I tried Narrative, it seemed great for what it does; but it didn’t seem to have the organization tools I wanted when I tried it. And I recall it doesn’t really have a catalog, or only supports small ones per project? Great tip for the folx it works for though!
Okay yeah! Interesting approach. I develop RAW with Affinity on my ipad and am very satisfied given how portable it is. But it’s a slow workflow for large projects :/
Okay, we’re pretty much on the same page!
I admit I’m off with the SSD info, but there are scenarios where the gap is diminished. I’ve experienced it first hand, I just can’t remember what caused it… the internet can explain, though I couldn’t find anything that explained it concisely. Takeaway: SSDs are objectively faster, but not required for my personal use case atp.
We agree that C1 does something inefficient with it’s cataloging and raw rendering (I’m calling it “bloat,” and I think all of us are mostly guessing what that involves). But that’s fine, when I’m editing, neither of those are priorities.
Hence the search for other software… PM does the cataloging and importing satisfactorily, and FRV does the RAW render/cull great! So, software is the difference. Yea, better hardware will better handle C1’s “bloat” and have more headroom overall, but PM and FRV prove that what I have already has the ability to work satisfactorily with my RAW files (though, I’d definitely need an upgrade if I was regularly shooting your 60mp!) Takeaway: C1 is not optimally efficient, so compromises, like the year-to-year catalog, are necessary—doubly so on lower end hardware.
I’d just love to spend less than ~$350 + cost of upgrading in a few years. It seems unlikely that FRV and PM are the only programs without so much “bloat”, but maybe they are? I don’t know what this “bloat” is, so maybe it’s harder to remove than I know, but my impression is that it is more so something C1 added than FRV and PM took away.
So yep, for now I’m using your solution because I have C1 and can’t afford the PM and FRV combo. Hopefully a middle option comes along 🤷🏻♀️
I might start trying yearly catalogs and an ssd for the current one, that’s a good idea! Doesn’t solve all my problems, but that’s at least a major improvement to traveling with an hdd haha!
I’m okay with small previews, and my internal ssd and ram is plenty for a catalog with the right software. I intend to cull and delete stuff from years of being less vigilant, but the hope is to catalog it all first so I can see everything clearly.
It’s worth noting SSDs are only significantly more reliable if you’re moving the drive a lot. The best longevity is the cloud. For speed, it’s also foggier. My HDDs are pretty quick with USB 3.1, it’s not thunderbolt, but I’m not editing video, so it’s not really a bottleneck that affects anything I’m trying to do. Plus, due to the physical caching structure of low-mid range SSDs, the difference is smaller than it looks on paper for random access photos (to my understanding). When in FRV, I get the same speed you describe in C1, but with the actual raw. In C1, I could get that in small catalogs, but only with the compressed/low res previews (since it’s in the catalog on my machine). If you’re getting the actual raws loading that quick, I’m guessing it’s more because you’re using a newer version of C1 than because of write speed. Granted, that’s all based on anecdotal evidence so I can’t be sure. Regardless, it’s the catalog speed I’m most concerned with, so I’m personally okay with slower devices.
I think I’m gonna try your advice until I find sometime better… Thank you :D
I’m glad you chose to slander a fellow professional for your false belief of their techniques instead of actually help answer the question I and others are asking. If your happy with your process, keep it, it’s probably a lot more similar to mine than you are assuming. But I don’t care. I happen to agree that “burst mode” is often overused, but it doesn’t make anyone an idiot incapable of photography as you claim.
Your wording implied using catalogs exclusively as a editing tool, not a viewing/reviewing tool. I’m never going to argue against good file management, but that is largely irrelevant to this thread.
I’m assuming you’ve never shot pictures of a low light band, wildlife in action, stop motion film, sports at night, a high budget wedding, pets playing, an eventful trip, or anything similar? Any of those necessitate hundreds or thousands of pictures unless you have a really low bar for “hit.” If burst rates were useless, they wouldn’t be the major talking point of every new camera that comes out. I’m not here to argue. If you shoot all your pictures in a nice and controlled setting, awesome, but we work in completely different worlds. Also, as I mentioned, I use my library to store non-professional and video work too. The size of it is a necessity of the work I do; that’s a simple fact, and totally independent from skill.
No one has a 100% hit rate in every situation, and even if they did, they have every right to take a lot of pictures.
Oh I think that subfolder content option might be new!
Bridge was painfully slow last time I used it… like a half second per thumbnail. And it doesn’t do any cataloguing or ingest sorting, does it?
It’s similar to FRV, to my understanding the “con” being speed and the “pro” compatibility with heic and video. Does that check out?
I’m just looking for usable haha 😅
Moi? I am hoping to find a software solution that can catalogue everything. Technology-wise, this should be doable. I’m okay with really small previews and my computer, though older, has a good ssd and plenty of ram to host said catalogue. I’m not expecting lightning quick either, just comfortably usable.
I’m considering doing catalogs by year or half year. C1 would probably work if I did it… but in addition to inconvenience in viewing, it could also get messy with ingesting a series of photos that crosses the date line.
I can’t say you’re wrong about hardware. But, to my understanding, you overstate how severe it is. Unless you’re moving it a lot, modern HDDs have comparable longevity to SSDs. And, the way most ssds work, the difference in speed when working with a lot of pictures is noticeable, but not that huge. Only the cloud has a significant safety upgrade to dual hdds or dual ssds. All of the above are likely usb 3.1 speed, except a few of my expensive video ssds, so possibly bottlenecking, but not much. And R/W speed only really applies to culling in my case, which seems perfectly fast in FastRawViewer, and that’s off my main hdd which I admit is failing (I travelled with it a lot, oops).
I’ll probably follow your advice! If I switch to yearly catalogs, I can probably run the current one off an SSD. (More so I can travel than for speed, but I’ll take both wins!) And I definitely have a lot of photos to delete. But my hope was to catalogue everything and then delete, as that should in theory be faster. There remains the dilemma that my backup software would leave the deleted photos on the “B” drive tho…
Are your previews rendering in full when you click through? C1 (et al, except frv) load a low res cached preview while fetching the raw, which I believe stresses ram more than anything. If your full res renders are truly faster, I’m inclined to believe it’s more a C1 software improvement (I’m using an older version) more than hardware since FRV is plenty fast on my machine and hdd. It’s all a balancing act 🙃
I’ll check it out!
What do you shoot with? I personally love the C1 rendering with my Panasonic and Olympus cameras, but my old Sony is a little bland, so it might vary by model/brand? I feel like it’s my favorite of what I’ve used, but that’s subjective… Overall I agree, DxO seems to trade blows with C1 more than On1 or even LR can. But if you’re a fellow user of curves a lot, I believe C1 has the best implication I’ve used (excluding DaVinci Resolve). If you work in small batches, you might also consider Affinity Photo?
Sounds like we’re in similar situations… I’m excited to hear what you land on!
I agree with step two, but otherwise, I feel like this is a rather pessimistic approach. Unless your camera is collecting dust, a million pictures isn’t unrealistic for anyone with a camera. I’ve been working in photography for years, and I back up my phone photos to the same database. Burst mode is often a necessity, I’ve met way more people who use it too seldom than too much. Also, all of that is just cataloging. Importing, culling, and mobility are crucial to many photographers as well. And cataloging is absolutely a software-solvable problem. Lightroom and Photomechanic both have it figured out, in addition to numerous network applications. Tagging is great, but you will inevitably loose and forget photos if that is the only way you identify them. A timeline of all photos is essential to many of us who capture a wide variety of styles.
Yes, it will take hours to generate a catalog. But once done, every image is immediately viewable, as opposed to spending hours searching every time you want to find an old picture. We can have different preferences, but for me a software catalog is the way to go.
I’ve heard so many people say this! I sadly never got to try it, but it’s amazing to me that there’s stil nothing that competes. My impression is that DxO is similar, but I’m admittedly pretty clueless 😅
Pretty much same. On1 2021 (i think?) was the first replacement I bought and I certainly didn’t hate it. But I remember it also chugging to handle the large catalog, and while it had more features, the quality didn’t compete with C1. Has it improved though? Without the AI tools, is the cataloging faster now?
I’m very close to just biting the bullet and getting it. If it had better tools to evaluate raw, i definitely would, but as is and with lack of keyboard shortcut customization, I just have this overwhelming feeling that it’s the wrong choice for me. Maybe it’ll feel better when I actually have it though 🤷🏻♀️
I’ll give it a go! Thanks :)
Just updated to 8.1.0 and WOW - I’ve only tried it with a some of my library so far, but it’s so much better than I remembered! Feeling good about this one!
For those keeping score, I still have these concerns:
-Can I figure out the MySQL Internal that seems necessary for large catalogs?
-Will it migrate properly when I have to upgrade computers, probably in a few months?
-I can’t find a setting for thumbnail size, so I’m worried that will become an issue before long.