Catalogs - Smart Albums and searching in general
How is it that I can create a smart album based on certain criteria pretty well anywhere in User Collections and get immediate results without opening any particular album and having a great block of thumbnails load whereas a search for the same criteria using the browser toolbar only works after either the all images folder has been selected and its thumbnails have loaded up (which is a prolonged process) or an album has been selected that contains relevant images. It would be a great leap forward if searching across the entire database could be made to work more efficiently.
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The browser shows the currently selected collection or folder, so it makes sense that its search field isn't global. 0 -
I get the point that the browser shows only a selected set of images and so does not facilitate global searches. However the question is whether there is any way to do a global search without suffering the extended delay involved in displaying all images in the database. 0 -
[quote="bkgs" wrote:
However the question is whether there is any way to do a global search without suffering the extended delay involved in displaying all images in the database.
OSX and delay? I have tested it yesterday - 15 Sec first Time. My catalog has 45.000 RAW files.
You should be happy that you do not use C1 on Windows. I have after C1 is started first 15 Minutes!!! before I can work with C1. Same hardware, same catalog.
Phase One promised me since v8 that they will fix it. Nothing happens ☹️0 -
Your experience is different from mine. I have a catalog of 49,000 images all on an internal SSD with preview size set at the default. The all images album takes 1 minute 50 seconds to open. Otherwise CO is working well and all other computer functions are fine. So its an unsolved mystery. 0 -
[quote="bkgs" wrote:
Your experience is different from mine.
What are you settings about "Metadata Sync"?0 -
[quote="bkgs" wrote:
How is it that I can create a smart album based on certain criteria pretty well anywhere in User Collections and get immediate results without opening any particular album and having a great block of thumbnails load whereas a search for the same criteria using the browser toolbar only works after either the all images folder has been selected and its thumbnails have loaded up (which is a prolonged process) or an album has been selected that contains relevant images. It would be a great leap forward if searching across the entire database could be made to work more efficiently.
I would guess that a Smart Album has a maintained internal index to tall of its files and is perpetually updated as changes are made that effect the selected images.
To check whether there are any more images to be included when opening C1 afresh is probable a secondary process after the "known" index has been presented. C1 can then check that the existing index is still current, the files are all available (or not) and go searching for any additions that might be required that were previously not known to the index (or, for example, were off-line and therefore at a different status last time the index was updated.)
If you run a new search from the toolbar I would expect it to be a new search not previously indexed - or at least treated like that. I have worked with other applications that cached previous search lists for potential re-use AND maintained the list generated as a temporary cache file for future use in another editing session - basically the sort of ready index of a Smart Album. However the availability of that cached index was not guaranteed because the temporary workspace on the computer needed limits set to avoid filling the hard drive and so files had to be managed in and out of the available cache. The user had little or no control over that and indeed would not really wish to be forced into thinking about it.
Of course the temporary files cache was machine specific so it one was to work on multiple systems (by moving the catalogue or session in C1 terms) the cached "index" would not exist on the second machine until it was recreated. A Smart Album would exist since it is part of the catalogue or session database.
This is basically the same concept as a typical OS based search were the OS may have a preprocessed index of some file types by file details and potentially contents for fast searching but anything that has not been included in that index, or an instruction that does not look for an OS based index, will need to run the entire search from scratch.
It is also worth considering whether is is really advantageous to work with a large catalogue all the time when using C1.
There are other options.
I do not use catalogues at all (other than checking out the functionality from time to time). However I can see the benefit of having the catalogue as a kind of archive.
If I have a new shoot to process I would not normally feel a need to have all previously processed and saved images available to me. There is no clear or regular benefit in that overhead that I can see.
So I use sessions and work only in the images that need to be worked on at the time.
If, at some future point, I decide a catalogue would be useful I can create one (or several) from the information in the sessions.
For working on a new group of images that will eventually become part of a catalogue this seems to offer the most flexible approach and avoids the performance burden of having thousands of images loaded when one has no need of them.
HTH.
Grant0 -
[quote="bkgs" wrote:
Your experience is different from mine. I have a catalog of 49,000 images all on an internal SSD with preview size set at the default. The all images album takes 1 minute 50 seconds to open. Otherwise CO is working well and all other computer functions are fine. So its an unsolved mystery.
That sounds in line with what I'm seeing. I have 67,000 images on a brand new iMac 5k 2017, 4.2GHz i7, 40GB RAM, Catalog on internal very fast SSD, referenced images on Thunderbolt attached 4-drive RAID (1+0) which is fast for spinning disk.
Open database from scratch: 20 seconds (obviously not pointing to the all images folder)
Open "all images" view.......: 1 min 22 seconds.0 -
Grant,
I think a lot of people who are getting into C1 are coming from Aperture or LR where it is sort of normal and expected to just catalog everything. But I've been using C1 for three years or so and I have kind of adopted a process like yours where I do shoots in a Session. I edit in the Session (usually on a laptop) and perhaps tether to it and eventually I copy or move that session to my "referenced file/folder system" (basically year/ month/ shoot) on my desktop.
Once I copy the Session there, I import it into the big catalog and it inhales my edits, metadata, ratings and I can continue from there if I need to. It works pretty well overall and I like using Sessions since they are quick, as you said, and can easily be moved around. The mega-catalog concept is what a lot of people like as it allows them to search ALL IMAGES for a keyword or meta-data element and not having one makes it more difficult.
But I guess what I'm wondering is why the C1 catalog can't be better, at least in opening the "all images' view. Again, I think a lot of people like to be able to go to "one place to find everything" and are hoping the catalog can be that place. Media Pro could be that place as well, if it just integrated better with C1.
I ran into performance issues on my last machine @100k images and split my catalog into 3 smaller ones. It helped a lot but I feel I shouldn't have needed to do that (the way I did it is here: http://www.peterguyton.com/catalog-conundrum if anyone is interested). On my new iMac, I'm doing fine still (biggest catalog is 67k images) except for the "all images" view which continues to be slow to open (1 min , 23 seconds or so).0 -
[quote="CorsairVelo" wrote:
Grant,
I think a lot of people who are getting into C1 are coming from Aperture or LR where it is sort of normal and expected to just catalog everything.
I agree and I think that one of the best reasons for mentioning the alternative approach.
I tried LR when it first came out and thought it would be great for me but I was also using another application at the time and it was, to me, far more powerful than LR in pure processing and so preferred. LR insisted on saving in a catalogue so I had to have 2 copies of the files ... I let LR lapse. I had another look at LR V3 but still could not grow to love it.
The other application has a look and feel quite similar to Capture One and basically uses sessions sidecar concepts without session DB files.
C1 proved to have a faster UI (v6 era at the time), comparatively "just looked good" with hardly any effort required and allowed me to use both applications side by side with only one master copy of a image.
I could of course do the same things with a C1 catalogue but much of my activity is "event" driven so the session approach works for me without the overriding need to create a catalogue - though I might do so for finished images at some point if my retrospective keywording and Meta Data project ever happens. It's something I feel I should do although I'm not really sure why!
When I first adopted C1, after about a year I realised that whilst I was quite happy working with it I really had not made good use of all of the powerful facilities available.
So I threw away the comfortable pre-conceptions and the "this is good enough anyway" approach and decided to find out what it could really offer - which was way more than I need on a regular basis. However there were several things that just made life so much easier and faster for my needs and I suspect that everyone could find something similar for their needs. Basically the same sort of experience you have had discovering sessions.
As for performance - I agree with you but wonder about technical constraints - especially in the case of comparison to Aperture which, of course, had no need to attempt to be a multi-platform product as do LR and C1.
Back in the days when I was using LR it always seemed visually fast compared to my other (preferred) application of the time. However, when I attempted to do some side by side comparisons it was less convincing.
LR, set an adjustment task of some complexity, would kick in with a screen of changes very quickly - but if one kept watching it was possible to see a further 2 or 3 waves of detail changes being applied until the process was complete.
My other application, which seems to work on a full recalc from base data like C1, looked really slow at the time compared to LR but only because nothing much happened until the fully amended image was thrust onto the screen in its final form.
My system was not especially powerful and the edits I had applied were deliberately selected to take as long as I could make them take in order to have some chance of timing them and getting useful log file entries. I was surprised when I realised that both applications were taking about the same amount of time per image for complete processing even though LR gave the perception of being almost instant.
Interesting, I thought.
Grant0
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