Failed to load project file

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Per Berntsen
Posts: 3
Joined: 18.06.2019 21:08

Failed to load project file

Post by Per Berntsen »

I'm using Helicon Focus Pro version 7.5.4 on Windows 7.
I have saved a project file, and when I try to open it, I get this message:

Error.png
Error.png (8.92 KiB) Viewed 3323 times

The project is saved on the D drive:

Load-project-file.png
Load-project-file.png (33.58 KiB) Viewed 3323 times


The project folder contains these files:

Folder-content.png
Folder-content.png (27.21 KiB) Viewed 3323 times
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Catherine
Posts: 1163
Joined: 29.04.2019 22:38

Re: Failed to load project file

Post by Catherine »

The source file cannot be located because you opened it from a Temporary folder. If you were exporting from Lightroom - this is expected as Lightroom places exported files to a temporary location and then deletes them once the export process finalizes; you're not supposed to be saving projects out of Lightroom export for this reason. Instead, please load the source files directly to Helicon Focus.
Per Berntsen
Posts: 3
Joined: 18.06.2019 21:08

Re: Failed to load project file

Post by Per Berntsen »

Yes, I am exporting from Lightroom, should have mentioned that.
Is there any way to get around this, so that I can use project files with this workflow?

Opening source files directly in Helicon Focus is not an option for me, they need to be edited in Lightroom first, otherwise retouching will be difficult. Besides, HF is very slow processing raw (DNG) files, and there are also some crashes. (50 MP files from a Fuji GFX)
For the record, I routinely convert all my work to DNG before importing to Lightroom, and delete the original raw files.
Then I export 8-bit Tiffs to HF, and working with these files is quite smooth, with no crashes.

I guess another option could be to do a regular export from the source files to the hard drive, and then open these tiffs in HF, but it would result in a lot of extra files. Learning about focus stacking has changed my workflow, so I now use a tripod and focus stacking for 90% of my work.
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Catherine
Posts: 1163
Joined: 29.04.2019 22:38

Re: Failed to load project file

Post by Catherine »

Yes, I think you should export your images from Lightroom as files and then load them into Helicon Focus. You just can't combine LR export workflow with project files because of the way LR works, there's nothing we can do on our end.

I can understand why you find DNG / RAW processing slow, processing 16-bit originals is certinaly slower than 8-bit reduced color resolution files that you're loading into Helicon Focus, but it definitely shouldn't crash. What version of Helicon Focus are you using? Is it the latest 7.5.4 one? If you're interested in communicating and working on this issue, we'd very much like to fix the crashes, but I understand it's not a problem for your current workflow.

P. S. It's quite likely that it crashed because it ran out of RAM; in that case, reducing the memory cache size in Helicon Focus preferences -> Performance may help.
Per Berntsen
Posts: 3
Joined: 18.06.2019 21:08

Re: Failed to load project file

Post by Per Berntsen »

Yes, I think you should export your images from Lightroom as files and then load them into Helicon Focus. You just can't combine LR export workflow with project files because of the way LR works, there's nothing we can do on our end.
OK, I understand. I guess I could delete the exported tiffs once I have finished retouching, but keep the project folder and files.
If the need should arise later, I can do a new export from Lightroom using the same file names as I used originally. That should work, right?

As for the crashing, I wasn't monitoring RAM use at the time.
But when working with 8-bit files, I have noticed that HF uses as much as 14 GB of my 24 GB RAM.
Total RAM use has then been 23,5 GB, and when I continued working for some time, I noticed that it didn't go any higher, and I could work without any problems.

I have to admit that I don't understand the Memory cache limit setting, but it's set to the default 50%.
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Catherine
Posts: 1163
Joined: 29.04.2019 22:38

Re: Failed to load project file

Post by Catherine »

Deleting the source files to re-export them later to plug into the same project will work if you can guarantee that the images will be exactly the same as they were the first time.

The memory cache limit is the fraction of your system's total RAM capacity that Helicon Focus is allowed to use for speeding up rendering and improving the overall responsiveness of the program. This is not the total amount of RAM that Helicon Focus will use, it's the extra it's allowed to use on top of what it absolutely needs to get the job done. And if you have 24 GB RAM, 50% means 12 GB. Realistically, in this scenario Helicon Focus will probably use up to 14-15 GB (but only if it has the use for that much memory, it doesn't greedily occupy memory in advance).
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