The Zen of Capture One - What Works for You?
Hi all, my name is Delwood.
I am working to transfer works created a wide range of cameras, digital and film, and cataloged using Media Pro, Aperture, and just uncatalogued. I am starting to explore what works for me and I would love to hear what has worked for you.
I have watched many Webinars and have learned that I really didn't know what I was doing at times. However, I was printing cards and display images back then using Aperture and will have to learn how to get that same output now. Right now, I am still printing my greeting cards using Aperture on my outdated laptop because it still works!
I will explain my approaches for the transfer from Media Pro and Aperture if there is interest. After doing a couple of tests with each and finding that there is functionality to be explored, I realized that the first thing was to work with this months images! That way I am starting afresh and finding something that will work going forward.
I've always worked with Catalogs in Media Pro and Aperture, so I thought that is what I wanted. But after learning about Sessions, I thought it might work for me. My wild experiment was to make a folder of all the images from approximately 1.5 months, with folders for each memory card that was pulled. This includes a Nikon D7100, an Olympus micro 4/3 E-PL5, a waterproof TG-4, and my iPhone7. That list is changing, but that is what I shot in March to April of 2019. In addition, I rounded up the GPX tracks (from a couple of GPS sources) so I could work with geotagging these images. All of these cameras have a RAW/JPG pair, and the clock times were close, but a little off in some cases. The iPhone images were converted to jpg for expediency. We can discuss the geotagging part in another post.
I often bracket with the D7100 and the PL5, so a major issue was selecting the images to keep. I like the Session format because it encourages throwing the bad ones away. And working with RAW I can tell quickly about clipping in Shadows and Highlights and focus. Between these three I was able to confidently choose the best images (with some backups) and know that I could always change my mind. Now that I am working in RAW I am finding that my choices have changed from before. (Notice that this has major implications in how I will import old catalogs from Aperture and Media Pro!)
My idea here is to use the session to work through the images in a block, then annotate and save the good ones. These are then put into a big catalog so I can find them. There are some limitations in C1 Catalogs, so I am exploring which other Cataloging options will be necessary. I was a CDFinder user many years ago, which I have upgraded to NeoFinder. I am finding that NeoFinder can help with some of the missing catalog functions of Media Pro. It's also great for consolidating my messy organizing habits into something that works.
Please share your stories about what is working for you!
I am working to transfer works created a wide range of cameras, digital and film, and cataloged using Media Pro, Aperture, and just uncatalogued. I am starting to explore what works for me and I would love to hear what has worked for you.
I have watched many Webinars and have learned that I really didn't know what I was doing at times. However, I was printing cards and display images back then using Aperture and will have to learn how to get that same output now. Right now, I am still printing my greeting cards using Aperture on my outdated laptop because it still works!
I will explain my approaches for the transfer from Media Pro and Aperture if there is interest. After doing a couple of tests with each and finding that there is functionality to be explored, I realized that the first thing was to work with this months images! That way I am starting afresh and finding something that will work going forward.
I've always worked with Catalogs in Media Pro and Aperture, so I thought that is what I wanted. But after learning about Sessions, I thought it might work for me. My wild experiment was to make a folder of all the images from approximately 1.5 months, with folders for each memory card that was pulled. This includes a Nikon D7100, an Olympus micro 4/3 E-PL5, a waterproof TG-4, and my iPhone7. That list is changing, but that is what I shot in March to April of 2019. In addition, I rounded up the GPX tracks (from a couple of GPS sources) so I could work with geotagging these images. All of these cameras have a RAW/JPG pair, and the clock times were close, but a little off in some cases. The iPhone images were converted to jpg for expediency. We can discuss the geotagging part in another post.
I often bracket with the D7100 and the PL5, so a major issue was selecting the images to keep. I like the Session format because it encourages throwing the bad ones away. And working with RAW I can tell quickly about clipping in Shadows and Highlights and focus. Between these three I was able to confidently choose the best images (with some backups) and know that I could always change my mind. Now that I am working in RAW I am finding that my choices have changed from before. (Notice that this has major implications in how I will import old catalogs from Aperture and Media Pro!)
My idea here is to use the session to work through the images in a block, then annotate and save the good ones. These are then put into a big catalog so I can find them. There are some limitations in C1 Catalogs, so I am exploring which other Cataloging options will be necessary. I was a CDFinder user many years ago, which I have upgraded to NeoFinder. I am finding that NeoFinder can help with some of the missing catalog functions of Media Pro. It's also great for consolidating my messy organizing habits into something that works.
Please share your stories about what is working for you!
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Hi Delwood, I'm also a former Aperture user. Hard to give that one up; it had just enough high-end features to be incredibly useful as a photo editor, while also retaining a lot of useful consumer-oriented features (like the GPS module, and face detection).
I was force off of Aperture because I upgraded cameras and there was no support there. Capture One is a superior photo editor but it has some lacking DAM functionality compared with Aperture, for my needs.
My current workflow is to use Capture One as a book of "digital negatives." I import all of my RAW files into Capture One, culling images and sorting them, and doing edits. I then export the images at JPEG (more recently I've been exporting as TIFF and using Permute to convert to HEIC) and import them into Apple Photos, which retains the GPS functionality and face detection from Aperture. It also allows me to share images to Photos-based shared albums. My folder and album hierarchy are mirrored between the two (done manually). I can find images more easily in Photos and, if I need to re-process an image, I can then easily find it in Capture One as well.
Regarding GPS tagging, one of my cameras can tag its own photos, and the other cannot. I used to tag untagged photos in Apple Photos (as those were usually all taken at home, and were easy to do). Now what I've been doing has been to use GeoTag (a free program) to tag photos after export from Capture One but before import to Photos. This is inconvenient, and is largely because GeoTag can't work with RAW files. I've been evaluating HoudahGeo as a (paid) alternative, which can add GPS data to RAW files. I could then simply copy the files to my computer, run the GPS data, and then import into Capture One. I think that would be the more ideal workflow... at least, until Capture One adds the functionality to modify GPS data (if they ever choose to).0 -
Reign of Crows wrote:
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I've been doing has been to use GeoTag (a free program) to tag photos after export from Capture One but before import to Photos. This is inconvenient, and is largely because GeoTag can't work with RAW files.
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I have been using GeoTag as well with C1. While it does not modify RAW files is does work with them just fine. Once I have imported my images into C1 I use GeoTag to update the GPS metadata (which creates xmp sidecar files) then I get C1 to update its metadata from the RAW files again. This picks up the GPS information and updates the C1 database.0 -
IanL wrote:
I have been using GeoTag as well with C1. While it does not modify RAW files is does work with them just fine. Once I have imported my images into C1 I use GeoTag to update the GPS metadata (which creates xmp sidecar files) then I get C1 to update its metadata from the RAW files again. This picks up the GPS information and updates the C1 database.
That sounds like a superior workflow. Are you running GeoTag on the directory within Capture One's originals? I'll have to try again; as far as I recall, GeoTag wasn't willing to work with the RAW files from my cameras, but maybe there's an option I need to adjust?0 -
Reign of Crows wrote:
Are you running GeoTag on the directory within Capture One's originals?
Not sure what you mean exactly by that phrase. I am using C1 to create a new session and import images from my card to the new session's "Capture" folder on my HD. When I am ready to geotag the images I then shut down C1 and start GeoTag and point to the "Capture" folder and select the .nef files.Reign of Crows wrote:
I'll have to try again; as far as I recall, GeoTag wasn't willing to work with the RAW files from my cameras, but maybe there's an option I need to adjust?
I'm don't remember having to tweak anything but I am not in front of my photo computer so I cannot check now.0 -
I can only speak as a hired photographer.
My work is done only with sessions as they are much easier to access and "sync" on a network storage device compared to a cataloge.
All my folders and session (and files) are named:
YEAR-MONTH-DAY-JOB/CLIENT
So when a client wars to have his/her images I just search for his/her name in the explorer/finder and within seconds I have them.
It's not a perfect system but it's the most convenient for me.0 -
Great ideas. I’m using sessions and Houdah Geo to do the geotagging. I collect a folder of images for each camera. In HoudaGeo that’s helpful for making sure that the clocks line up.
I ran into a problem doing renaming in Capture One. It would only do one file type. So I now use a Perl script to do them all.
The session is great because I can ask it to reread a folder and incorporate changes from HoudaGeo.0
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