried different configurations.
At the moment I have 240 GB in about 40.000 imagefiles, and I use one single catalog.
I have tried having image files on NAS and catalog + cachefiles on local SSD
I have tried having image files on local SSD and catalog & cachefiles on NAS
Neither worked.
It may work with smaller catalog collections, but sometimes I need to go into larger collections, and then things are to slow.
I then put everything down to the new SSD.
This helped a lot, but things like filters are not good. It takes minutes before all keywords, ratings etc. are loaded into C1.
Importing is not good either. The first part takes only a few minutes (image files are not moved), but generating previews are slow. I studied this a little, and C1 generates previews in two different speeds. C1 uses all processor cores to generate previews for images that are shown as thumbs on the screen. But C1 only use 1 core fore generating previews for images that are not on the screen... Use the scroll bar and C1 speeds up the preview generation.
I may be able to accept the above, but my original goal was to be able to use the system together with my wife. These tests and upgrades I have done so far, are more like tests - before I make a final decision for e.g. an external SSD or a network setup.
And to be honest It may just be impossible to do what I was hoping for. In that case I'll use C1 as editor only, or find a completely different workflow.
Next step is to buy a new and fast pc for my wife, and then try sharing folders on my PC. We do have cabled GigaBit network, but during the above work I have seen 300-400 MByte I/O on the disk, so I am afraid that network will be the bottleneck here.
I'll update this thread when I have more info. It takes a lot of time to do all this testing.
Kind regards
BCH0 -
I have all of my image on my internal hard drive but they are all automatically backed up to Google Drive.
Might this be an easier, safer option for you?0 -
Hi BCH,
Even if you have all on a fast PC with fast drives internally, I assume 40k images is a lot for one catalog. C1 does not have the fastest catalog on earth... I don't have nearly as many images but once in a while I see users with such many images in a catalog complaining in the forum.
In addition C1 does not use OPENCL for Fuji Xtrans raws, if I'm not mistaken. And maybe it uses only 1 core per image, your observation that multiple cores are used for browser thumbnails might mean that multiple images are processed at the same time, don't know.
Did you try to get advise from the support?
Cheers
BeO0
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