Scribbles and Snaps

Designed to manage hundreds and even thousands of photos, digiKam provides top-notch searching capabilities that can help you to find the photos you want in several different ways. If you need to quickly locate or filter photos, you can use the search field and filtering options at the bottom of the main window.

Enter the search term you want and digiKam automatically finds photos which file names, comments, or tags match the specified criteria. The clever part is that digiKam performs the search in real time, so it narrows the search results as you’re typing the search criteria. Using the drop-down list you can limit the search to specific file types; for example, you can search only RAW or TIFF files.

The rating filter to the right of the search field lets you view photos that match specified star rating criteria. Use the mouse to select the desired number of stars, and digiKam narrows the view to the matching photos. By default, the filter uses the Greater Than or Equals condition, but you can choose between two other options — Equals or Less Than or Equals — by right-clicking on the filter.

While the quick search and filtering features can help you to find the photos you want with a minimum of fuss, keep in mind that the results they return largely depend on the quality and completeness of the metadata of each photo. This is also true for digiKam’s more advanced search features, so to be able to use them to their full potential, you should tag and rate your photos as well as enter as much information as possible.