Capture One Pro lets you edit files from all major camera brands. Or save with a Capture One version that's just for Fujifilm, Sony or Nikon cameras. Plus, get solutions for business and multi-user teams. Eg; the spot or dust tool makes the Capture One for me run extremely slow, so I simply no longer use it & do my dust retouching in Photoshop, which barely uses any resources & can also do FAR MORE retouching than Capture One. Layers in Capture One are also resource HOGS for me & again, I stopped using C1 layers.
- Capture One Running Slow
- Capture One 20 Slow Release
- Capture One 20 Show Original
- Capture One 20 Slow Cooker
- How To Speed Up Capture One
- Capture One 20 Sony
Here and at my Capture One Live Show, we’ve already discussed lots of tools for editing in Capture One. Today, let’s look under the hood of Capture One.
I found three preferences you need to set up:
1. Preview Size
That’s an essential feature of Capture One engine that has a significant impact on your catalog size. The point is that Capture One generates preview images for each image you’re working with.
The larger the preview size is, the more space it takes. That’s why larger preview size would make your catalogs (or image settings folders in sessions) noticeably bigger.
Also, the preview size determines how often Capture One would read the original files during the editing. In some cases that might slow the editing, and the best practice is to set the size that would fit your display best.
How to calculate preview size for your monitor? That’s pretty simple:
1) Make a screenshot and find out the actual size of an image area in Capture One.
2) Now, choose the closest option in the size list (a little bit bigger is better than smaller):
2. XMP
If you’re working with Adobe software or using Photo Mechanic – you’re familiar with XMP concept. That’s a sidecar file that contains image editing settings and metadata information.
Unfortunately, you can’t transfer image editing from Lightroom to Capture One; they are just entirely different apps.
The good news is that you can easily sync metadata settings with any XMP files in Capture One.
Next time when you would need to sync ratings or color tags from software that use XMP – just set up the rules for synchronization in this section:
3. Catalog Backup
If you’re working with catalog and you haven’t set up the backup yet – do it right now. I mean, seriously – right now.
BTW, don’t forget, that catalog backup contains only image settings and catalog structure; you would have to backup your RAW files manually.
Also, I highly recommend you to backup your catalog every day.
Fibonacci Spiral
Ok, while your Capture One preferences are still open, let me show you a pretty nice feature of cropping.
Go to Crop tab, open Grid Type menu and select Fibonacci Spiral:
Now your crop grid looks like the famous Fibonacci Spiral:
I don’t recommend you to build all your cropping based on this feature, but for some images, it might work quite well.
The only thing that bothers me here is that to rotate Fibonacci Spiral you need to return to preferences each time.
Want to receive a new Capture One tip each week? Subscribe to AlexOnRAW newsletter!
Each issue of the newsletter contains:
- Latest news from Capture One community
- Reading of the week
- Capture One tip of the week
- A free RAW file for practice
It’s absolutely free, and I promise not to send emails more often than once a week!
You are here
Anyone else experience C1 catalogs taking forever to load? Once the app is open, then I can load/change catalogs with ease. But the first time I open the app and the catalog size is at least 40GB, it just takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r. Reminds me of Aperture 2. Just painful and my number one complaint. I’m still using the test version… but maybe things are better once I purchase???
Not noticing that here, and my machine is not overpowered.
“but maybe things are better once I purchase???”
That is never a good thing to assume. It’s rarely right. :-)
Apparently, it is a known issue. Received this from their tech support (which was pretty cool that they’d reply to a non-customer using their time-bombed app):
Hi
If you are on “All images” in the catalog, then CaptureOne is strating threads to open all images.
If you instead highlight a low count folder before closing, it will only start opening that folder and it will be much quicker.
We are looking in to things to improve this.
Kind Regards
Phase One support
Could also be linked to the size of the preview images?
I have a fast iMac, with a very fast thunderbolt drobo. My library contains 40k images. C1 opens in 2mins- 10sec. Holy Cow. I will try pre-selecting a low count folder as described above. Hope this works. So far C1 is the best alternative to Aperture. I tried LR… Really not happy with that program. It’s kindof a disorganized mess.
Capture One Running Slow
Like I wrote in the other thread, try to relocate your masters out of the Aperture library. I think reading an Aperture managed library may slow C1 down (just an idea).
My catalog also opens quite slowly, taking about a minute with 63K images. This is with the catalog on an SSD and the referenced images on a Thunderbolt drive.
It was worse when I first created the catalog from my Aperture library (over 2 minutes, like you are seeing) but I used the command “File > Verify Catalog or Session…” and it found some problems which it was able to repair. That improved the file opening time from over two minutes to about a minute.
Also, selecting either a small folder of images to open at startup or the full “All Images” collection doesn’t make any difference in the performance.
Look at what part of your catalog you have selected in the left sidebar when closing C1. I've noticed that if I select All Images, then loading of the catalog upon next startup can be slow. Selecting an individual Album or Folder that has fewer images speeds up loading on next startup. I've given this feedback to PhaseOne. Don't know if they will find a way to improve that in a future update, but they do seem to be very interested in user feedback so tell them all of the quirks you experience using their Support Case system.
Capture One 20 Slow Release
I am experiencing this very slow startup as well. When the catalog and referenced files are both on external HDD, I have extremely slow startup. I made a screen recording and provided it to PhaseOne. It is an 8 minute video. I have under 40,000 images and the catalog is about 64GB. I copied the catalog to an internal SSD and left the referenced files on external HDD. Startup was extremely fast by comparison (under 30 seconds vs 5-8 minutes).
I have a running case open with PhaseOne (case #215211 if anyone else wants to reference it in their own case).
I’m using Apple Photos to be my reference catalog because C1 was so slow. C1 is too good and I don’t waste my time editing with any other software. Then Photos is too good at cataloging. jpegs and raw files show as 1 file and the viewing modes are perfect. No need to catalog every single photo with C1.
Capture One 20 Show Original
Milo, this seems like a brilliant idea. I would like to reference my growing iPhone images from C1. Are you able to comment on the following:
1) Did you create a new C1 catalog for the images in Photos?
2) By default, Photos does not download images to your computer. The pictures reside in the iCloud, unless you download them into the Photos application. Are you only referencing the downloaded images in Photos?
3) How are you organizing your images in Photos and how does that structure appear in C1?
4) Is the metadata, favorites, tags, etc. recognized when referenced by C1?
Your idea of referencing your Photos library in C1 could be a great solution for those of us who increasingly use iPhone 7 Plus pictures from our travels, etc.
Sincerely, Alex
I haven’t seen the slow starting many have. My catalog is 82G, and opens in approx. 9.5 seconds either on the internal HD on my laptop, or the backup copy on an external raid 5 thunderbolt DAS. All files are referenced, there aren’t any stored in the catalog. Thats opening on a root folder with not thumbnails showing on start up. The time measurement is the best I can do with a stop watch.
absolutely. a pain in the butt
I had. a catalogue. at 70gb
Capture One 20 Slow Cooker
it took 12 hours
it seems. that with Mac there is. a huge problem.
I have been. writing with them , they know there is a problem but will not. admit
and so far nothing has really changed.
I don’t think they know what the problem is
How To Speed Up Capture One
Capture One 20 Sony
What is your configuration? Memory? HDD or SSD? Catalog on internal or external disk? I get the best performance from placing the catalog itself on internal SSD and leaving images on external disk. I have a late 2013 MacBook Pro Retina, 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7, 16GB of RAM, 1TB internal SSD, 2TB external portable HDD. My catalog has 56,000 images now.
If I select “All Images”, it sends Capture One into a tailspin where it consumes all 16GB of RAM and then some (so says Activity Monitor). The app locks up for 5-10 minutes, but eventually the memory goes back down and the app becomes responsive again. I opened several cases with Capture One and provided them a lot of evidence of the issue. They agree there is an issue. I believe an update will addresses this. I can't say when that update will be released.
If I select any other folder or album with fewer images with under 1000 image, for example, Capture One is much faster.