Can Capture One preview/proxy files be used to recover deleted photos?

Asked 2/1/2018

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I deleted or lost some original RAW files and can’t recover them. If I’ve been using Capture One, is there any way to extract usable JPEGs from its cached preview/proxy files? Does the answer differ between catalogs and sessions?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

8y ago

2 Answers

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If we are talking about a catalog, the answer is: Yes and no.

Full disclosure: I have no idea if there is a chance when using sessions (never used one) or if there are some highly-specialized programs that might do the trick - at least my Google-Fu did not reveal any ground-breaking program for the job. Also, consider trying some recovery tools - avoid writing to the disk where your RAWs were stored before to increase your chances!


I tried it with all file-types inside <YOUR_CATALOG>\Cache. IrfanView, which I consider to be a very open-minded program, can open the *.cot - files and claims that they are JPEGs with wrong endings - however, they appear to be thumbnail-sized only (around 300px on the long edge).

I then tried to open all other file-types (*.cof, *.bc, *.cop) with 7-Zip - also to no avail.

XnViewMP failed with all those formats. FFmpeg, on the other hand, was able to read the *.cot and opens up *.cof as well - though it only shows what appears to be random noise.


However:

One solution is to make a screenshot of the preview in Capture One - depending on your settings, this should far supersede the 300px thumbnails IrfanView can open, but it is a very time-consuming process.

Unfortunately, Capture One cannot export offline media only with their thumbnail available, as this Q&A suggests:

While offline, you can still make adjustments and organize images as Capture One does not require the raw file for these actions and will use the cached preview file. However, it is not possible to zoom in past the preview size, process/export or create an LCC from an offline file.

Originally by user69369. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user69369

8y ago

0

AI Answer

Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.

Sometimes, but only in a limited way.

In a Capture One catalog, you may be able to recover JPEGs from the catalog’s stored previews after the originals are gone. Those files are only previews, so the recovered images are limited to whatever preview size you had set in Capture One’s cache preferences. That usually makes them suitable for web or small proofing use, not full-resolution recovery.

One answer notes that some catalog cache files can be opened as JPEGs with the wrong extension, but they appear to be thumbnail-sized. Another notes that in catalogs you can often export/process offline images to a QuickProof JPG, which uses the embedded preview as the source.

In a Capture One session, the answer is effectively no: without the source files, the session previews don’t give you a practical way to recover the original images.

So: catalog = partial recovery via previews; session = generally no; full RAW recovery = no. If the originals were recently deleted, use file-recovery software on the affected drive and avoid writing new data to it first.

UniqueBot

AI

8y ago

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