My new PhotoSupreme / Capture One Workflow

[jgeenen]

I am working on Windows and use PhotoSupreme as DAM and Main Catalogue. For RAW Editing I selected Capture One as the tool of choice. This combo has some interoperability issues which I tried to mitigate. The shortcomings are:
* PS does not show the edits of Capture One 22 in the thumbnail, not even the most basic ones. Therefore I decided to create JPGs for all "good" images after Raw editing. PS should show them as the main version in the version set. While JPG/SRGB is good for screen and Web, it is not sufficient for printing. If I want to print something, I store the image as highres TIF.
* C1 handles Metadata different than PS expects. Therefore I make sure that XMPs are generated that I can use in PS. In addition, I avoid metadata editing in C1 (with the exception of rating) and do the metadata updates in PS later. Once a file is in PS, I will never do any XMP/IPTC edits in C1 again.
* Back and forth between C1 and PS is a nightmare. So I decided to work in C1 from Import to Final Edit and in PS for Cataloging and Searching. Re-Edits is a rare case, but for convenience I keep all session files even after a file is in PS.

The resulting workflow works as follows:
1. For every photo event I create a new session in C1. I import the photes into that session, do the culling and rating and all of the RAW editing. For all "good" photos I create standard exports. Once I am happy (could take weeks or longer ), the main C1 job is done.
2. I then move the full session (including the session catalog, the caches and edit files from C1) into my picture archive with a file manager, open up PS and search for missing folders, complete tagging and labeling and use automatic versioning to map the exports to the original raw.
3. If - for whatever reason - I need to fine tune images later - I just open the C1 session database that had been copied over an do the edits in C1 (and create new exports if needed). Thus I can re-use my former edits in C1 (because they are stored within the session structure) and do not compromise my archive.

The workflow could be much easier if C1 would offer a single image edit like e.g. CameraRaw from Adobe, but the described workflow seems to work for me right now. I know, I should not move any files withing PS, because that might destroy the C1 session structure, but this is ok for me now.

If you have any ideas to simplify or optimize my workflow, I would be happy to read your suggestions. I probably will use some scripting to automate some tasks and look for quirks in my workflow.

[HCS]

For showing the (basic) edits from CO in PSU, you need to make sure the file handling settings are updated in PSU for CO.

Wrt the actual asset management process you're following, i have a different view. I also work with CO, but also use other RAW converters (DXO, RawTherapee, Affinity Photo, Luminar, etc.).

I strongly believe one should only manage their assets in one application and one application only. The session structure in CO is also an asset management feature and having both that as well as the catalog in PSU will lead to conflicts.

So, i start with importing my files into PSU, making sure to do labeling etc. and archiving within PSU. This includes moving files to their designated (final) disk location. Then i process certain selected files in my program of choice, in this case CO. I work in one session only in CO for the purpose of "accepting" the files from PSU within CO. I either export the images (to a separate location) or i don't, but PSU will pick up on the basic edits, at least enough for me to see the rough edit (B&W, crop, etc.). You'd have to verify the folder or build thumbnails for those files, otherwise PSU doesn't know.

I never touch the metadata of the files outside of PSU.

When i need to actually export files for publication, i select those files, "send" them to CO and perform the export to final location from there. Typically i also import those into PSU as a derivative (to keep track of all my files).

In this workflow, only one application is handling my files and there is no confusion or one or the other 'missing' files.

Of course, YMMV

[RobiWan]

Hi,

The workflow could be much easier if C1 would offer a single image edit like e.g. CameraRaw from Adobe

I'm not sure if I understand it correctly, but of course you can edit a file in C1 without import it to session or catalog.

My workflow is totally different

1. First I import all images into temporary PSU catalog. So all Images have created XMP file
2. After this is done, I start a C1 Session and mark directories with the new files as my favorite directories.
3. Now I can mark files as rejected (by me is this violet color) and give stars to images.
4. C1 can't write this to XMP Files, because my settings are "Metadata Sync - read only" !!!
5. After I'm done with rating I close C1 and start my own script (Powershell) which reads the C1 Session database and write rating into XMP files with ExifTool. My Violet color will be changed to rating "-1"
6. Now I have also file with list of images where have changes
7. This list I give PSU and run Script "read metadata for files"

That's all.