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CO9 Performance?

BobRockefeller
I see so many posts on this forum about the poor performance (speed and responsiveness) of the latest Capture One Pro. Some folks have retina displays and sliders are not responsive. Others have "large" catalogs and keyword manipulation speed is glacial. And so on.

Aside from missing DAM features, I'm left to assume the professionals using CO are using it for sessions, or very small catalogs, on non-retina displays. Otherwise it doesn't seem as if a pro with a large catalog and a high quality display could be productive.

I'm a serious amateur, not a pro. But I'd like to upgrade to a retina display. And I expect my image collection to grow beyond the thousands it is now into the tens of thousands.

Years ago, I used CO3 to convert my RAW images to TIFFs to edit in other applications and track in what was then iView Media. That was the workflow of the day. Aperture came out and blasted that workflow into history. Lightroom arrived soon after and eventually helped to kill Aperture. I stopped upgrading CO in that time but joined back up at CO7, just to watch. Until CO9, Lightroom (because Aperture was dead) was simply a better workflow tool, for me.

I have been giving CO9 a serious run of late. I'm making a concentrated effort to move to it for my full workflow - ingest, edit, catalog, adjust, print. In the process, I've entered a number of support cases for bugs and missing features. Many have been confirmed as bugs, but not yet fixed. I have a call and screen sharing session scheduled for Tuesday to better describe/show a keyword import problem I have. If the identified bugs are fixed and the Tuesday session resolves my problem, CO9 can work for me - with some inconveniences I hope will be improved in future versions.

But, in the face of the structural performance issues, if I switch to CO from Lightroom, am I just getting on a dead end road?
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Comments

25 comments

Date Votes
  • Permanently deleted user
    Hi Bob

    Your post is very temperate, all things considered.

    I picture Cap1 as being on the edge of a cliff, sliding down the scree with no handhold in sight. Version 9 problems could be the tipping point for many (former) users. What a shame. The only good news (for me) is that v8 is remarkably stable and does all that I need.

    But I for one no longer rely on C1 - other raw converters do a better job. One of them even offers a Luma algorithm!

    I suspect the main problem with Phase and Cap1 is that they delight in pushing the envelope of the latest Microsoft development tools and graphics cards. Then, the unintended consequences for those of us with more modest computer systems become apparent, as witnessed in the Forum entries. Perhaps it is easier to create new code for faster hardware than re-write old code that runs faster? Just a guess, but something is clearly going amiss in v9.

    Peter
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  • Daniel Wisniewski
    [quote="BobRockefeller" wrote:
    But, in the face of the structural performance issues, if I switch to CO from Lightroom, am I just getting on a dead end road?


    If you had asked Apple years ago that question ( If I switch from Lightroom to Aperture am I getting on a dead end road? ), I wonder what the answer would have been.

    I too, have struggled with DAM over the past year and I finally have given up trying to 'bring in ' old images into new catalogs. I have resolved that everything is sitting in 'Photo's' and if I _need_ a photo, I'll export the image & work on it. Going forward with newer images, they get a catalog in CO9. Also, everything had been burned to BluRay for storage. I'm not a 'pro'.

    What I see on the forum is that in most cases, people just want an application to work. Whether its CO9 or any other program. I don't think most people know 'where to check logs' for any possible information _or_ how to look into running processes for possible info. And in most cases, thats OK. Basic end-users should not have to do other trouble shooting. Me, I run beta release of software and try to give positive feedback on how it runs on my system ( not latest & greatest hardware ). But, I do know my systems limitations.

    Since there are many tools for image manipulation ( including Darktable, GIMP, which are free ), I think you find something you like, that you are comfortable using, and most important - produces results which you ( or clients ) are happy with.

    You are never on a dead-end road if you are always learning!

    As for me & keywords - I can't image having to try and find 'Green, cloudy day, Belgrade, 25mm, inside,church ).

    cheers!
    dan

    ps; anxious to hear how your Tuesday call goes.
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  • BeO
    Top Commenter
    I have ordered a new desktop for 2.5k ONLY because the performance (and RAM) of C1 v8 is no longer sufficient for me. And that is because I like the IQ and edit tools very much and am willing to live with the issues, and with medium sized catalogs, hoping it will improve...

    I have downloaded v9 but only played a little until know, it seems it has not deteriorated.

    I am sure without running C1 my current machine would have sufficed at least another 4-5 years for my other jobs, as Windows 7 is still supported until 2020 and Win 10 seems to have a very similar performance.

    So, my TCO (total cost of ownership) for C1 is a big multiple of the C1 license fee!

    Would C1 perform better and run with lower RAM specs a lot more people with mediocre hardware could be using C1 (and probably would), even if the license fee would be higher to hire additional developers to make this happen...

    Just my humble thoughts, I cannot make a business case as I lack of lot of information and market oversight though.

    cheers
    BeO
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  • Permanently deleted user
    Hi Beo

    You are a brave man! Hopefully Phase has endorsed your hardware upgrade?

    I have been investigating a graphics card upgrade (4Gb, about £400) on my m/c, simply to get C1 to perform in so-called real time. But I decided against it because soon I will have to consider whether to go for a new Win10 m/c or use my perfectly respectable Win7 PC for a bit longer with a graphics card and software that are compatible. So C1 v9 is not top of my wish list at the moment.

    Incidentally I am finding the latest upgrade for LRcc seems to be testing my PC graphics beyond its capabilities. But DxO and Silkypix (now Pro v7), and PScc continue to run smoothly. And all the new cameras are catered for. Phase should realise that we do have choices!

    Good luck with your new m/c - it must be a monster at that price. Good lord I could buy a Canon 5DS for that money!

    Peter
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  • BeO
    Top Commenter
    Yes, this indeed postpones a new camera purchase which I have had on my wish list 😕
    Anyway, a new camera does not make me taking better pictures, as raw converters don't either... 😂
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  • Fred Wolfe
    I’d like to introduce a cautionary note. It is not possible to determine the degree of satisfaction users have with C1P9 or how well C1P9 works from comments in the forum. Those commenting of course have problems, but satisfied or successful users rarely comment. There is no way to determine the prevalence of serious problems from these reports.

    Although I have only several thousand images and don’t use 4K, C1P9 is very fast on my late 2013 Mac Pro, and overall C1P9 works very well. Key words, metadata and searching could work a lot better, but it is (for me) a problem I can live with until Phase One fixes it.

    Fred Wolfe
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  • NNN635898600706542624
    As far as I'm concerned, and for what it's worth, v9 is /notably/ faster than v8 on my Mac Mini 2012 (i7 2GHz with 16 GB of RAM). Is it a Windows vs. OS X issue?
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  • Permanently deleted user
    I find v9 to be at least as "fast" as v8 (both Pro). In quotes because some operations (generating full-size previews, for example) are slower than I'd like, and the time to open a catalog and switch among collections depends on how many images are in the collection to be viewed. But otherwise I think there are more important areas P1 could work on (the SQLite database and comprehensive printing presets to name two).

    I use 2 machines for C1: a maxxed out 2012 MacBook Pro (non-retina) and a maxxed-out 2012 Mac Pro with an upgraded graphics card and other PCI slot goodies. Both machines run off of SSDs, currently run Yosemite, and my main photo library disk on the Mac Pro is a Seagate Hybrid.

    Having read a lot of "performance issue" reports on this forum, I suspect the C1 development team might appreciate useful system reports such as console logs, and other detailed quantitative information. It might also be helpful if the C1 developers would post some performance tips (Win and Mac). Performance issues can be very hard to track down, especially when a group as diverse as C1 users is involved.
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  • BobRockefeller
    [quote="Fred Wolfe" wrote:
    I’d like to introduce a cautionary note. It is not possible to determine the degree of satisfaction users have with C1P9 or how well C1P9 works from comments in the forum. Those commenting of course have problems, but satisfied or successful users rarely comment. There is no way to determine the prevalence of serious problems from these reports.


    Fred,

    That's true. I have few speed related problems, at this point, with CO9 on either my late 2103 Mac Pro nor my older retina MacBook Pro.

    But I do get a "beach ball" from time to time working with keywords from the keyword library. Perhaps it's when I have the All Images collection selected - I'll have to watch for that.

    If I get a "beach ball" now, I don't think things will be getting better with more images. And the retina iMac complaints seem pretty widespread. Perhaps we are only seeing those with problems.

    We'll see, but I'm worried. The transition from Aperture to Lightroom was no fun. The current stage of my attempted transition from Lightroom to CO9 is still hitting bumps from unresolved bugs. I just don't want the effort to go for nothing and end up back in Lightroom after wasted time.
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  • BeO
    Top Commenter
    Hi Fred,

    That's absolutely true. The few users here in the forum are just the tip of the ice berg, as
    "90k Professional Photographers trust Capture One"
    (and btw, Capture one is "#1 In Imaging Software")
    [].

    With regards to cataloging: I also believe, as it has been said in this or another thread very recently, that most pros would work with sessions anyway, and I would think a few thousand images is the max per session (shoot?). Also, keywording is probably not extensively used for this kind of work.

    So I believe there are a lot of satisfied users out there (as I am, for most of C1).

    There are also positive voices here in the forum, but also probably dissatisfied users with no presence in the forum.

    4K: By the time 4K becomes standard, I am sure C1 and the hardware it runs on will cope with it easily.
    DAM: I would assume C1 becomes better and better (over time) and eventually will offer Media Pro users to move to C1. There would have been much more effort to integrate MP better with and sell MP together with C1, instead of upgrading C1's DAM capabilities. But lacking an official roadmap, not even for supported camera models or release dates or features for C1, this is all guessing...

    Performance tips from C1 developers? Hm, there is plenty here in the forum, the bottom line is something like faster and bigger is better. And that's probably true and the best tip one can get, as far as general tips are concerned...

    I have passed my logs to support (e.g. 4000 images load in 5 min.) and it was not seen as a chance to improve things...

    vice versa: I have a tip for the developers:
    Make it an option that (when loading the catalog) checking for every image whether or not it is online/offline. This might help users especially with a NAS as raw file storage. I have the impression from interpreting the logs that a lot of time is wasted here which is not necessary for catalog work at all, and the "Offline" check should be sufficient by the time a user tries to edit or process an image.

    If there is real interest by P1 in improving speed and DAM I guess this happens behind the scenes. As all is done behind the scenes (see missing roadmap as an example).
    On the other hand, behind the scenes probably the vast majority of pro users are using sessions anyway...

    There is no bottom line or special point I want to make, I'm just gathering a lot of different thoughts here.

    Cheers
    BeO
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  • NN635770922769309595UL
    Fred's "cautionary tale" is on target. I'd add that it is an intrinsic feature of any forum that is centred on application software (from an OS to a photo editor/DAM) that many/most of the posts are from users who are experiencing problems, either from bugs or from a miss-match between their expectations and what the app actually does.

    These posts are valuable to the developers by identifying opportunities for improvement, and for other users who may have a solution to the issues raised.
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  • NNN635158767546269381
    Hello,

    actually I am not so happy wit the DAM performance of CO9, but I feel like it is getting better.

    I have a tips for you:
    1. Do a backup (using the Backup functionality of CO) and select "Optimise Catalog".
    2. Make a backup of your ".bd".
    3. Copy the backup (and optimized) .db to the place of your original file.
    4. Start CO again.

    So. No miracle, butI have the feeling, it is a bit faster using an optimize catalog.

    I am a pro. I do my "pro" project in Session. It is just faster. Some time, I import the session to my main catalog which has about 100k pictures.
    In the catalog I have all "my" pictures and many pros stuff

    Regards
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  • Permanently deleted user
    I have little or no problems.

    I went to some specialized training. They recommended not using catalogues but using sessions instead. I made that switch and I am very happy with it. The good part of a session versus a catalog is that the photos are not embedded and can be found and moved within the finder (mac). I have a lot of photos in some sessions and I add to them all the time. I do a fair amount of high school sports photography and simply have a girls basketball session and a boys basketball session etc. I can find photos quickly in the sessions since they are automatically sorted by date.
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  • John Doe
    [quote="Peter from NH" wrote:
    The good part of a session versus a catalog is that the photos are not embedded and can be found and moved within the finder (mac).

    Same with a catalog if you tell CO to reference files rather than manage them.

    I can find photos quickly in the sessions since they are automatically sorted by date.

    You can sort them by any one of 15 criteria in a catalog.

    Mind you, I don't mean you should use a catalog if you're happy with sessions; I just wanted to correct a few mistakes here. 😊
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  • BeO
    Top Commenter
    I think a lot of people would be happier to get a commitment from P1 that they would work seriously on catalog performance for one of the upcoming minor versions, instead of getting tips not to use catalogs but sessions instead.
    Cheers
    BeO
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  • BobRockefeller
    [quote="Peter from NH" wrote:

    I went to some specialized training. They recommended not using catalogues but using sessions instead.


    That is sad commentary on the implementation, performance and reliability of the catalog. If that is the course Phase One pursues, I will be at a dead end with CO. ☹️
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  • BeO
    Top Commenter
    I find this conclusion a little too hard Bob, if asked which way I would recommend (for anything I am specialist) I also would have a preference for one over the other... 😊
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  • harald_walker
    Am also curious how your session goes tomorrow. I just spend hours documenting the poor keyword library performance for support, including a screencast that shows that it takes 5 minutes to delete one single keyword in a catalog of 22K images.

    One possible performance issue I noticed but haven't double checked yet are the meta data sync settings. If renaming or deleting a keyword means that it has to update synced meta-data on the external disk (where the referenced raw files are), then that is of course a very time consuming activity. If that is indeed the case, then they should update those files in a background process like the preview generation instead of blocking C1.
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  • BobRockefeller
    [quote="BeO" wrote:
    I find this conclusion a little too hard Bob, if asked which way I would recommend (for anything I am specialist) I also would have a preference for one over the other... 😊


    Why too hard?

    If the catalog (my chosen way to store images) isn't performant and stable for "large" image collections, I'm not going to want to invest much time in transitioning to CO from Lr.
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  • Permanently deleted user
    I would have to agree with Bob. I've recently invested in CO9 and transitioned from LR. The cost of that exercise was twice that of buying LR (which I already own), but I did it because:
    1. I love the results of converting my Nikon raw files in CO, and
    2. I'm increasingly unimpressed with Adobe's attitude towards those of us who want to own software rather than rent it. (I never used Aperture, but it did have the effect of keeping Adobe fair and reasonable.)

    I've got to say that CO9 is slow, and a little flakey - and that's on a new top of the range iMac.

    I have all my images in a single catalogue by choice, and given that LR handles that with no apparent effort, I don't think it's too much to expect CO to do the same.

    I'll persist with CO for the reasons outlined above, but I hope there's a 9.1 which addresses these issues on the horizon.

    Regards to all.

    Shane
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  • BeO
    Top Commenter
    You are all right. If P1 pursues with a bad catalog performance then I also think it is a no-go for many, especially for enthusiasts which are probably the main users of catalogs. Enthusiasts might not be the main target market (until now) but I still hope they target them with not lesser priority.

    +1 for Nikon raws, and the subscription model of Adobe

    cheers
    BeO
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  • BobRockefeller
    [quote="harald_walker" wrote:
    Am also curious how your session goes tomorrow.


    My session went well. The support agent was knowledgeable and helpful. But in the end, agreed that my keyword problems looked like bugs. The issue is being passed back through the Project Manager and possibly to R&D for deeper analysis.

    As we worked through combinations, she did mention that syncing and XMP files were a possible source of trouble. But it didn't appear that my problem was related to that.
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  • EnderWiggins
    Phase One needs to hire SQL database specialists, that's all there is to it. I don't know, maybe they did already, but the performance issues seem to be related to a poor database performance.

    I don't remember where I read this, it might even have been here in this forum, but someone with a bit of background in this area once had taken a deeper look into the SQL databases of Aperture, Lightroom and C1 Pro (8) and found out, that Aperture had by far the most database index tables (a sort of quick lookup table for fast searches and parsing) followed by Lightroom. C1 was dead last with an almost comical number of indexes compared to the other two. This would conform to the performance differences I experienced with all three tools.
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  • harald_walker
    [quote="BobRockefeller" wrote:
    [quote="Peter from NH" wrote:

    That is sad commentary on the implementation, performance and reliability of the catalog. If that is the course Phase One pursues, I will be at a dead end with CO. ☹️


    I just singed up for CC. Reported the keyword library performance issues middle of December. Took support 1 1/2 months to acknowledge the problems and pass it on to R&D. Have very little hope to see those issues being solved soon. Now I have to figure out how to transfer everything from C1 to LR before my C1 subscription ends after the summer.

    Update:
    No more performance issues by using LR. Already transferred a 44K catalog and everything is very fast now. Had to use sidecar XMP to get all the meta-data out of C1 and into LR and of course lost all project/album structures. So far I even prefer the RAW rendering. Never thought I'd enjoy working with LR.
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  • Andriy.Okhrimets
    Looks like C1 continues to improve catalog perfomance compare from 8 to 9, my catalog with 15K of shots now loads at least twice faster.

    But still not that fast compared to LR. Still RAW proccessing power is superior.
    The only way to address that is keep buzzing PO support with actual issues.

    And they are doing that job. But it looks like main evil now is meta database that`s why all is so slow.
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