Is there anything like Aperture-exporter for Capture One?

[ChrisR]

An advantage and a disadvantage of programs like Capture One Pro (and Aperture before it) is that it doesn't change your master files, but stores your adjustments in the Catalogue. That's fine of course, unless or until for some reason you need to change course and use a different program. Leaving Aperture when adopting Capture One was made easier by the existence of Aperture Exporter, which would run (or perhaps wade, as through treacle) through your entire Library applying all your adjustments and exporting the files in a file structure that modelled the Library structure. I believe it did so by using Aperture's own export routines in some way (I am vague on the details, but it definitely applied all Aperture's adjustments correctly, unlike a direct import of the Aperture Library into C1Pro, which gave a much more flaky approach). IIRC I ended up with the original, un-adjusted set of master files, a matching set of adjusted master files, and a C1Pro Catalogue from its own implementation of those adjustments. I thought this gave a pretty good basis for the future. IIRC I abandoned the direct Catalogue import, archived the un-adjusted master files somewhere, and imported the adjusted master files into C1Pro. This may have been a more comfortable result for me as 90% of my files are the result of film scans as JPEGs. I have rarely felt the need to re-adjust those imported files.

I'm wondering about this as the sudden death of Capture One Express earlier this year has made me think about the possibility of a similar sudden death happening to the C1Pro perpetual licence. The actual licence terms imply this isn't going to happen, but we have no idea what the licence terms of any future version I buy might be.

I don't know of anything similar in action to Aperture Exporter that would work for C1Pro. As far as I can see, if I decide to abandon C1Pro for some other program, I will likely have to select and export each individual Project (which in my case is a roll of film... so several hundred of them!). I can probably safely ignore those Projects that got imported from Aperture, as very few of them have been adjusted since then, and could safely be imported into the new program (eg Darktable, for instance).

Is there any other structure-preserving export tool that I've missed that will apply my adjustments and metadata?

I'm not particularly planning to make a change now. But if the full export is particularly onerous, it will only get more so the longer I stick with C1Pro, so maybe there is a case for jumping sooner?

 

[ecoleman]

I really can't see how an exporter would work. Each application has their own way of doing things. Their own sliders, their own algorithms, their own selection processes. How would you possibly export the adjustments of Capture One Pro and apply them to say Lightroom?

Capture One has functions and sliders that LR doesn't have and vice versa.

Aperture was abandoned years ago now and at that time Raw editors were a lot simpler than they are now so it I'm guessing that translating those edits from one to the another was a lot easier. Not so easy now that all of these apps have advanced over the years.

I'm afraid that it's probably time to suck it up and pay a subscription and stick with that application. The old argument that I bought the software and can use it forever just isn't the case.

 

[ChrisR]

I really can't see how an exporter would work. Each application has their own way of doing things. Their own sliders, their own algorithms, their own selection processes. How would you possibly export the adjustments of Capture One Pro and apply them to say Lightroom?

Capture One has functions and sliders that LR doesn't have and vice versa.

Aperture was abandoned years ago now and at that time Raw editors were a lot simpler than they are now so it I'm guessing that translating those edits from one to the another was a lot easier. Not so easy now that all of these apps have advanced over the years.

I'm afraid that it's probably time to suck it up and pay a subscription and stick with that application. The old argument that I bought the software and can use it forever just isn't the case.

Ah no, perhaps I didn't explain it well. C1Pro did offer the possibility of importing the Aperture Library as a Catalogue, in the process applying whatever they thought were the equivalent adjustments (with long lists of exceptions). As you rightly imply, it didn't go well. What Aperture Exporter did (at least the way I used it) was to ask Aperture to export all the images, applying all the adjustments inside Aperture and ending up with exported JPEGs and/or TIFFs with the adjustments consolidated in it. Ratings and tags could be included, along with options for some other metadata, some of which gave C1Pro conniptions, so I had to run it again without those options (IIRC a single run took about 27 hours!).

Such a tool could be built to bulk export from C1Pro in a similar fashion IFF there was some sort of export API offered by C1Pro. I'm guessing there isn't, and the most likely answer was always "no", but it seemed worth asking.

I happily stuck with Aperture for around 5 years or so after it was declared dead, and I guess I'll likely end up sticking with my current (perpetual licensed) version of C1Pro for a good while as well. I'm extremely unlikely to buy a digital camera that's not already built into the current versions, and otherwise it seems to meet my basic needs..