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Author Topic: Attempting to move to CO from LR  (Read 3581 times)

benoit@benoitmalphettes.com

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Attempting to move to CO from LR
« on: July 31, 2015, 07:49:15 pm »

...but I am experiencing a lot of frustrating problems with TIF files: they are not showing up in CO when I sync a folder and/or I get the beachball for 10-20 seconds when clicking on a TIF thumbnail. My first question: is there a size limit to TiF files to be recognized by CO? I tested with some +/- 2GB files and saved them Zip compressed and then CO seems to see them better? Also what about TIF files with Alpha Channels? All this makes for a very limiting workflow even though the RAW are definitely nice
Thanks in advance for some help or advice
Benoit

Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Attempting to move to CO from LR
« Reply #1 on: August 01, 2015, 08:51:01 am »

...but I am experiencing a lot of frustrating problems with TIF files: they are not showing up in CO when I sync a folder and/or I get the beachball for 10-20 seconds when clicking on a TIF thumbnail.

Hi Benoit,

Hard to diagnose without the actual files. Of course, Capture One is a Raw file converter in the first place. It also allows to open some non-Raw files for convenience, but it is not a full fledged dedicated Image processing application like e.g. Photoshop. In addition, TIFFs can contain all sorts of image data (and other data) in many different layouts and with layers and masks and transparency that make no sense to Capture One (or other programs). So the very least that a TIFF should also contain is a flattened version of the composited image. It's the source program that determines what is written to the TIFF, Capture One and other programs can only try to deal with what they are offered.

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My first question: is there a size limit to TiF files to be recognized by CO? I tested with some +/- 2GB files and saved them Zip compressed and then CO seems to see them better?

The TIFF format itself is limited to 4GB maximum, and 2GB may be the limit for certain TIFF library versions. That has to do with the size of the offset tag values that can be used in TIFFs, and whether they are so-called 'signed' or 'unsigned' 32bit integer values. These tags will therefore limit how far a pointer in the metadata tags part of the file can encode a jump inside the file to positions in the image data section. Depending on the circumstances it can also make a difference if the data is written as RGB triplets or as a separate R, a G, and a B layer. So the source program settings can make a difference. Within those pointer distances I do not think it matters much for Capture One what the width x height dimensions are, but there might be limits for a largest dimension for memory efficiency reasons. Many programs have limits of 32768 or 65535 pixels as the maximum dimension of a side, I'm not sure if that is an issue for C1.

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Also what about TIF files with Alpha Channels? All this makes for a very limiting workflow even though the RAW are definitely nice

Transparency as a feature is not supported by C1 as far as I know, although I do not know if that renders a file inaccessible if there is also a flattened composite available. Again, C1 is not an image editor as such, it uses its own proprietary mechanisms for Layer adjustment masks. Some tasks are better done with dedicated applications anyway.

Cheers,
Bart
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benoit@benoitmalphettes.com

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Re: Attempting to move to CO from LR
« Reply #2 on: August 02, 2015, 10:33:51 pm »

Bart, thank you so much for answering my post. I think that there is nothing wrong my tif files maybe just that CO is too slow for my workflow. I love the quality of the files though as well as the precision of the tools CO offers so I am going to step back for now and use a mixed approach as in https://vimeo.com/quentinsf and https://luminous-landscape.com/a-workflow-combining-capture-one-and-lightroom/ and will learn CO as I go along. If you or anyone else has suggestions, they are very welcome.
Do you experience the beachball when you click on a TIFF thumbnail above 300 or 400MB in CO ? Flatten Tiffs are fine in CO but as soon as I pile up layers in PS CO challenges my patience...
When you say "So the very least that a TIFF should also contain is a flattened version of the composited image." do you mean creating a merged layer in PS ( Merge Visible) that would reside at the top of the layers ?

Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Attempting to move to CO from LR
« Reply #3 on: August 03, 2015, 04:52:36 am »

Do you experience the beachball when you click on a TIFF thumbnail above 300 or 400MB in CO ?

Sorry, I can't tell because I usually do not re-import TIFFs. When I export the Raw conversions I just finish them in Photoshop.

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Flatten Tiffs are fine in CO but as soon as I pile up layers in PS CO challenges my patience...

Which might point to mere file size in Megabytes, rather than anything else.

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When you say "So the very least that a TIFF should also contain is a flattened version of the composited image." do you mean creating a merged layer in PS ( Merge Visible) that would reside at the top of the layers ?

That's were it gets difficult, because that depends on how the TIFF is written (and there are many options that can used for layered TIFFs) by the editing application (e.g. Photoshop), or opened by another application. Photoshop is usually set up to automatically create a TIFF that external viewers/applications will correctly interpret as the composited result from layers, but it also depends on TIFF libraries from the applications that open the file which may differ. I believe hat e.g. InDesign might require image Pyramid settings for different resolutions, don't know if that has changed with recent versions.

However, since I don't think that Capture One will preserve the layers in a TIFF anyway, if you do additional editing (which is limited for non-Raw files), you might want to save a flattened version for importing in C1, which would be much smaller/slimmer than the layered version anyway.

Cheers,
Bart
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