Scribbles and Snaps

Versioning in digiKam provides an excellent mechanism for non-destructive editing, but it does have a tiny quirk that can be a bit confusing if you are not aware of it. With the Versioning feature enabled, digiKam automatically displays only the most recent version of a photo and hides all the previous revisions, including the original file. This functionality helps to avoid clutter in the main thumbnail view, but this creature comfort can also cause panic when you all of a sudden can’t find the original photos. Fortunately, digiKam provides several ways of solving this conundrum.

Select the latest version of the photo, expand the Versioning right sidebar, and you should see all revisions of the selected image along with its original. If you want to make the original file visible in the thumbnail view, hover the mouse over the original’s thumbnail in the Versioning sidebar and click on the Show item permanently icon.

Alternatively, you can disable the hiding functionality altogether. To do this, choose Settings → Configure digiKam → Editing Images and untick the Always show original images and Always show intermediate snapshots check boxes.