Back to C1

Oh man even with a reasonable backup strategy id never trust a proprietary database to store all edits for all jobs.

Anyway. Good luck.

2 Likes

And storing it in DOP files is not proprietary? :wink: If we want non-destructive RAW-editing, there’s either DxO’s way or a database (as I understood, DxO uses both, database AND extra files), but as no RAW-converter is capable to share it’s edits with another one, they all are proprietary.

And having extra files to store edits and ratings in, makes you also depending a bit to move or copy them with it’s “generator”, otherwise and depending on the sorting settings of your file manager they could get lost or clutter directories.

When I say “back to C1” that’s not meant as “back into all day sunshine and no single cloud in the sky”. For instance, out of 5 different apps trying to read DxO’s rating, only one is not successful so far. Wanna guess? Little help, starts with “C”.

And ends with “apture One”. Fun fact: The ratings don’t appear, new keywords do. I’m happy beyond cheering we enjoy such well thought and executed standards…

Sure it’s proprietary. But if you end up with a corrupt DOP file you lose edits for one file. If you end up with a corrupt catalog you lose edits for the whole catalog.

1 Like

First, even corrupt catalogs can be repaired. Either from the app itself or (with a lot more knowledge than I have) with an editor. Think of a catalog as a small file system, linked to the images.

Second, if a database is corrupt, I use it’s backup and loose the last import.

And third, even DxO PL has a database… therefore beware. :face_in_clouds:

I have had a few corrupt databases in C1 and “repair” never worked. The C1 database is a SQLlite or similar database file. Maybe other tools can repair some of the records but anyway who wants to deal with that.

As far as DXO’s database, yeah it has one. But since 5.0 there is nothing in the database that’s important. It’s basically a cache of information in the dop files and some collection of “projects” which are basically lists of files.

Anyway. As I said. Enjoy C1. It’s still a great tool. I used it for a few years before switching to PL.

Databases provide good services to almost any application that has to deal with more than on object. As all other things, databases need some attention if they should stay afloat. DPL is not strong at all in keeping its database consistent. Compared to what Lightroom offers in the field of database maintenance, DPL’s DB maintenance is really limited, which is also reflected in this selection of threads.

As far as DB maintenance is concerned, I’d put C1 someplace between DPL and LrC.

1 Like

Personally I can’t understand why someone would want their RAW developer or music recording software to be an ersatz file manager. On Apple, the built-in Finder is perfectly serviceable, very reliable and easily backed up. One can build complex named folder structures in the Finder, which will last for decades. Personally I’d stay away from extras like Finder comments, tags and labels as they proven to be unreliable and easily lost. Hierarchical structure and folder names are rock solid.

Beyond that, there are powerful dedicated image managers like PhotoMechanic and its ilk. Then there is Adobe’s subscription solution which is a mediocre RAW developer, weak bitmap editor and mediocre file manager all rolled into one. CaptureOne’s charade of poor quality file management tools hard-wired into the RAW developer is why I gave up C1 altogether. Too frustrating to open to fix the odd file here and there.

What curious expectations some have. Why does my car not have good bathing facilities is something they must ask themselves regularly.

6 Likes

Wow! I can understand someone having some objection to Adobe’s subscription model, but to state a total unsubstantiated comment like this is idiotic. There is a reason why more professional choose Adobe or Capture One versus the parade of one click photo editors. Please provide any links from reputable sources that corroborate this baseless claim.

7 Likes

Wow too !
Do agree with Louie.
I cannot accept the idea that I have to pay to open an already done job (and this not only in the photography domain), neither the idea I don’t possess what I buy, neither the idea a company can take me hostage when it wants, neither some other very more pernicious things of the same kind; this is why I do all I can to stay away from adobe products. But this kind of sentence is completly counterproductive and after more than 20 years working in the graphic industry, this kind of free assumption proving a lack of knowledge of the subject makes my hair stand on end.

5 Likes

@uncoy - Sorry that’s just a whole load of fan-boy’ism and unmitigated hate, but no doubt your car does have good bathing facilities.

2 Likes

Your machine freezing during a process does not necessarily imply that the app you are running is the problem. PL, like many other image AI apps, is very demanding on a machine’s processors. In most cases this kind of ‘freeze’ is due to your RAM/DRAM being over utilized. Meaning that trying to process 1000 RAW files by an underpowered machine can easily freeze your system. Keep in mind that the MAC is basically a UNIX box and the PL (like all other software) is running in a unique kernal. The OS only has only so much memory to spare when attempting to process large sets of data in a continuous process. PL engineers are not necessarily up to speed yet in writting to the iCore variations (neither are most software comapanies yet!!) While it might be true that PL engineers may not have perfected their ‘escape hatch’ for those who over tax their software that is not necessarily their fault. Sounds like you need to buy a more robust machine. By the way, I have a very powerful machine and I have found that the sweet spot with PL is 300 RAW images at a time. I simply batch them and recombine after all the processing is done. Takes almost no time at all. Best!

Dear users,

I’d like to draw your attention to one specific point: recently I have noticed in a few different posts across our forum, that when a user is not fully satisfied with our products and/or he/she uses our products as a “piece of the puzzle” in a mixed workflow (e.g., using PL to create linear DNGs, then editing the DNGs in LR…), some of our forum users have a tendency to ‘blame’ such user and/or ‘forcing’ him/her to fully adopt our products.

First of all, when a user isn’t fully satisfied and/or not convinced by our products, this can be the result of too many things, and drawing ‘quick conclusions’ may not always be a good solution.

A personal opinion should always be respected, and there is no such a thing like a “one-size-fits-all” solution. Workflows are different, needs are different, gears are different, and so on.

I appreciate the fact that our community always tries to help and advise someone like @JoJu, but please, also remember that his personal choice should be understood and respected.

We continuously improve our products and we collect all user feedback to detect areas of improvement and ‘unseen’ shortcomings. What @JoJu is experiencing is that, unfortunately, PL is not a good fit for his workflow and needs.

@JoJu : I’ll be more than happy if you could further describe the issues you are facing using PL. Just direct-message me :+1:

Thanks,
Steven.

8 Likes

Hello @StevenL thank you very much for your understanding, I’ll pm you lateron. I can understand the way it works as I also sometimes have to help others on other apps. The temptation “first bring the user with troubles as close as possible to my own workflow, so I can understand what’s the main problem and exclude the influence other things I might not know” is always there. And I can also understand long term EA members who in a way helped to test and design the product as they might know more than I do or faced similar problems. C1 is not flawless in any way, but it’s closer to my former DAM/RAW converter than most other products. I’d like to replace it with something more reliable and stable which DxO usually is, but there are also critical parts, I had to learn.

1 Like

@jaitoall, depending on definition, the reason for DxO’s crash was not RAW-processing but relocating some files collected in a project. I was not changing the location of PL’s database, but wanted to point the new location of around 1000 files. There’s a command for that (right click on project, ooops - wanted to start DxO (like I did a couple of times since the main crash): beachball, not showing any files, not being able to navigate to library).

As for the “powerful machine”: I tend to think, if i9, 8 core, 3.6 GHz and 32 GB RAM are not enough, then why was it working since 14 months?

1 Like

With the current changes regarding keywords and metadata, I get the feeling that DxO is targeting DPL to be able to replace Lightroom and that is completely okay with me.

I sincerely hope though, that DxO will be able to accomplish this in the least number of steps. Adding (half-cooked) features piecemeal, one each per yearly paid upgrade looks like bossy tactics to me, although I have to admit that DxO has not overly advertised features currently still cooking in the pot: Fuji support and asset management.

I really look forward to a release that can maintain a level of operational security and management functionalities on par with Lightroom, all while keeping DxO’s excellent RAW development and de-noising.

3 Likes

You just summarized what I’m also hoping for @platypus .

1 Like

I use C1 and its catalogue capabilities are limited by comparison to the only two products that are fully capable raw converters and DAM solutions ie LR and ACDSee. When a LR user dumps 300,000 images into C1 it throws up the white flag quickly and C1 themselves recognise this and tend to talk about 20-30,000 images as a catalogue maximum.

Many companies have tried to introduce DAM capabilities into their raw converters and the reason they have experienced so many difficulties is that they are approaching the problem from the opposite direction to LR and ACDSee. Both of these products were built from the ground up as DAM’s with photo processing added on with ACDSee and as part of the original product woith LR.

Adding DAM capabilities to a main stream commercial raw converter is a project that is a world of pain for the developers. Currently PL is all about sharing metadata it has no real database. This is illustrated by the advise often seen on these forums when people have problems of “delete the database” as a throwaway fix, which illustrates how important the database is in PL.

Many competitors have tried to add DAM capability to their product eg ON1 and in noway do they compare to ACDSee/LR.in my opinion.

If it’s DXO’s intention to go down the route of a LR competitor then I admire their aspiration. If I was DXO’s business manager I would be advising against this and as a share holder, selling stock :slight_smile:

Doing this in any reasonable timescale, I think is highly unlikely but I would be pleased to be proved wrong as I fully support DXO and want them to be a success. However, if a LR user can’t dump 300,000 images into a PL catalogue and it just work the numbers of potential conquest customers will be limited, which must be placed against the development cost/time and the lost opportunity cost in other product development time to enhance the core product features.

DXO’s lack of DAM and ACDSee’s excellent DAM capabilities are irrelevant as I don’t need a DAM and if I did I have IMATCH (non photo use) which as a DAM is better than LR/ACDSee as I can use it with all file types pdf, word etc. not just photos.

I am sure DXO are having many debates about where PL6 is going and all will be revealed later in the year when it launches. With the changing market the development decisions taken today will have a significant impact on DXO’s success. I wish them well.

1 Like

In principle, a right click on two images located in each of the 2 folders to restore the new path, should solve the problem

Well, the core truth is “in principle”. :grin:

I did that with some small, middle and bigger projects. I can reproduce the total blockage of my Mac - can’t work on anything else in a normal way. I would accept the machine gets slowed down. But occupying all available resources and making the call for the “immediate process termination” window close to an impossible hazardous game - no way. I had to switch off the Mac completely and restart it.

Do other Mac users, or Windows users, have this problem? Can you be absolutely sure it’s not specific to your setup?

1 Like