Pointing the app at your photos
Two sources, what governs how long a run takes, and why quitting mid-run is safe.
Updated Aug 14, 20264 min readApplies to 1.1.5
The button at the bottom of the job panel changes with the job's state.
| Button | When you see it |
|---|---|
| ATTACH FOLDER | The job has no photos yet. |
| START CATALOGING | A folder is attached and nothing has run. |
| RESUME CATALOGING | The job was paused or errored. |
| ADD TO UP NEXT | Another job is already running. |
| PAUSE and STOP | This job is running. |
| ADD IMAGES | The job is finished and you want to add late files. |
Two places photos can live
A local folder. Browse to it and select. We scan, count what we found, and show you the number to confirm.
Dropbox. Only appears once you've connected it. Browse the tree and pick the folder. We pull each frame from Dropbox as we go, so nothing downloads first.
How long a run takes
Cataloging runs in the background. The time it takes scales with the size of the job and with your batch settings, so start it and go and do something else.
Two settings drive it, both in Settings, 07 The Machinery.
PAUSE BETWEEN BATCHES offers 1, 10, 20, 30 and 60 seconds, with a default of 20. A shorter pause moves a run along faster.
BATCH SIZE sits directly above it, with options of 3, 5, 8, 10 and 15, and a default of 5. It only does anything on your own key. On plan credits we cap it at three whatever you set, and the log says so when we do. That cap is there because those runs route through our proxy, which cuts a call off at 150 seconds. So a run on plan credits moves through fewer frames per call than the same run on your own key.
What it costs
On plan credits it counts against your monthly cap and nothing else. Studio is 500 images a month. Agency is 1,000, pooled across your client workspaces.
On your own key there's no cap and nothing counts against your plan. You pay Anthropic directly for what you catalog, and their invoice is the only accurate account of it.
Give it your best files
Catalog from your full-resolution exports. Here's why it matters.
At catalog time we make a 2560 pixel working copy of every frame. That copy is made once. Carousels, pins, submissions and publishing all use it from then on, and it's never made again.
Point the app at web-size files and every one of those inherits that ceiling for good. Point it at your finished exports and the working copy is as good as 2560 pixels gets. The analysis pass reads a cleaner downsize too.
No cost to this. Your originals never upload during cataloging, whatever their size. We read them in place, make our copies, and leave your files exactly where they were.
Pick a place that won't move
The archive itself is durable. Once a job is cataloged, the working copies live in the cloud and nothing you do to the source folder can take the catalog away.
The one thing that still points home is the high-res request. When a collaborator asks for a full-resolution original, we fulfill it from that file's original location on your Mac. Move the folder and that request can't be filled until you reconnect it.
So catalog from the place finished weddings live for good, not the working folder you clear out for the next one. Covered under High-res requests.
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