Questions from Aperture refugee
Currently using Aperture 3.6 on 10.10.3 - but know its days are limited ☹️.
Am I right that hierarchical keywords and smart albums will not be imported into Capture One Pro 8?
But that:
all will?
I don't use Stacks; I haven't made many adjustments.
Is Capture One Pro 8 a good next step for me, please?
TIA for an encouragement that anyone has the time to make 😊.
Am I right that hierarchical keywords and smart albums will not be imported into Capture One Pro 8?
But that:
- all EXIF data
geotags
titles
captions
keywords (otherwise)
straightenings
croppings
all will?
I don't use Stacks; I haven't made many adjustments.
Is Capture One Pro 8 a good next step for me, please?
TIA for an encouragement that anyone has the time to make 😊.
0
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[quote="NNN635679408594250258" wrote:
TIA for an encouragement that anyone has the time to make 😊.
I'm a couple of weeks into the move from Aperture, having found the two interfaces remarkably similar. I can't speak authoritatively on all of your questions, but I can confirm that smart albums do not import. You have a couple of options; recreate them in Capture One - which is very easy (In my case I really only used smart albums in Aperture for ratings in any case) or 'convert' your smart albums to albums in Aperture before you export (which may defeat the 'smart' aspect of your album structure).
Adjustments and crops come across just fine - though, of course, adjustments may be different between the two applications, given the difference in raw conversion (if anything, CO has improved the look of most of my images).
Keywords come across just fine also - though I can't comment on hierarchical keyword structures, as I have only ever used a 'flat' keyword system.
I've approached the move on a project by project basis, and have settled on the following 'process'. It works for me, but your mileage may vary:
In Aperture: Leave projects 'as is'. A mixture of referenced and managed files is fine. Make sure, however, that all of the referenced images are ‘connected'. A smart folder can be used for this— using “file status†to find images that are on-line or off-line.
Export a project from Aperture as a library. Leave the option to 'copy originals into exported library’ unchecked. There is no need to duplicate the original image files.
Import the library into Capture One.
IMPORTANT: The option to ‘copy originals into exported library’ only affects referenced files in Aperture. I've found that Aperture will copy managed files into the exported library regardless of whether the checkbox is selected or not. Although slightly confusing, this turns out to be a good thing, because it preserves the integrity of managed files in the original Aperture library. I haven't seen this reported by anyone else yet - so test this to make sure it's not just me.
After the import, check the location of files by viewing the newly created folders in Capture One (the folder structure can be expanded in Capture One by right clicking anywhere in the Folders view and selecting ’Show Folders Hierarchy’). Files that were referenced in Aperture will appear inside the original folder where they reside. Images that were managed in Aperture will appear within a directory structure inside the exported Aperture library file. Typically, these should be moved into the Capture One catalog. In other words, you want these files to be ‘managed’ in Capture One - just as they were ‘managed’ in Aperture.
Ask yourself whether you really need to import your entire Aperture library into CO - at least to begin with. If, like me, you've archived a lot of projects over the years, you may find there is no particular urgency to get the whole lot over on one Sunday afternoon. I can recommend testing a few projects first, during which time you'll probably develop a clearer picture on the how, if and when of a complete move (Aperture will continue to work for some time to come, I'm sure).
You might also find yourself asking where a particular feature found in Aperture exists in Capture One. While the two platforms share many similarities, they are not exactly the same - by design. A so-called 'missing feature' may not in fact be missing at all, it's just the philosophy of dealing with that particular function is different in Capture One. In other words, you will have to adapt some changes in the way you've don't things in the past, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Capture One is less powerful, or in some way inferior to Aperture. Aperture was a very mature product, with a very rich feature set - particularly in image library management. Capture One may seem on the surface to appear slightly less fully featured. However, I'm starting to find that perception due to the design differences, and that I can achieve everything in Capture One, that I was able to achieve using Aperture.
Finally, for many, it's all about image quality. From what I've seen so far, the RAW conversation and image adjustment potential of Capture One exceeds that of Aperture.
Good luck,
Paul0 -
Paul,
Thank you so very much for your extremely helpful and full reply!
It's very encouraging; and makes me think that I should do the same.
I do like the hierarchical keywords structure: so could I recreate it in CO (that is, does CO even support a hierarchical keywords structure/system at all) once I've brought everything in?
Does CO respect Aperture's notion of Versions and Masters: that is, can you see the 'original' image in CO if you wish to, even though it's been cropped/straightened; does it really bring over all that data from Aperture?
Definitely geotags, captions, titles?
Thanks again!0 -
Mark,
Grab the trial and test with a project or two. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with how seamless the database import is (just make sure you take the usual precautions, including backing up your current Aperture library). Versions (called variants in CO) and masters are much the same construct in these two apps. Surprisingly so. I think you'll feel right at home despite some of the functional differences.
Also, check out the help on the Phase One web site - here's a link, for example, to information on keywords, including hierarchical:
http://help.phaseone.com/en/CO8/Organiz ... words.aspx
Finally, the free webinars that David G. hosts are very good indeed. I think there's one this week on moving from Aperture - could be great timing for you (though there's also one in the webinar archive). Check out the web site at Phase One for more info. Lots of videos, webinars etc. available there.
Paul0 -
Thanks, Paul!
That's extremely encouraging, and helpful; and I much appreciate it.
I shall do just as you kindly suggest.
I suppose my only reservation remains paying out $299… Aperture was < $100.
Is CO's user base large enough - and Phase One strong enough - to be around in x years time?
Thanks again 😊0 -
[quote="NNN635679408594250258" wrote:
I suppose my only reservation remains paying out $299… Aperture was < $100.
There's currently a sale going on at Capture One Complete, check it out:
http://www.captureonecomplete.com/uk/in ... &Itemid=86[quote="NNN635679408594250258" wrote:
Is CO's user base large enough - and Phase One strong enough - to be around in x years time?
Who knows? Apertures' user base was not too small (as can be seen by all those "what should I do?" postings around the forums) and look where we are now.
My experience from moving over from Aperture to C1 was so smooth that I'm not really worried anymore about stuff like that. If you keep your image files organised, there will always be a migration path open to whatever is around then.
Re. your overall questions here's my take:
- I think hierarchical keywords ARE possible, but given the relatively weak state of keywords overall in C1 I would not expect too much
- Smart Albums work a little different in C1 because the DAM structure is different (you'll find out). Aperture was and still is king in this area, so C1 is a bit of a step back for you. However, I find the "filters" section pretty ok for a quick narrow down of your image view, this actually reduces the need for smart albums. You just have to adjust.
- don't expect too much from the adjustments migration, it is just a best estimate by C1. You will find out that the image quality of C1 is so much better than Aperture that you may want to re-edit your best images from scratch anyway.
- for me, C1 is by far the best alternative to Aperture currently out there and for two major reasons: 1) image quality and 2) flexible and adaptive user interface and workspace. The obvious other tool out there, which everybody else seems to be attracted to, totally fails in 2) and also falls back in 1), in my opinion.
Migrate step by step. You can export your Aperture library in smaller chunks, e.g. by folders, to a new library file and migrate these one by one into C1. That way you can try out a few things first and the new C1 catalog stays usable (C1 is not very fast and seems to get slower with bigger catalogs, very similar to how Aperture behaved before Version 3). You can actually keep your managed library in Aperture as it is and then have these images inside the Aperture package file referenced by C1, but I would advise you to convert all your Aperture images to referenced first, because a) who knows how long Aperture will still launch in future OS X versions, thus rendering its export functionality useless and b) because of performance issues.0 -
EnderWiggins,
Thanks so much. That's all really very, very helpful 😊
There's nothing you say that puts me off. In fact, I'm 99% sold!
Thanks: what's implied by 'Capture One Complete'?There's currently a sale going on at Capture One Complete, check it out:
http://www.captureonecomplete.com/uk/in ... &Itemid=86
Much appreciated. I know the way to go now…0 -
I am also in the process of migrating from Aperture. Correct that keyword hierarchies not migrated, though flat keywords are.
Is there any way to globally rename keywords or globally reorganizing keyword hierarchies?
To reconstruct the keyword hierarchy, I tried following the instructions here:
http://help.phaseone.com/en/CO8/Organiz ... words.aspx
However, the keyword edits — renaming keywords or shifting them into hierarchal relationships — these edits only seem to affect the keywords in the currently selected image.
Thanks!0 -
[quote="NNN635679470902875081" wrote:
Is there any way to globally rename keywords or globally reorganizing keyword hierarchies?
To reconstruct the keyword hierarchy, I tried following the instructions here:
http://help.phaseone.com/en/CO8/Organiz ... words.aspx
However, the keyword edits — renaming keywords or shifting them into hierarchal relationships — these edits only seem to affect the keywords in the currently selected image.
Hi,
if you open an album in C1 the keywords tool in the library tooltab ist populated with those keywords that are assigned to the images in that album. If you edit anything there it will only apply to selected images.
You can also add keywords that are available across all albums and catalogs. Open the link you posted and scroll down to the last paragraph "Enter Keywords from the filters tool". That says it all.
The keywords entered this way are stored in the com.phaseone.captureone8.plist file in your user library. You can edit that file with textwrangler (App-Store).
Once you get used to the structure used for keywords in that file you can easily add new keywords in a bulk instead of entering them one by one in the filters tool in C1.( In my case entering more than one keyword at a time separated by commas didn't work.)
The trick is to reboot your computer imediately after editing the plist or else the changes will be ignored because in Mavericks and Yosemite there is a daemon running that keeps copies of used plists in its cache and rebuilds them from these copies the next time the plist is used. Rebooting empties that cache.
I can't say anything about hierarchical keywords because I stopped using them in Aperture already.
HTH
Frank0 -
I confess, Keywords for me are about as crucial/essential as it gets!
Aperture allows you to Export keywords; would that help those of us who want to reproduce hierarchies?0 -
I'd 2nd the improved look of Aperture images when processed in CO - so much that I let CO chew over my 70k library from Aperture and reprocessed the lot when importing into CO!
I exported Projects as Folders from Aperture and then imported the Folders as Referenced files into CO. I had to do this as my "Aperture" library, although upgraded to a unified library and fully used by Aperture, showed as an iPhoto library so CO's import wouldn't recognise it. As it was 600GB is wasn't as easy as import it into a new Aperture library, anyway I was losing the will to live by that point and all has been well since.
Latest files (1/1/2015 onwards), I have as Managed files within CO but it is so easy to move images between I don't foresee any issues whatsoever with such a hybrid Catalogue.
Once in CO the interface is a) great and b) so configurable you will be spoilt for choice. 😄0 -
Mark, [quote="NNN635679408594250258" wrote:
I confess, Keywords for me are about as crucial/essential as it gets!
my last sentence was not clear I think. So - I use keywords too just no hierarchies. I had set up keyword hierarchies in Aperture but when I wanted to use them they didn't work as I expected. I had thought that assigning a keyword from a lower level in the hierarchy would automatically assign the higher level words too (people>portrait>woman; assigning woman should also assign portrait and people). Back then this did not work so I stopped using hierarchical keywords.[quote="NNN635679408594250258" wrote:
Aperture allows you to Export keywords; would that help those of us who want to reproduce hierarchies?
I don't think so. I don't know any way to import them into C1. Aperture exports (hierarchical) keywords to a text file.people
<TAB>portrait
<TAB><TAB>man
<TAB><TAB>woman
As per manual C1 can import them separated by commas it can't read the structure exported from Aperture. So - in theory - you could remove the TAB's and replace the carriage returns by commas and then import them.
But this didn't work here. Only the first word of the list was imported into C1. So I imported them one by one. Quite a piece of work. And no hierarchies this way.
To establish hierarchies in C1 you can open the keywords tool and drag the lower level words onto higher level words.
In the example above you would drag man onto portrait and woman onto portrait and then portrait onto people.
Best regards,
Frank0 -
Thanks, Frank. Very helpful!
I'll do as you kindly suggest, though I'm still very tempted to try and massage the exported Aperture Keywords file (e.g. examine its Hex Dump in BBEdit) and see if I can't produce a format that will work in C1 😊0 -
[quote="NNN635679408594250258" wrote:
I'll do as you kindly suggest, though I'm still very tempted to try and massage the exported Aperture Keywords file (e.g. examine its Hex Dump in BBEdit) and see if I can't produce a format that will work in C1 😊
Mark,
to find out about the structure you need you can establish a simple hierarchy in C1 by dragging the keywords and then have a look at the plist with textwrangler.
Regards,
Frank0 -
Frank,
Thanks; that's just what I'll try.
Am I right that changing the C1 Keywords list (in this way) does not affect at all which Keywords are assigned to which images?
For instance if 'church' becomes 'architecture > church' because i drag 'church' into/onto 'architecture', 'church' still remains a keyword for those images where it wasn't a child, and now is (of 'architecture'), doesn't it?
TIA!0 -
[quote="NNN635679408594250258" wrote:
Am I right that changing the C1 Keywords list (in this way) does not affect at all which Keywords are assigned to which images?
For instance if 'church' becomes 'architecture > church' because i drag 'church' into/onto 'architecture', 'church' still remains a keyword for those images where it wasn't a child, and now is (of 'architecture'), doesn't it?
I have no idea Mark. As I said I don't use hierarchies anymore.
But you can easily test that out. Make a dummy catalog add 5 images and five keywords (preferably five you will later use anyway).
Assign each keyword to one image.
Drag the keywords to create a hierarchy.
Check the images for changes.
Regards,
Frank0 -
Frank,
Thanks. Yes. Will do.
Though… I like to keep a really clean machine 😊
If I create and delete C1 Catalogs (etc) like this, am I definitely left with no trace - e.g. in a (global) Preference File of data/settings/keywords etc which I really do no longer want, please?0 -
[quote="NNN635679408594250258" wrote:
If I create and delete C1 Catalogs (etc) like this, am I definitely left with no trace - e.g. in a (global) Preference File of data/settings/keywords etc which I really do no longer want, please?
I don't think so but I can't say for sure. I have done that several times (deleting the main catalog and starting over again) and my brandnew iMac still looks pretty clean 😂
Seriously - the only thing was that C1 remembers the catalog that was used last and tries to open it when launched. Since the old catalog wasn't there anymore it gave me a dialog where I could choose one to open or create a new one.
I have found no other traces of previous catalogs.
Regards,
Frank0 -
Thanks, Frank. That's extremely helpful! 0 -
I moved from Aperture last August. The Interface is similar to aperture.
It's NOT Aperture! Aperture does some things much easier. I find myself doing most processing in CO8 and then importing the JPEG into Aperture for the Clone and Heal functions!
I still haven't mastered the Clone/heal tools...I guess I'm getting old (56)
I wish they made private videos and or published books on CO8.0 -
CO Web Casts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_snlVTL ... 9pZu_X_vLJ
CO Tutorials
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0IcSpl ... DO8UB5siyH
Repair & Spotting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR6P_qQ ... H&index=14
Repair Layers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bpQyDt ... 9pZu_X_vLJ0 -
Don't worry the clone and heal tools in CO8 are an absolute joke. How PhaseOne came up with the idea for them is beyond any understanding.
Ok, Each clone or heal layer has one offset to the replacement data. So create a spot to fix, set the source point 10 pixels to the left and 10 pixels up. Now every spot on that layer is going to take it's replacement source as 10 pixels to the right and 10 pixels up. As I never use the tools I don't know what would happen if the src point went outside of the image.
I do not understand why they did not just enhance the spot/dust tools, to do a better job. Yes, the layers are nice because you can create arbitrary shapes, but the one vector offset for the source just not seem good. Maybe if they allowed unlimited layers, but as the layers are limited there is only so may fixes you can do.
Robert0
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