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Request a new feature, or support for a camera/lens that you would like to use in Capture One.

Status Future consideration
Workspace Feature requests
Categories Capture One Pro
Created by Guest
Created on Feb 28, 2020

Allow to protect images/variants from modification

When I have finished an edit, I want to preserve that state for future reference.

The major motivation is to protect myself from user error. Examples could be accidentally clicking in the wrong spot or having wrong images selected while mass editing. Those errors often happen unnoticed and you discover much later, that something is wrong.

A secondary motivation is to make life easier by protecting me from careless actions and help me to train myself towards a clean workflow. For example, I often want to try out something on an older image. The safe way would be to create a new or cloned variant for those experiments.But I often just use one of the existing variants and undo my changes when the experiment is finished. If I had protected the existing variant from modification, I would have to deliberately unlock it and probably would instead do the clone.

Currently, there is no easy way to do that:

  • Moving a variant to be preserved into a dedicated archival album doesn't work, because you can't move variants separately. Even if that was possible, this solution would lead to further problems.
  • Exporting a variant allows you to restore a former state, but doesn't help against unnoticed errors and complicates access and handling.
  • A backup of the catalogue has the same problems as an export.

Some ideas for implementation:

  • Provide a lock button. That would prevent any modifications on a variant, including adjustments, layers, rating, keywords and metadata. Also deletion of an image file could be prevented as long as there is a locked variant.
  • Thinking further, a lock button for albums might also be a good idea. That would prevent variants to be removed from an album and prevent the contained images from beeing deleted.
  • Snapshots as described here would provide the requested functions.
  • FirstName LastName
    Reply
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    Sep 10, 2024

    Protecting users from data loss is a core UX requirement. Undo, even repeatedly, is not enough - by the time you realize you edited the wrong variant or failed to duplicate variant, you are forced to either lose the original customizations (by not undoing) or lose the current customizations (by undoing, since it is an undo stack, not undo tree).

    Please reconsider prioritizing this feature. This is one of the few gaps in C1 that repeatedly cause frustration.

  • Thomas Kyhn Rovsing Hjørnet
    Reply
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    Dec 12, 2023

    One potential workaround would be a snapshot function like Lightroom's, which would allow you to save the final editing state, so that if you accidentally make further changes to an finished version of an image, you can revert to the snapshot of the final state. (See this request.)

  • Guest
    Reply
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    Dec 1, 2023

    I would also welcome such a feature very much!

  • Ian Wilson
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    Nov 13, 2023

    I agree that it would be a welcome feature. Another possibility, as a workaround, would be to move finished images to a "Finished" folder.

    Ian

  • Guest
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    Nov 13, 2023

    This is a really needed feature.  I've resorted to creating an extra layer on my finished corrections and hand writing "LOCKED" in an overexposed brush stroke so it shows up in the thumbnails and reminds me to leave that variation alone.  It looks sloppy and unprofessional but that's better than accidentally screwing up a good image.

  • Mathieu Bourlion
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    Aug 10, 2023

    Hi everyone, 
    Thank you for the suggestion - this is not something we are currently working on.

    This does not mean this is a bad suggestion or that it will never be adressed, but in an effort of transparency we want you to know that we are not currently allocating resources to solving this issue.

    We will revisit the status of this thread if and when it changes.

  • Guest
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    Jun 25, 2023

    I consider this to be a very valuable request. I taught myself this lesson recently! I assume this would be a good request for a software engineer new to the team to work on.

  • Guest
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    Nov 8, 2021

    +1. Locking variants would mean we could divert our attention to more important things than not accidentaly selecting the wrong image.

  • Guest
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    Jan 29, 2021

    I just searched for the same idea.    I have accidently made changes to images/ variants.   A simple pad lock to restrict most alterations would be very helpful to start with.  More specified locks and pass coding individual images would be something useful too, in a more advanced version.   I'd request the ability to alter the print size/ process size unlocked from a general lock to allow easy distribution / delivery options without changing the artistic choices, if possible.   

     

  • Guest
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    Apr 2, 2020

    Agreed and voted!

    Great idea and very well thought out request.

    I have also been victim to accidental editing on a photo!  I know it's my fault completely, but I would like to minimize the chances of me being an idiot! LOL

  • Carles Tebé
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    Feb 28, 2020

    Agreed and voted!

    This feature was requested several times in the old forum. 

  • BeO O
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    Feb 28, 2020

    Vote+

    Very good description!

    Did you "submit a request"?

  • Thomas Kyhn Rovsing Hjørnet
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    Feb 28, 2020

    This would be very useful.

  • +41
8 MERGED

Option to lock images to prevent further changes

Merged
Requested feature It would be very useful if you could lock images to prevent accidentally changing settings after you've finished editing. This has been requested several times before; see this for instance. What problem do you see this solving? ...
Thomas Kyhn Rovsing Hjørnet over 1 year ago in Feature requests / Capture One Pro 3 Future consideration