Can't find a good reason to use Sessions over Catalogs. Am I missing something.
I started using C1 and catalogs about a year ago. It took a while to set up my file catalog hierarchy which I organize by years e.g. 2021, 2022. Although I'm a professional, I only complete about 50 shoots a year. I assign either stars or colors to each of my photos and cull my images occasionally and keep only the good images. I've been studying/experimenting with Sessions. It seems to me that I already have a workflow that does the same thing in Sessions as I already do in Catalogs. The biggest difference is where the images show up in the Library tab. I keep all my images (in Catalogs and Sessions) on an external drive. I don't see a good enough reason to move to Sessions. Am I missing something?
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> Martin Jenich: Am I missing something?
Seems about time to re-post a link to an article about the pro and cons, it's a bit dated, but still relevant: https://www.photo-digitaltransitions.com/catalogs-vs-sessions-epic-battle-times/
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> Martin Jenich: Am I missing something?
FYI: 24+ hours ago I posted a link to an article about session vs catalog. That post is still "pending approval".
I support a regime where forum admin (or a moderator) approves a posting that contains foreign links, meaning links pointing outside Capture One's domain(s) like the link in my said post does. Most spam postings seen here contain at least one foreign link. For some reason, the "pending approval" thing appears to be off for long periods. When it is on, approval can take days...
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Can you simply give me the name and author of the article? Perhaps I can find it on my own outside of the C1 forum. That's assuming, of course, it was published outside C1 and/or the forum. If it's within C1, then I'll have to wait. Thanks for your comments nonetheless.
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> Martin Jenich: ...the name and author of the article?
Sure; "Catalogs vs Sessions: An Epic Battle of Our Times" by Doug Peterson
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A few pros and cons...
Sessions are quite portable. I usually start with a session on my MacBook Pro. Later, when I am finished working with that session, I import the keepers (the contents of the session Selects folder and Output folder) into my master catalog on my desktop iMac. It's easy to just transfer the whole session folder from one computer to the other. But in the end I want the images in the master catalog because of the ease of searching for images I want. (I take a lot of nature photographs and it is useful to me to be able to identify other images taken over the years of the dragonfly or whatever that I saw yesterday.) I am just a hobbyist, so I generally work on one session a month plus a few extras for things like holidays, special events and so on.
Ian
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Thank you very much. I found the article and will read it later. I understand what you do and how to import a Session into a Master Catalog. You just gave me an idea and if you are willing, I'd like your opinion. For me it comes down to that I like my current file organization and hierarchy in my catalog. I'm thinking I could simply complete my work in Sessions, import the keepers to the catalog and they will show up in the Library under the Sessions Folder, then drag and drop them into folders in the master catalog in my current file organization and hierarchy. I would then have what I want i.e. one place for all my images that are in an organizational system that I'm used to and works well. I just tried that and it works. But I come back to why use Sessions at all. I get the portability advantage. But I have two computers and I connect my SDD drive to the computer that I'm using at the time. All images and work (catalog and sessions) are on the SDD drive. I don't think I need any more portability. Am I missing something?
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> Martin Jenich: ...they will show up in the Library under the Sessions Folder
Don't overestimate Capture One's functionality on catalog/session combinations. Once images are imported from session to catalog, all catalog-session connections are essentially dead. Read up on it, plan and fully test your workflow before you commit production images.
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