Consequences of having overlapping Capture One & PM+ catalogues?

[myotis]

Hi Kirk,

Are you saying that I can process photos in Capture One without having a catalogue/session, and use a PM+ catalogue as my sole catalogue? If that's possible, great, but it isn't obvious how one does it.

You can set C1 up as a viewer/browser by creating a "dummy session".

I have a session called "C1_Viewer" but instead of importing files into it, you can go into the library tab and scroll down until you reach the system file directory and browse to the images you want to edit.

Nothing is imported into C1, but a Capture One folder is added to the same folder where the raw you just opened is stored, to store the C1 preview and editing info.

If you have this session open, you can drag a thumbnail into C1 to open it while keeping the raw file in its original location.

May not fully solve your issue, but it does let you browse and edit files without copying them into a C1 session or creating a C1 catalogue.

Graham

[Rob Hedge]

Hi Kirk,

Are you saying that I can process photos in Capture One without having a catalogue/session, and use a PM+ catalogue as my sole catalogue? If that's possible, great, but it isn't obvious how one does it.

You can set C1 up as a viewer/browser by creating a "dummy session".

I have a session called "C1_Viewer" but instead of importing files into it, you can go into the library tab and scroll down until you reach the system file directory and browse to the images you want to edit.

Nothing is imported into C1, but a Capture One folder is added to the same folder where the raw you just opened is stored, to store the C1 preview and editing info.

If you have this session open, you can drag a thumbnail into C1 to open it while keeping the raw file in its original location.

May not fully solve your issue, but it does let you browse and edit files without copying them into a C1 session or creating a C1 catalogue.

Graham

I don't know where you keep your "C1 Viewer" Session, but I created the same thing in a directory where my original photo is. As far as I can tell, there's nothing "dummy" about it. It still creates a Session with the Session's database and the Session's related folders, including a copy of the original image. When I did some basic edits, I wound up with a very large Capture One Session directory side by side the original photo. If that's correct, this is a distinction without a difference. I also read a thread in which Capture One representative David Grover effectively says that there is in fact no way to get around this. Capture One requires either a Catalogue or a Session, there being no substantive difference between them for the purpose of this discussion.

If I'm missing something, I'd be delighted to know what.

[myotis]

Having just tried this, it appears that all this does is put the Session in the same directory as the original photo. It still creates a Session with the Session's database and the Session's related folders, including a copy of the original image. When I did some basic edits, I wound up with a very large directory side by side the original photo. If that's correct, this is a distinction without a difference. I also read a thread in which Capture One representative David Grover effectively says that there is in fact no way to get around this. Capture One requires either a Catalogue or a Session, there being no substantive difference between them for the purpose of this discussion.

If I'm missing something, I'd be delighted to know what.

That isn't how it works for me.

As I said it does add a Capture One folder to the same folder as the raw, but this isn't the session folder, it just holds the preview and edit information for the edits for raw files in that folder (this information needs to be stored somewhere).

And it does still creates a Session folder (wherever you told it to set up the session) but this just holds information related to the session management, it doesn't add a copy of the original raw, nor does it store the preview, so it remains very small.  I keep the session on my SSD that holds the OS, but all my raws are on an external HDD

My "C1_viewer" session folder is still very small (compared to my proper session folders) even though it has been used to view and edit thousands of images. 

I'm not sure what to advise, as I've given the same instructions to many people across several forums and the feedback has always been that its worked. No one has ever come back to say it didn't work as described, so I'm struggling to think of what might be wrong.

When you open a file from the system folder in C1, there shouldn't be any files added to the Capture folder, but it seems from what you are saying, the raw files are still being copied into the C1 session. Is that correct? It definitely doesn't happen with me. 

You are sure you are opening the files from the C1 system folders directory, there shouldn't be any opportunity to copy the raw into the session, it should just open from its original position.

But, as I said I'm puzzled as to what might be happening.

As an aside  I got this method from a David Grover video years ago, and have used it ever since, together with standard sessions when I want to keep raw files within the session.

Sorry,
Graham

[Rob Hedge]

Hi Graham,

Capture One creates a Session structure including a small, preview copy of the original. Editing results in a series of Session "Output" copies of the image that cumulatively are quite large.

I'm trying to understand what the objective is of what you are talking about. It sounds like the objective is to bring selected images from a shoot into a Capture One Session rather than all of them. If so, I've already said that I process images selectively. I purchased PM 6 because I think it's a useful tool when deciding what I'm going to process and what I'm going to delete.

I'm talking about images that are in a Capture One Catalogue or Session in the first place precisely because I've decided to process them. As I said earlier in this thread, I don't keep images that I'm not going to process. One reason is that I shoot film up to 8x10, as well as digital, and have no interest in storing negatives that I've decided aren't worth printing. I have the same attitude toward digital images.

I just don't see the point of purchasing, maintaining and running two applications that result in both an original Capture One Catalogue or Sessions and an original PM Catalogue for my images plus on-site and off-site backups for each.

[myotis]

I'm trying to understand what the objective is of what you are talking about. It sounds like the objective is to bring selected images from a shoot into a Capture One Session rather than all of them.

I'm talking about images that are in a Capture One Catalogue or Session in the first place precisely because I've decided to process them. As I said earlier in this thread, I don't keep images that I'm not going to process. I don't see the point of purchasing, maintaining and running two applications that result in both an original Capture One Catalogue or Session and an original PM Catalogue for my images plus on-site and off-site backups for each.

I have obviously misunderstood what you were looking for.

The approach I mentioned has nothing to do with selecting images from a shoot, and everything to do with using PM6+ as your catalogue, along with C1 as your editor without needing to create a C1 catalogue or import raw files into a C1 session. But you still need to create a "dummy" session (the one I called C1_Viewer) to act as your C1 viewer and editor.

Creating this  "dummy" session to use as a browser/editor as I described keeps your raw files in their original folders (nothing gets imported into the "dummy" session and the editing information and previews etc are kept beside the raw files (in the Capture One folder), and therefore backed up along with your raws.  You then only need to only back up the PM6+ database. as there is nothing critical to back up in the actual C1 session. But even then the "dummy" session is a very small file and trivial to back up.

I ingest the files using PM6+ and then cull keyword caption etc in PM6+. To edit the files from the PM6+ database in C1 I drag the PM6 thumbnail into C1 and the raw file, from it's existing location, is opened in C1 allowing it to be edited without importing it into a session.

I did think you were looking for a way to use PM6+ as a database, but use C1 as your editor while avoiding using a C1 database or importing files into a C1 session.

Although, I also create some proper sessions for specific projects (where the raws are copied into the Session capture folder) which I also manage from PM6+, what I describe above is how I have been using PM6+ with C1 since the beta came out, and it works well for me, with my "C1_Viewer" session folder only being a few Mb in size.

I thought, it was something like this you were looking for, but I obviously got it  wrong, sorry.

Cheers,
Graham

[guill69f]

I thought, it was something like this you were looking for, but I obviously got it  wrong, sorry.

On the other hand I learned something and probably a new way of working.

I really like PM+ catalog functionality, and i am also working with C1. With a "C1 dummy session", i don't mind having the light C1 folders next to my raw files, i see this even as a plus since i am considering to store my pictures on a NAS that I can access from both my pc and mac. on each machine, my intention is to have PM+ catalog and to do my edits with C1, i have a dummy session created on each machine. This allow me to start an edit from the mac and finish from the pc. Tests are on-going now so i have to see if working from a NAS is manageable, but i wouldn't have thought of the dummy session concept.

One thing though Graham: do you create "variants" in C1? One problem i might have is that I do use them from time to time, and that variants are not visible in PM+ (until they are converting to a standard file format -tiff etc). how do you manage this?

No intention to hijack the thread, building on, but if the discussion should be taken somewhere else I can open a dedicated topic.

/G

[myotis]

One thing though Graham: do you create "variants" in C1? One problem i might have is that I do use them from time to time, and that variants are not visible in PM+ (until they are converting to a standard file format -tiff etc). how do you manage this?

You can't as far as I am aware.  C1 doesn't store normal recognisable previews in the *.cop files and PM can't access them any way. And it doesn't create permanent previews of multiple variants from the same Raw.

I haven't found a perfect solution to this, as you still need to work out how you are going to catalogue final images (Tiffs and Jpegs), and how best to integrate them into a catalogue. At the moment I am just saving TIFFS/Jpegs "with image"  but PM doesn't automatically add them to the catalogue, and these new files are scattered all across the HDD.

An alternative would be to have a single output folder for all JPGS/TIFFS and regularly re-catalogue it with PM. You can get C1s process recipes to tag these files and file them into separate sub folders, which would give some organisation to this output folder. Ideally, you would want PM to be able to treat this as a hot folder and catalogue it as soon as it detects a new file. I am assuming having a single hot folder would be have less of an impact on PM than having it check every catalogued folder.

My main output files are associated with "proper" sessions and managed differently, but I am aware of people who "only" use this dummy session approach.

But the dummy session approach is useful if you want to quickly edit an image to send someone without the need to create a catalogue or import images into a session.  And as my folder naming convention includes the date and a brief description  e.g. "2020-10-14 Stockhill Wood" I can quickly browse from inside C1 to last weeks visit to Stockhill Woods and edit an image without needing to search through PM, or have that image in a C1 catalogue or C1 session.

If you then want to move this image into a standard session (with the raw inside the session) you can turn the file into an EIP file within the dummy session and drag it into the destination session where, once expanded, you end up with a copy of the Raw in the session Capture folder along with all the edits and variants you made with the dummy session.

There are some niggles with this approach, which you need to learn to live with, but it does add a whole new level of flexibility to C1, and gives you a fourth option for managing files: managed catalogue, referenced catalogue, session and dummy session (I think C1 call it an empty session  rather than a dummy session).

Cheers,

Graham

[guill69f]

Thanks for the reply

An alternative would be to have a single output folder for all JPGS/TIFFS and regularly re-catalogue it with PM. You can get C1s process recipes to tag these files and file them into separate sub folders, which would give some organisation to this output folder. Ideally, you would want PM to be able to treat this as a hot folder and catalogue it as soon as it detects a new file. I am assuming having a single hot folder would be have less of an impact on PM than having it check every catalogued folder.

It's how i currently work too (except I have digikam as software for catalog management, monitoring this output folder only). I'll give more thinking to the C1 dummy session concept to see what best workflow i can find. thanks

[myotis]

It's how i currently work too (except I have digikam as software for catalog management, monitoring this output folder only). I'll give more thinking to the C1 dummy session concept to see what best workflow i can find. thanks

It's Useful to know this is the way you currently work.

Thanks,
Graham

[Ian J]

I have been using Capture One Pro 20 and Photo Mechanic 6 for most of this year. I work on a monthly basis using a session, then at the end of the month, I import my session into a Capture One Pro 20 catalog. I have never been a real fan of Capture One Pro 20 catalogs, they seem very slow and cumbersome.

I just bought Photo Mechanic Plus and scanned in 71,000 images last night without any issues.

My setup is a Capture One Pro 20 session on my local drive and I ingest from PM+ into the Capture folder. All is good except for one thing. If I choose edit in Capture One Pro 20, I can make changes, but these changes are not reflected in PM+.

This is a real problem, as you need to see the latest versions plus any clones (virtual copies) inside of PM+.
I won't remember later that I made three versions in Capture One Pro 20 if I can't see them in PM+.

Any ideas how to view the changes in PM+?

[myotis]

This is a real problem, as you need to see the latest versions plus any clones (virtual copies) inside of PM+.
I won't remember later that I made three versions in Capture One Pro 20 if I can't see them in PM+.

There may well be a way, but I can't see how it's possible without PM+ building in (or hacking) the C1 rendering engine , reading the C1 editing instructions and generating its own previews.

The C1 virtual copies are just as they are described (virtual) and don't physically exist so there is nothing for PM to see.  In fact if you open the cop file and look at the C1 preview it doesn't show any of the edits, nor does it look like a recognisable image.

I tend to use the virtual copies as "interim" working copies and always save master copies as PSDs or TIFFs, as I work, which PM+ (or other databases) can see.

Mind you, if someone can prove me wrong, I would be delighted :-)

Cheers,

Graham

[Kirk Baker]

I have been using Capture One Pro 20 and Photo Mechanic 6 for most of this year. I work on a monthly basis using a session, then at the end of the month, I import my session into a Capture One Pro 20 catalog. I have never been a real fan of Capture One Pro 20 catalogs, they seem very slow and cumbersome.

I just bought Photo Mechanic Plus and scanned in 71,000 images last night without any issues.

My setup is a Capture One Pro 20 session on my local drive and I ingest from PM+ into the Capture folder. All is good except for one thing. If I choose edit in Capture One Pro 20, I can make changes, but these changes are not reflected in PM+.

This is a real problem, as you need to see the latest versions plus any clones (virtual copies) inside of PM+.
I won't remember later that I made three versions in Capture One Pro 20 if I can't see them in PM+.

Any ideas how to view the changes in PM+?

It's just not possible.  PM would have to be able to render with the same proprietary engine (either licensed from PhaseOne, or reverse-engineered on our part) in order to show you the same look as C1 Pro 20 has.

We don't have the engineering resources to reverse-engineer their rendering system, and we don't have the resources to license a third-party rendering engine (it may not be available at any cost.)

An alternative option would be to get C1 Pro 20 to generate JPEG files with the same base name as your RAW files and then PM can pair up the RAW and the JPEG as a single thumbnail and show you the JPEG (which would have the same look as it would in C1 Pro 20).

-Kirk

[Tphoto]

Hi Ive just  switched to Capture one and PM+ from lightroom all culling organizing and keywords etc done in PH+ only send Raws to Capture one when I'm ready to edit, once done export tiff into PM+. No need to keep Raws in Capture one after that so no need for running 2 catalogs in different software. Any work on a Tiff gets sent to Affinity photo and the changes automatically update in PM+. The longer I work on this work flow the quicker it gets. Finally managed to dump Adobe.
Hope that might help.

One downside is that PM+ doesn't show capture one changes to the raw file but I work from the processed Tiff anyway so no problem.

[Rob Hedge]

An alternative option would be to get C1 Pro 20 to generate JPEG files with the same base name as your RAW files and then PM can pair up the RAW and the JPEG as a single thumbnail and show you the JPEG (which would have the same look as it would in C1 Pro 20).

Am I correct that this is the approach shown in this 2016 Camerabits video about Lightroom and Photo Mechanic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsEHXp26gnA

[Mick O (Camera Bits)]

Am I correct that this is the approach shown in this 2016 Camerabits video about Lightroom and Photo Mechanic:

I believe so, yes.