2009.06.19

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apps,photography

• So, I’m on a quest to find a photo organization tool for Linux (or, on a later note, for any OS) that does some things like…
  • Allow me to apply metadata to images, like comments and groups and tags (preferably hierarchical)
  • Store the metadata IN THE ACTUAL IMAGE, IN A STANDARD FORMAT. This also means it will probably need to support IPTC or XMP, preferably XMP. (No, shut up about GQview, it doesn’t cut it.)
  • Allow me to set metadata as a batch operation. I am thoroughly uninterested in having to manually go through the process of setting metadata for each individual image. And when I say “batch operation”, “batch” really needs to be more generic than “all files in a directory.” (No, shut up about scripting it with ExifTool or Exempi or Exiv2. Yes, they can edit XMP data on groups of files, but scripting doesn’t cut it as a solution unless someone can show me how to make this integrate with a GUI.)
• Here are the apps recommended thus far:
  • digiKam
  • F-Spot
  • imgSeek
  • Picasa
  • GQview
  • KPhotoAlbum
  • gThumb
  • GwenView
  • Mapivi
  • LightZone
  • Razuna
  • Lightroom
  • PicaJet FX
• And my responses thus far:
  • digiKam:
    • Has a pretty nice UI (though overdone sometimes)
    • The built-in editing features and plugins are handy and quick. I’m kind of cheating here because I’m already pretty familiar with digiKam.
    • Searching capabilities are pretty good.
    • Only wants to edit IPTC/XMP metadata one image at a time.
    • All its metadata (besides IPTC/XMP that you do one image at a time) is stored in an SQLite database, not in the image
    • Interface can get pretty slow sometimes.
  • imgSeek:
    • The interface works okay but it’s a little clumsy, and sometimes things are slow (I loaded about 10K pictures).
    • Finding pictures based on similarity to other pictures or to a hand-drawn image is an interesting feature.
    • The grouping/batching features are powerful, but a bit slow.
    • I am unsure if imgSeek lets me add IPTC or XMP data easily.
    • There is no easy way I can see to search based on date.
  • F-Spot:
    • I’m told the IPTC/XMP support in this isn’t that great.
    • I have yet to try this program.
  • LightZone:
    • This is proprietary, but they have a 30-day trial.
    • “Linux users will especially enjoy access to the new LightZone Relight Tool l which can achieve HDR effects from a single negative revealing hidden HDR detail in both the highlights and the shadows, using just a single exposure. For instance, you’ll see both saturated colors of a sunset and bright detail in the face of a back lit subject that was formerly lost. Achieving such stunning results from a single exposure without LightZone would require multiple flashes, reflectors and shades at the time the photograph — if it could be possible at all.” . . . sorry, but if you honestly believe this, you don’t have the slightest understanding what HDR is. Oh well, it’s all marketing.
    • Having tried this software, I cannot see any batch metadata editing capability, or any reason why I’d want to pay for this.
  • PicaJet FX:
    • This is proprietary with a 15-day trial.
    • I tried this software and could not find any batch-editing features for XMP.
  • Lightroom
    • This is the expensive stuff from Adobe ($300, but there’s a 30-day trial). Some people in #photogeeks on Freenode recommended it.
    • This is a “workflow app designed for professional photographers” and it’s from Adobe. If anything at al supports XMP batch-editing, and a billion other features, this would have to be it.
  • Razuna
    • I don’t know. This is an open source, web-based Digital Asset Management application.
    • It looks very nice (check out the videos there), but I don’t think it’s whatI need for this task.
  • Any application I failed to mention: I either ignored it on the basis of provided specifications, or I ignored it because I’m just too lazy.