After trying out a number of Linux photo-management applications, I have settled on Digikam. It has some great tools for managing vast photo archives, wonderful RAW support, and an array of good photo-editing-and-fixing features. Two introductory articles are on Linux Planet:
Digital Photo Management In Linux, Part 1
Digital Photo Management In Linux, Part 2
Not mentioned in the articles are Digikam’s Plugins, which extend its usefulness considerably. Such as Noise Reduction, Refocus for rescuing blurry pictures, BlowUp for good-quality enlargements, white balance adjustment, and many more.
Over on LXer.com you might find some useful information on photography fundamentals, such as lens types and quality, and understanding how to use aperture to make your photos say what you want them to:
Adventures in Digital Photography With Linux, part 4: Fundamentals
Thanks for a great series of articles. Very helpful since I just moved to Linux.
@Carla
Especially hopeful for your review of Digikam was your 'Cropping, Resizing, and Basic Fixes' section in your Digital Photo Management In Linux, Part 2
It always seems to be harder that it has to be, to use GIMP or its relatively recent offshoot GIMPShop solely for cropping, resizing, and doing the basic photo fixes that Digikam can easily provide. Current review of AdobePhotoshop-aspiring GIMPShop by Matt Hartley in GIMPShop Review: GIMP Made Friendly
GIMPShop can perhaps best be used instead of Digikam for those of we photo editors who must "select a region of [y]our photo and work only on that"..
vv
Oops, thats GIMPShop Review: GIMP Made Friendly .... vv
Thanks Seth! Yes Vrainveer, the Gimp is great for doing what Digikam can't. I wouldn't trade it for ten Photoshops. Well, maybe I would- to sell them on Ebay and become rich. :)
You just published on LinuxPlanet this recent piece: Fie Photoshop: Krita, the Real Photoshop Killer.... Photoshop Assassins
So now the obvious questions are
1. How do you rate Krita with Digikam for digital editing and thus both being Photoshop Assasins(TM??)
2. Is Digikam still considered to be such a cutting-edge (and even relevant?) photo management system at the present time with your glowing review of Krita?
-vv
Hi vrainrveenr,
Digikam and Krita work together like Gimp and Digikam. Digikam is my favorite application for managing and organizing my image archives, and for doing basic image fixits, such as contrast, saturation, sharpening, red-eye, cropping, and such.
Krita is comparable to Gimp; that's where the surgical and more complex editing is done. It's less mature, so it doesn't have the wealth of plugins that Gimp or Photoshop have. But Gimp is limited to 8-bit RGB. Krita supports a lot more color spaces at higher bit depths, including 16-bit CMYK and LAB. There is a world of difference between 8-bit and 16-bit. My DSLR uses a capture bit depth of 12 bits for RAW images, so using an 8-bit image editor means I throw away 4 bits right at the start.
There's been talk of replacing Gimp's core graphics engine with something more modern, so it's just a matter of time.