Previews of all photos take too long

[NN636275244091231986UL]

I am using C1 for 2 years now, I have hundreds of photos in the HDD that I added in C1 catalog, now every time I go to a specific folder and come back to all the photos it can take 30-40 minutes to load the previews.
Any way to fix it?

[C-M-B]

Well I'd say the fix would be a faster drive and reducing the amount of photos per folder.
If you have a partifuclary slow HDD and there are hundreds or thousands of photos in a folder, it will take a long time.

I wish C1 would save thumbnails instead of reloading images every time you open it - but alas, that's not how it works.

[Bobtographer]

..it can take 30-40 minutes to load the previews.
Any way to fix it?

What's the connection to the HDD, what brand of HDD is it?
I use a USB3 caddy to read my drives (80-100MB/sec) and can work from it without any trouble.

[Levin]

I have exactly the same problem. I have broken my catalogs into calendar years to keep the size manageable. However even a years worth of photos for me is 3000 to 5000 images. When I open a year catalog, it can take 30 mins to load. If I use the search function, say 4 star or higher images, it can take 40 to 60 minutes. This is becoming unacceptable.

I also use another program called ON1 RAW 2019, and it can load all my thumbnails from my entire collection (20,000 plus images) in less than 5 secs. Lightroom will also load a year of photos in about 2 to 3 seconds. One thing On1 suggests for optimum performance is to place the Browse Cache on a highspeed SSD. I can't find a way to do this with C1 or know if this is even possible.

Any suggestions on speeding this up?
Levin

[IanL]

Wow, that's bad. I am currently discussing the performance of displaying my catalogue's all images collection with support. My problems are no where near as bad as that. Have you opened a support case?

[C-M-B]

The problem is that Capture One does not save any thumbnails or previews - it only fetches the previews of the files when you open the session/catalog.
That works for very fast drives (like SSDs) with a small(ish) number of photos, but as soon as your drive is slightly slower (like a HDD drive or a NAS drive) or there is a larger number of files involved (a few hundred or thousand) this doesn't work as well any more.

The advantage is that sessions and cataloges are small when compared to a Lightroom catalog and they open fast - but then the images take a long time to load.

On a sidenote: with Mac OSX this is not an issue, there the preview files are always kept due to the way the file system works (or something to that effect according to support). However I think preview files should be kept (at least small, compressed thumbnails) and images should only be (re)loaded when clicking on them.

[DBVirago2]

Yeah, I think this might be a deal breaker for me, at least until I get a new computer with SSD. It is ridiculous that the program needs to reload all the images every time you click on a folder. I tried C1 because I had heard it was faster and better than LR. It may be better, but it's unusable because of the speed issues. I'm not going to change my structure because the software doesn't work the way it should. It's supposed to be for professional photographers, so having a folder with 40k images in it shouldn't be unusual.

I just waited 20 minutes for the program to settle down so I could filter on and export an image. I clicked to the export folder to check on it, went back to the main folder, and now I am waiting another 20 minutes. Meanwhile, I've gone into Lightroom and gotten the job done.

It's not slow because I don't have an SSD. It's slow because it is doing a ridiculous amount of unnecessary work every time I click on the folder. The SSD just allows the ridiculous amount of work to be done faster. I waited 20 hours for previews to be built that aren't being used. I'm through waiting on Capture One so I can do my work.

[SFA]

Yeah, I think this might be a deal breaker for me, at least until I get a new computer with SSD. It is ridiculous that the program needs to reload all the images every time you click on a folder. I tried C1 because I had heard it was faster and better than LR. It may be better, but it's unusable because of the speed issues. I'm not going to change my structure because the software doesn't work the way it should. It's supposed to be for professional photographers, so having a folder with 40k images in it shouldn't be unusual.

I just waited 20 minutes for the program to settle down so I could filter on and export an image. I clicked to the export folder to check on it, went back to the main folder, and now I am waiting another 20 minutes. Meanwhile, I've gone into Lightroom and gotten the job done.

It's not slow because I don't have an SSD. It's slow because it is doing a ridiculous amount of unnecessary work every time I click on the folder. The SSD just allows the ridiculous amount of work to be done faster. I waited 20 hours for previews to be built that aren't being used. I'm through waiting on Capture One so I can do my work.

The previews are used but C1 will load them into memory from disk. In addition, depending on various settings, including the preview size you have elected to use vs. your screen resolution as a starting point and then whether or not you are using Proofing and a number of other factors, the preview may need to be discarded in favour of showing a freshly calculated version of the image rather than some sort of attempt to show you how things look based on the reduced size preview.

Are you seeing a lot of disk activity due to memory swapping. If your system has less than about 12Gb of free memory (assuming you are not running anything else placing huge demands on memory as well) you might see a lot of swapping going on. However there are so many variables involved that no single piece of random advice is likely to be decisively useful.

I would suggest you create a Support Case and have the Support team take a look at the log files to see if they can spot a known problem pattern that explains what you are seeing.

40 seconds would be probably average. 40 minutes is ridiculous since it should be possible to work with files even if the system has not finished preparing its working memory space as it is trying to do with a view to taking a little set up time on load in order to make the editing experience positive given the amount of work it will likely be undertaking during that part of process.

HTH.

Grant

[Tom-D]

I'll never understand that there are still people who still don't have SSDs after 10 years of their introduction. Or that people use a raw converter as image management software.

Or they arrive with their 10 year old labtops and try to use software that is optimized for multiple cores.

If it takes too long then buy you a pc with which it goes fast, I have to and yes it's expensive if you want to get even faster but that's why you go to work.

I had to let that out now because it annoys me so much. sorry.

[DBVirago2]

Thank you. That was helpful.

[IanL]

I would suggest you create a Support Case and have the Support team take a look at the log files to see if they can spot a known problem pattern that explains what you are seeing.

40 seconds would be probably average. 40 minutes is ridiculous since it should be possible to work with files even if the system has not finished preparing its working memory space as it is trying to do with a view to taking a little set up time on load in order to make the editing experience positive given the amount of work it will likely be undertaking during that part of process.

This is good advice. I am not experiencing the same issue you have - once my large collection has been displayed once filtering and changing the filter is fast. Switching away and back is not prefect but not a full wait once I have paid it the first time.

Your situation seems worse that mine and I am deep into a discussion with support.

[IanL]

I'll never understand that there are still people who still don't have SSDs after 10 years of their introduction.

LOL I have over 2Gb of images to manage. It was only a short time ago that SSDs were even available that size. My next machine will probably have the ability to work on new shoots from an SSD and the main library on the HD. But come on man even if you bought a new machine today those of us using C1 for our library would still not put all our images on an SSD.

Or that people use a raw converter as image management software.

That *is* what catalogues are for.

Or they arrive with their 10 year old labtops and try to use software that is optimized for multiple cores.

If it takes too long then buy you a pc with which it goes fast, I have to and yes it's expensive if you want to get even faster but that's why you go to work.

Well sure - to a point. If the software is querying or managing memory poorly you can throw new faster hardware at the problem and it will help but in the end the software is still not living up to its potential. I think we should be helping C1 find the kinks and work them out.

That way future versions will just scream on your super fast rig.

I had to let that out now because it annoys me so much. sorry.

Same

[DBVirago2]

Can I get opinions on this laptop?

Primarily for Capture One and Lightroom

Processor & Memory:

- Intel® Core™ i7-8750H Processor 2.2GHz
- 32GB DDR4 2666MHz RAM
Drives:

- 1TB M.2 PCIe Solid State Drive
- No Optical Drive
Operating System:

- Microsoft® Windows 10 Home (64-bit)
Graphics & Video:

- 15.6" Touchscreen InfinityEdge Anti-Reflective 4K Ultra HD (3840 x 2160) Display
- 4GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050 Ti Graphics

[SFA]

Can I get opinions on this laptop?

Primarily for Capture One and Lightroom

Processor & Memory:

- Intel® Core™ i7-8750H Processor 2.2GHz
- 32GB DDR4 2666MHz RAM
Drives:

- 1TB M.2 PCIe Solid State Drive
- No Optical Drive
Operating System:

- Microsoft® Windows 10 Home (64-bit)
Graphics & Video:

- 15.6" Touchscreen InfinityEdge Anti-Reflective 4K Ultra HD (3840 x 2160) Display
- 4GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050 Ti Graphics

Who is making the bits that link them all together?

[DBVirago2]

Dell