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Can I force CO12 to save edits on an external file?

Michele Filannino
Hi everybody,

I've recently moved from Adobe Lightroom to Capture One 12 Pro Fujifilm. Unfortunately, weeks ago the logic board of my Macbook Pro died and once I got my laptop back I realised that I just synced with iCloud the .RAF files, but not the catalog file. My assumption, as of today, is that I've lost all the edits on every single photograph taken (included meta-information such as labels, tags and similar).

The question for you is: where does Capture One typically save the edits information? Is it in the catalog? If so, can I force it to save it on an external equally named file as it happen in Adobe Lightroom with the .XMP files?

Thanks a lot,
Michele.

PS. Don't cry for me, since I took the bad news incredibly well: an occasion to revisit my catalogue and post-process even more!
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Comments

10 comments

Date Votes
  • Eric Valk
    Yes, yes and yes 😄

    Capture one saves the edit information in the catalog file. The Catalog file is actually a "bundle", meaning that inside the Catalog there is a folder structure, which you can enter by right clicking on the catalog with Finder, and selecting "Show Contents".

    Inside the Catalog bundle is a file CatalogName.cocatalogdb which contains all the edits and metadata for every image.

    You can force Capture One to store this on an external drive by putting the catalog on an external drive.

    More to your question, you can assign a backup schedule and location for Capture One to back up the catalog. See Capture one preferences, General pane.

    For example I have one external SSD drive I use for all my catalogs, and second spinning drive (i.e. not SSD) where Capture One backs up the catalog everytime I close a catalog (sometime I tell CO No, don't back up this time)

    Its also a good idea to run Apples Time Machine utility which will save copies of every file and folder onto an external drive. I've used this for many years, its little work to set it up, easy to use to restore missing files, folders and emails, and it's saved me trouble many times over the last 15 years.
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  • SFA
    [quote="NNN636438540802103461" wrote:
    Hi everybody,

    I've recently moved from Adobe Lightroom to Capture One 12 Pro Fujifilm. Unfortunately, weeks ago the logic board of my Macbook Pro died and once I got my laptop back I realised that I just synced with iCloud the .RAF files, but not the catalog file. My assumption, as of today, is that I've lost all the edits on every single photograph taken (included meta-information such as labels, tags and similar).

    The question for you is: where does Capture One typically save the edits information? Is it in the catalog? If so, can I force it to save it on an external equally named file as it happen in Adobe Lightroom with the .XMP files?

    Thanks a lot,
    Michele.

    PS. Don't cry for me, since I took the bad news incredibly well: an occasion to revisit my catalogue and post-process even more!


    Did whoever was fixing the Macbook for you not save the disk(s) as it was or at least make and keep a copy of what was on it?

    A shame if not.
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  • OddS.
    [quote="Eric Nepean" wrote:
    Yes, yes and yes 😄


    Does one of those yesses mean you confirm that C1 can save adjustments to XMP sidecar files the way Lightroom can?

    (The question was: where does Capture One typically save the edits information? Is it in the catalog? If so, can I force it to save it on an external equally named file as it happen in Adobe Lightroom with the .XMP files? )
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  • Grant Hodgeon
    [quote="OddS" wrote:
    [quote="Eric Nepean" wrote:
    Yes, yes and yes 😄
    you confirm that C1 can save adjustments to XMP sidecar files the way Lightroom can?)


    I can confirm -- yes. The adjustments are saved separately from the RAW. In your raw folder/CaptureOne/SettingsXXX* file ending in .cos

    * is the version of C1 you ran when generating that stuff. For me it's Settings120
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  • OddS.
    [quote="photoGrant" wrote:
    [quote="OddS" wrote:
    [quote="Eric Nepean" wrote:
    Yes, yes and yes 😄
    you confirm that C1 can save adjustments to XMP sidecar files the way Lightroom can?)


    I can confirm -- yes. The adjustments are saved separately from the RAW. In your raw folder/CaptureOne/SettingsXXX* file ending in .cos


    Most of us C1 users can confirm that, we would however only so if the purpose was to confuse the OP rather than answer the OP's question 😊

    The question was about C1 saving edits (adjustments) to sidecar .XMP files like Lightroom.
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  • Permanently deleted user
    As far as I know, the .cos files are for session mode only. In catalog mode, the adjustments are stored in the .cocatalogdb file.
    I don't know exactly what sort of data are stored in the .xmp files when the option is selected. Probably, these .xmp are useless for a further opening of the images with Adobe softwares.
    Robert
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  • Eric Valk
    [quote="OddS" wrote:
    [quote="photoGrant" wrote:
    [quote="Eric Nepean" wrote:
    Yes, yes and yes 😄
    [quote="OddS" wrote:
    you confirm that C1 can save adjustments to XMP sidecar files the way Lightroom can?)
    I can confirm -- yes. The adjustments are saved separately from the RAW. In your raw folder/CaptureOne/SettingsXXX* file ending in .cos
    Most of us C1 users can confirm that, we would however only so if the purpose was to confuse the OP rather than answer the OP's question 😊

    The question was about C1 saving edits (adjustments) to sidecar .XMP files like Lightroom.


    It wasn't my intent to confuse the OP; I have never used Lightroom, so I didn't realise that Lightroom was using XMP files to backup adjustments.

    Capture One saves Metadata, but not adjustments, to the XMP sidecar files.

    Capture One has its own COS sidecar files for saving adjustments, these are typically used by Sessions. Catalogs only generate COS sidecar files if you export an image with adjustments. If you have a big catalog this is a very time consuming way to backup image adjustments, and you can end up witth a huge collection of files (originals, XMP and COS), and restoring may be a complex and lengthy task. Further, the information about user collections is not backed up.

    If the intent is simply to backup images one at a time then the packed EIP format is a better way to go because you only get one file (with image, adjustments and Metadata) for each image.

    But even better is to simply backup up the catalog in one shot, including user collections, adjustments and Metadata, using Capture One's catalog backup tool.
    Backing up a large catalog only takes seconds, and restoring is simple and only takes seconds.
    I have even done the restore manually, and it is a very simple and quick process.
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  • Michele Filannino
    Thank you, Eric. That was very informative!
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  • Michele Filannino
    [quote="SFA" wrote:


    Did whoever was fixing the Macbook for you not save the disk(s) as it was or at least make and keep a copy of what was on it?

    A shame if not.


    You know, when Apple decides that they must invest in making laptop thinner and thinner, engineers may hand up deciding that's a good idea to weld the SSD onto the logic board and even get rid of the only on-board port that was used by technicians to backup the data. Because of that, even though just my logic board fried nobody was able to restore the data from my SSD.

    https://www.macrumors.com/2018/07/22/20 ... very-port/

    Nowadays, they call these machines MacBook "PRO".
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  • SFA
    [quote="NNN636438540802103461" wrote:
    [quote="SFA" wrote:


    Did whoever was fixing the Macbook for you not save the disk(s) as it was or at least make and keep a copy of what was on it?

    A shame if not.


    You know, when Apple decides that they must invest in making laptop thinner and thinner, engineers may hand up deciding that's a good idea to weld the SSD onto the logic board and even get rid of the only on-board port that was used by technicians to backup the data. Because of that, even though just my logic board fried nobody was able to restore the data from my SSD.

    https://www.macrumors.com/2018/07/22/20 ... very-port/

    Nowadays, they call these machines MacBook "PRO".


    Good grief.

    Thanks for the explanation.

    How can they make such decisions simply for form over function without being forced to include a huge warning sticker and a free to use compulsory backup service?
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