Help with organising sessions (DAM)
Background: I came to C1 from Aperture; I use sessions; I am trying to retrofit an organisation structure that I can carry forward.
I have a growing number of sessions and wonder how best to go forward to allow a search and organise capability across sessions, like smart albums. Sessions work while I have a good memory of what is in each session, but this will fail me at some point.
I wondered whether OS Finder might help ... but it looks like this will only work with file names, so not useful. Perhaps I need to run with sessions and then periodically (say annually) import these into a catalogue, using keywords, ratings, colour tags and smart albums to search and filter within each catalogue.
Or is another DAM app a better route? If so, which are recommended to use with C1 on a Mac?
I have searched for suggestions but came away more confused than enlightened.
I have a growing number of sessions and wonder how best to go forward to allow a search and organise capability across sessions, like smart albums. Sessions work while I have a good memory of what is in each session, but this will fail me at some point.
I wondered whether OS Finder might help ... but it looks like this will only work with file names, so not useful. Perhaps I need to run with sessions and then periodically (say annually) import these into a catalogue, using keywords, ratings, colour tags and smart albums to search and filter within each catalogue.
Or is another DAM app a better route? If so, which are recommended to use with C1 on a Mac?
I have searched for suggestions but came away more confused than enlightened.
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Here's what I do, and I think several users do the same.
I start with sessions. But when I have a session pretty much finished, I import the ones I want to keep into my master catalog. The images stay where they are in the Selects folder of the session, but the edits I have done do get reflected in the catalog. Once I have imported them into the catalog, I don't edit them any more via the session. If I want to do any more to them I do it in the catalog. (Those further edits are NOT copied back by Capture One into the session.) I could import the whole session into the catalog, but generally I don't do that - I just import the keepers that have gone into the Selects folder.
By doing this I can search across all my images. So I use keywords especially for nature photographs, and I can find all my images of, say, a Peacock Butterfly, whether they were taken last week or five years ago.
Ian0 -
Thanks Ian,
What about importing the selects from various sessions into a new session instead of a catalogue? The appeal being a self-contained folder that can be easily ported across machines etc.
If I import into a catalogue, I still need the sessions, yes? as these hold the raw files.
If I import(?) into a new session, then this would be as if I had used a single session from the start (albeit just for my selects).
Michael0 -
If you want to you could create a new session. (Let's call it the Master Session.) You could move images into it. Move them by opening the Master Session, navigating in the Library tool of Capture One to the folders in the source sessions where the images are that you want and dragging and dropping them to the Selects folder in the Master Session. Doing it that way will move the images (they won't remain in their old locations) and it will bring their edits along with them.
And as you say, that Master Session would be portable, in that you could move the whole session folder somewhere else.
On the other hand, you could do something similar with a catalog. If you choose to store the images you import into it in the catalog rather than in their existing locations, you also end up with something portable. The catalog file becomes quite large, but it is probably not much different in size to the total size of the Master Session folder including all its raw files. The catalog stores much the same stuff (raw files, previews, thumbnails, edits, masks, etc) just in a different way.
If you store the images inside the catalog, you could afterwards delete the sessions once you were happy that everything had been imported as intended.
My practice is to add Selects from my sessions to a master catalog, but with the raw files left in their existing locations. I quite often delete the contents of some of the other session folders (Trash, Capture) once I am 100% sure I won't want them again. I keep the session files. (There is probably no need, but being comparatively new to catalogs, I like it as an extra precaution - if something went horribly wrong I could always open the old session files.)
You need to think about the portability aspect, though. If you wanted the whole thing to be portable, how big would it be and how readily portable? Could you fit the catalog (with images inside it) onto some suitable removable media? And the same goes for the session folder and all its subfolders. So they could be ported across machines, but it might not be easy for large sizes.
Ian0 -
To draw on your expertise a bit more:
Would copying the raw files and the relevant .cos files into the new master session using Finder also work? That way I would have a single collection of (say) Selects and all of their existing edits in the one Select folder (and one Settings folder), rather than a set of sub folders (from my source sessions) in the master session.
I ask about Finder because I have tangled myself up a bit using the Library tool (moving images to Selects but somehow into the wrong session ... need to "set as select" to be clear about destination before each move, I guess). I can restore from my back-up to fix that but wonder whether Finder would be easier.
It might not matter if I just use the master session as a repository and create a catalogue to search/organise across it and other sessions.
Michael0 -
It might work but I would think it risky. There is no reason why you cannot get them all into one Selects folder in the master session using the Library tool in Capture One.
You can open the Master Session then navigate in the Library tool to the current location of the images you want to move. Select them and choose Cmd-J or Image>Move to Selects Folder. Capture One will move them to the Master Session's Selects folder, together with their adjustments. (It will move them not copy them.) Then move on to the location of the next lot, select the images and do the same. They will all end up in the one Selects folder in the Master Session.
Ian0 -
[quote="NNN636654098655209318" wrote:
I ask about Finder because I have tangled myself up a bit using the Library tool (moving images to Selects but somehow into the wrong session ... need to "set as select" to be clear about destination before each move, I guess). I can restore from my back-up to fix that but wonder whether Finder would be easier.
Create a new and suitably named folder for your "Selects" in each Session (or rename the C1 generated default "Selects" folder) so that the session is also identified. That should help to avoid the confusion.
You also need all of the files in the "Settings xxx" folder (e.g. Settings 120) not just the .cos files.
The Cache folder can be ignored but will be regenerated next time the folder is opened in a session.
Using C1 to make any file moves and transfers should ensure that everything that is necessary is done. That means that all of the moves required, file by file including the Settings folder files, will be dealt with in one activity.
In theory there is no reason why you cannot leave your Selects folders (Suitably named) where they are in their original sessions and in your Master session just add them as "Favourites" folders. So long as the folders, wherever they are, are accessible when working with the Master session the Master session should work fine as a general catalogue. Any editing undertaken in the Master Session would reflect straight back into the associated .cos (etc.) files and so would also appear in the original session.
If a catalogue was used as a "Master" aggregation system (Referenced rather than managed files) then again the original session would be unaffected but the edits together with Thumbnails and Preview files would be replicated in the Catalogue Database leaving the catalogue and sessions sharing the same original image file in the same location but with separate edit info, Thumbnail and Preview files.
Taking one of your other earlier points;
I have no useful or recent experience of Macs but in Windows one can certainly set things up to search at the Windows level for the data in files as well as the file names. Thus one could potentially search the .cos files for relevant keywords or EXIT/IPTC info. That said if the files are named for the session and activity/subject/project/w.h.y as part of an import process that also makes even basic searches somewhat useful.
More useful might be to search Output files created with full EXIF/IPTC data and keywords. If these files are allowed to be indexed by the OS for searching needs then finding the output files is easy and if THEY have been suitably named or are part of a connected file structure (a default session structure for example) once again getting back to the originals, if such is required, should be simple enough.
However that does mean that one has to be resolute and fairly consistent about filling in the EXIF/IPTC info and/or file naming.
That's not so bad if you simply want to access, say, a specific set of holiday photos in a specific year. But if you are shooting an event of some sort you may need a lot more useful data should someone ask for some images based on a request such as "Have you got any photos of X"?
As a final thought for now - if the Keyword/EXIF/IPTC data is in the original session .cos file it will always be available to a master Session approach or an import to Catalogue approach. If one only adds this useful information once the image is in a catalogue the data will not readily find its way back to the session. The chances are that that would not be a big deal in most cases but it is something to think about when deciding on a strategy.
HTH.
Grant0 -
Many thanks both Grant and Ian ... I will take this on tomorrow.
Michael0 -
Hi,
I am not familiar with sessions, and I would like to move a full session (including images, settings and folders) from a volume to an other.
Should a drag and drop in the OS Folder would work, or should I process within Capture One, and if yes, how ?
Many thanks !!
Robert0 -
[quote="tenmangu81" wrote:
Hi,
I am not familiar with sessions, and I would like to move a full session (including images, settings and folders) from a volume to an other.
Should a drag and drop in the OS Folder would work, or should I process within Capture One, and if yes, how ?
Many thanks !!
Robert
You can use the OS to move the whole session folder. When you first open Capture One with the session in the new location, the app won't be able to find the session in the recent list (because it is no longer where it was) but you can open it using File>Open...
Ian0 -
[quote="Ian3" wrote:
[quote="tenmangu81" wrote:
Hi,
I am not familiar with sessions, and I would like to move a full session (including images, settings and folders) from a volume to an other.
Should a drag and drop in the OS Folder would work, or should I process within Capture One, and if yes, how ?
Many thanks !!
Robert
You can use the OS to move the whole session folder. When you first open Capture One with the session in the new location, the app won't be able to find the session in the recent list (because it is no longer where it was) but you can open it using File>Open...
Ian
Assuming all of the folders referenced in the session ARE contained in the session folder structure.
This would be the normal situation if using the Session folders set up on creation of the session (or additional folders added within that folder structure) but remember that sessions do not constrain users to using only those "in session" folders.
In terms of "physically" moving files, whether within C1 or via the OS, one may need to be sure that everything you wish to move is within the session.
Anything linked to a folder outside the session folder structure may still work as a link should still work so long as the link type is not broken in some way as part of the relocation.
Just something to check that might not be obvious during initial investigations.
HTH.
Grant0 -
Thanks to both of you, it works. 0 -
... and worked for me. Remarkably easy in the end. 0
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