Posts Tagged ‘digikamrecipes’
digiKam Recipes 3.11.01 Released
A new version of the digiKam Recipes ebook is available for download. The following material has been added since version 3.9.39:
- Create a Bleach Bypass Effect
- Export Photos via DLNA
- Process Film Negatives
- Calibrate and Profile Monitor for Use with digiKam
- Use Photoshop Curve Presets with digiKam
- Import Photos from a Remote Server into digiKam
digiKam Recipes in FBReader for Android
As usual, the new release features minor fixes and improvements. Readers who already purchased the book will receive the new version free of charge. If you haven’t received your copy, please send your order confirmation as proof of purchase to dmpop@linux.com, and I’ll email you the latest version of the book.
Happy reading!
digiKam Recipes on Gumroad
Good news for those of you who consider buying the digiKam Recipes ebook, but for some reason can’t use the PayPal or Amazon options. The ebook is now available for purchase through Gumroad in both EPUB and MOBI formats.
digiKam Recipes on Gumroad
Using Gumroad, you can purchase the book using a regular credit card. So if you don’t have a PayPal account and you don’t use Amazon Kindle devices, this option is for you. Read more about the digiKam Recipes ebook.
digiKam Recipes 3.9.51 Released
A new version of the digiKam Recipes ebook is available for your reading pleasure. Besides a few minor tweaks, the new version of the digiKam Recipes ebook includes the following new material:
- Use Photoshop Curve Presets with digiKam
- Import Photos from a Remote Server into digiKam
digiKam Recipes in FBReader for Android
Readers who already purchased the book will receive the new version free of charge. If you haven’t received your copy, please send your order confirmation as proof of purchase to dmpop@linux.com, and I’ll email you the latest version of the book.
Happy reading!
digiKam Recipes 3.9.39 Released
A new version of the digiKam Recipes ebook is available for your perusal. Besides the usual round of tweaks and fixes, the new version of the digiKam Recipes ebook includes the following new material:
- Geotag Photos with Android Camera and digiKam
- Stitch Panoramas in digiKam
digiKam Recipes in FBReader for Android
Readers who already purchased the book will receive the new version free of charge. If you haven’t received your copy, please send your order confirmation as proof of purchase to dmpop@linux.com, and I’ll email you the latest version of the book.
Happy reading!
digiKam Housekeeping with the Maintenance Tool
Starting with version 2.6, digiKam features the Tools → Maintenance menu which gives you access to tools designed to perform a variety of housekeeping tasks: from scanning for new photos to running a face recognition action. Here is a brief overview of the available tools.
Maintenance dialog
Scan for new items This command scans the collections for newly added photos. By default, digiKam does that automatically on every start. But if you’ve disabled this feature to speed up digiKam, you can use the Scan for new items tool to add new photos manually.
Rebuild thumbnails If, for some reason, thumbnails in albums are missing or broken, you can use this tool to fix them. To speed up this action, enable the Scan for changed or non-cataloged items option. This will ignore photos which have already been processed and catalogued.
Rebuild fingerprints digiKam uses fingerprints for certain search actions, and this tool allows you to generate or rebuild fingerprints. Enable the Scan for changed or non-cataloged items option to skip the already processed and cataloged photos.
Find Duplicate Items Need to find duplicate photos? This command can help you with that. Note that this action uses fingerprints, so you might need to run the Rebuild Fingerprints action prior to using this tool.
Sync image metadata with Database When digiKam adds new photos, it automatically reads metadata from each photo and writes them into its database. The Sync image metadata with Database tool does the opposite: it reads metadata from the database and writes them into photos or into so-called XML sidecar files. This feature can come in handy in many situations. You can use it, for example, to back up metadata from the database to XML sidecar files.
Face Detection This tool finds photos containing faces and attempts to recognize person or persons in each photo. (see the Face Recognition article for more info.)
Export Photos to Wikimedia Commons with digiKam
Sharing is caring, and there is probably no better way to share your photographic masterpieces with the world than adding them to the Wikimedia Commons pool. While the project’s website features its own tool for uploading photos, digiKam’s Wikimedia Export Kipi plugin can come in rather handy when you need to export multiple photos in one fell swoop without leaving the convenience of your favorite photo management application.
Using the Wikimedia Commons Kipi plugin
The plugin can be evoked by choosing the Tools → Export to Wikimedia Commons command. If you don’t see the command in the menu, then you are either using an older version of digiKam (the plugin has been introduced in version 2.6) or the plugin has not been enabled. In the latter case, you can activate the plugin by choosing Settings → Configure digiKam. Switch then to the Kipi Plugins section and enable the Wikimedia Export plugin. Before you start using the plugin, you should also create an account with Wikimedia Commons.
Using the plugin to upload photos to Wikimedia Commons couldn’t be easier. Select one or several photos in a digiKam album and choose Tools → Export to Wikimedia Commons. This opens the export dialog window. In the Wiki field, type the URL of Wikimedia Commons API (http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/api.php). Enter then your user name and password in the appropriate fields and press Log In. In the Information section, specify the author’s name and choose a license. If you want to resize photos before uploading them to Wikimedia Commons, check the Resize photos before uploading check box, and adjust the quality and size settings. Hit the Start Upload button, and the plugin takes care of the rest.
digiKam Recipes 3.9.35 Released
A new version of the digiKam Recipes ebook is available for your reading pleasure. Besides a handful of minor tweaks, the new version of the digiKam Recipes ebook includes the following new material:
- Export Photos to Wikimedia Commons
- digiKam Housekeeping with the Maintenance Tool
digiKam Recipes in FBReader for Android
Readers who already purchased the book will receive the new version free of charge. If you haven’t received your copy, please send your order confirmation as proof of purchase to dmpop@linux.com, and I’ll email you the latest version of the book.
Happy reading!
Soft Proofing in digiKam
Soft proofing is a technique which allows you to see what the photo will look like when printed using a specific printer and photo media (paper, canvas, etc.) without actually printing the photo. Many professional photo processing applications support soft proofing, and digiKam is no exception.
To make this feature work in digiKam, you need to specify color profiles for your display and the output device (e.g., printer). But before you do that, you need to obtain the ICC color profile for your specific printer and print media. Say, you are using an Epson 9880 printer to print photos on the IJMF professional glossy photo paper from Diamond Jet. Grab the appropriate ICC profile from the company’s Resources page. Create the ~/icc directory and move the obtained .icc file into it. In digiKam, choose Settings → Configure digiKam, switch to the Color Management section, and click on the Profiles tab. Select the desired color profile from the Monitor Profile drop-down list (the default sRGB IEC61966-2.1 color profile is a good choice in most cases). Next, in the Color Profiles Repository section, specify the path to the ~/icc directory. Press OK to save the changes and close the dialog window, then restart digiKam.
To enable soft proofing, open the photo you want for editing and choose View → Soft Proofing Options. Select the downloaded .icc color profile from the Profile of the output device to simulate drop-down list, then select the desired item from the Rendering intent drop-down list. This should generally be Relative Colorimetric, but if your printer supports only a limited gamut you may want to try the Perceptual rendering intent instead. Enable then the Highlight the out-of-gamut colors option and select the highlighting color you want. Finally, enable soft proofing by pressing the Soft Proofing On button, and you should see the photo exactly as it would appear in print.
Simulate a Faded Effect in digiKam
Sometimes the best way to spice up a photo is to make it look faded, and digiKam makes it supremely easy to achieve this effect.
Open the photo for editing and choose Color → White Balance. Adjust exposure compensation to slightly overexpose the photo and set the color temperature to 12000 to add a strong golden tint to the photo. Press OK to apply the modifications. Choose then Color → Hues/Saturation/Lightness and set Saturation to -50. Press OK, and you are done. The described technique works particularly well with skin tones, so it’s suitable for use with portrait photos.
Simple Toning in digiKam
Adding a dash of color tint to a black and white photo can often produce a dramatic effect, and digiKam does have a handful of toning filters for you to try.
But you are not limited to the built-in filters: using digiKam’s editing tools, you can easily tint photos using whatever color you like. To do this, open a photo for editing, choose Color → Hue/Saturation/Lightness and set Saturation to -100. This effectively turns the image into a black and white photo. Press OK to save the changes, then choose Color → Color Balance. Usen then the sliders to create the toning color you want. Press OK, and you are done.
