Posts Tagged ‘digikamtricks’
Batch Process Photos in digiKam
When you need to apply the same action to multiple photos, digiKam’s batch processing capabilities can come in rather handy. And the photo management application provides different ways to apply actions to a photo batch in one fell swoop.
For starters, you can perform certain actions on all photos in a specific album. To do this, right-click on the desired album, and choose the action you want from the Batch Process context menu. The actions available in the menu include Image Effects, Recompress Images, Resize Images, DNG Converter (lets you convert RAW files into the DNG format), and Batch RAW Converter (allows you to process the RAW files using the Batch RAW Converter tool).
For more serious batch processing, you should use the dedicated Batch Queue Manager tool. Using it, you can set up rather advanced processing profiles and manage multiple queues. To add selected photos to the Batch Queue Manager, choose either Image » Add to Current Queue (alternatively, use the Ctrl+B keyboard shortcut) or Image » Add to New Queue (or press Ctrl+Shift+B). This opens the Batch Queue Manager and adds the selected photos to an existing or new queue. To specify the actions you want to perform on the photos in the queue, pick the desired tools from the Base Tools section, and specify the settings for each tool in the Tool Settings pane. The File Renaming section in the Queue Settings pane lets you specify a renaming rule to apply to the modified photos. This can help you to differentiate between the processed photos and their originals.
digiKam Tricks 2.0 Released
The digiKam Tricks book version 2.0 is now available. Here is what’s new in this release:
- New book cover
- Convert Photos to Black and White
- Geotag Photos with Open GPS Tracker and digiKam
- Instant Vintage Photo Effects with the FIL Script for GIMP
- Work with Photo Metadata in digiKam
- New figures added
- Numerous tweaks and fixes
- Touch up Photos with GIMP Scripts removed
- Geotag Photos with Geotag removed
Readers who already purchased the book will receive the new version free of charge. If you haven’t received your copy, please send me your order confirmation as proof of purchase to dmpop@linux.com and I’ll email you the latest version of the book.
Happy reading!
Work with Photo Metadata in digiKam
Inside each digital photo hides metadata in the EXIF, IPTC, or XMP formats, and digiKam provides tools for viewing and editing this useful information.
For starters, digiKam’s main window features the dedicated Metadata sidebar which lets you view EXIF, Makernote, IPTC, and XMP metadata. You can switch between concise and full views as well as print the metadata, save them as a file, and copy them into the clipboard.
You can use the Caption/Tags sidebar to edit basic metadata such as caption (i.e., the photo’s title), author, date and time as well as assign the photo ratings and tags. The Information section of the sidebar allows you to enter additional information about the photo such as licensing terms, location, and contact info. Since digiKam supports templates, you don’t have to enter this information manually. You can apply an existing template to the photo by selecting it from the Template drop-down list. To create a template on the fly, press the Edit button next to the drop-down list.
digiKam offers metadata editing tools, too. To edit, for example, EXIF metadata, choose Image » Metadata » Edit EXIF. The metadata editor conveniently organizes all metadata into sections, making it easier to find and edit specific entries. For example, to edit hardware-related information, switch to the Device section. Here you can modify device manufacturer, device model, exposure-related settings, and other information.
Using the Image » Metadata » Import EXIF command, you can copy EXIF metadata from one photo to another. This feature can come in handy when you use an image editing application that strips all metadata from the edited photo. If you keep the original photo, you can easily copy the EXIF metadata from it into the tweaked photo.
Want to strip all EXIF metadata off the photo? digiKam’s got you covered: choose the Image » Metadata » Remove EXIF command, and digiKam scrubs the metadata off the photo.
In addition to EXIF, digiKam supports the IPTC and XMP formats, so you can perform the described actions on metadata stored in these formats.
Convert Photos to Black and White with digiKam
If you fancy black and white photography, you’ll be pleased to learn that digiKam features a rather powerful tool for converting color photos to black and white. Turning the currently edited photo to black and white in digiKam is a matter of choosing Color » Black & White. But in most cases, the converted photo needs additional tweaking, and the application offers a few nifty tools to do just that.
The Film section provides a handful of filters that emulate different film types like Agfa Pan, Kodak Tmax, Kodak TriX, and Ilford SPX. These filters offer a quick and easy way to tweak the black and white photo. Which film filter works best depends on the currently edited photo, so you might want to try several filters to achieve the best result. Select the filter you like, and you can immediately see the result in the preview pane.
As the name suggests, the Lens Filters section contains several color filters, including orange, green, yellow, and red. While you can experiment by applying different filters to the photo, the easiest way to find out which filter is best suited for the specific photo is to use the context help. Press Shift+F1 and click on any filter to get a brief description of it. Once you’ve applied the desired filter, you can specify its intensity by using the Strength slider.
Besides the straight black and white conversion, digiKam lets you turn your photos into duotone images. And the Tone section offers several tone filters such as sepia, platinum, and green.
Finally, the Luminosity section lets you manually adjust the curve and the contrast. This feature can come in handy if you want to fix under- or overexposed areas and improve the overall contrast of the photo.
digiKam Tricks 1.7 Released
The digiKam Tricks book version 1.7 is now available at Amazon US and UK. Here is what’s new in this release:
- Using the Levels Adjustment Tool in digiKam
- Convert RAW Files to DNG with DNGConverter
- Sieve through Photos with the Light Table Tool
Readers who already purchased the book will receive the new version free of charge. If you haven’t received your copy, please send me your order confirmation as proof of purchase to dmpop@linux.com and I’ll email you the latest version of the book.
The book is also available in the EPUB format. Visit the digiKam Tricks book page for further details.
Happy reading!
Sieve through Photos with digiKam’s Light Table Tool
If you have a handful of storage cards in your photo bag, there is no need to worry about how many photos you can take before your digital camera runs out of memory. This means that you can easily take dozen of shots of the same subject trying different angles, composition, and lighting. But this also makes the task of picking the best photo from the batch a bit of a challenge. Fortunately, digiKam provides a simple yet efficient tool that can help you to compare and analyze multiple photos side by side and pick the one you like most. The name of this wonderful tool is Light Table, and you can evoke it by choosing Tools » Light Table from the main toolbar.
This opens an empty Light Table window, and you can add two or more photos by dragging them onto the thumbnail pane (called thumbbar in digiKam) of the window. Alternatively, you can select the photos in an album and use the Ctrl+L keyboard shortcut or the Image » Place onto Light Table command to add the selected photos to a new Light Table window. You can then add more photos to the current Light Table window by selecting them in an album and choosing the Image » Add to Light Table command or using the Ctrl+Shift+L keyboard shortcut.
Using Light Table is rather straightforward. If you have added only a pair of photos to the Light Table window, they will be displayed side by side, making it easier for you to examine and compare photos. Press the Synchronize button, and Light Table will keep both photos in sync. So when you zoom in and out or drag one photo, these actions are automatically applied to the other photo, too. You can reorder the photos in the Light Table window using the On left and On right buttons. And if you have more than two photos in the Light Table window, you can view them by pairs by clicking the By Pair button.
Convert RAW Files to DNG with DNGConverter
digiKam comes with a nifty batch utility that allows you to convert RAW files to the DNG format. The question is, of course, why you would want to do that. After all, digiKam can handle RAW files without any problem, so what’s the point of adding one more step to your photographic workflow?
As you might know, RAW is not a file format, but rather an umbrella term that describes multiple file formats controlled by multiple hardware manufacturers. The RAW formats themselves are specific to digital camera manufacturers. For example, Canon cameras store RAW files in the CR2 format, while Nikon cameras use the NEF format. Besides being proprietary, RAW formats are often poorly documented and encumbered by patents.
The Digital Negative (DNG) format introduced by Adobe Systems, Inc in 2004 is designed to overcome these shortcomings by providing an open, well-documented universal format for storing RAW files. If you would like to know more about the DNG format, the DNG articles and links Web site provides a wealth of valuable information on the topic.
Being an open and well-documented format, DNG is suited particularly well for long-term archiving of digital photos. Of course, the CR2 and NEF and other RAW formats are widely adopted and supported, so they are not going away anytime soon. But there is no reason why you shouldn’t save your RAW files in the DNG format to be on the safe side. After all, storage is cheap nowadays, and the DNGConverter utility makes it supremely easy to convert RAW files to the DNG format.
Using DNGConverter couldn’t be easier. Launch the utility, add the RAW files, specify a few options, and hit the Convert button. For complete peace of mind, you might want to enable the Embed Original File option which embeds the source RAW file into the resulting DNG file.
Use the Levels Adjustment Tool in digiKam
When it comes to tweaking photos, Levels is the most important weapon in digiKam’s arsenal. This tool lets you adjust brightness and contrast by specifying the location of complete black, complete white, and midtones in a histogram, which makes it a perfect tool for fixing under- and overexposed photos as well as improving the overall tonal range of a photo.
You can access the Levels tool in the image editor by choosing Color | Levels Adjust. Select Luminosity from the Channel drop-down list, and press the Linear button.
The key element in the Levels Adjust pane is the histogram with the black point and white point sliders. Simply put, the black point slider controls shadows, while the white point slider controls highlights. So to darken shadow areas in the photo, move the black point slider to the right. Need to boost highlights? Move the white point slider to the left.
Instead of using sliders, you can let digiKam adjust levels automatically by pressing the Auto button. Using this feature is often hit and miss, but you can easily revert all changes using the Defaults button.
Three color pickers next to the Auto button provide yet another way to tweak levels. To adjust shadows, press the the appropriate color picker button and click on an area in the photos that should be black. In a similar manner, you can adjust midtones and highlight using the appropriate color pickers.
Adjusting levels in the Luminosity channel can help to increase contrast without affecting color saturation. To change the color balance, you can adjust levels in the Red, Green, and Blue channels (select the appropriate channel in the Channel drop-down list). This can be useful for boosting colors and fixing photos which suffer from unnatural color casts.
5 Splash Screens to Spice up digiKam
Every new version of digiKam features its own unique splash screen. But you don’t have to wait for the next digiKam release to get a new splash screen. Here are a few ready-to-go designs created by yours truly. To learn how to replace the default splash screen in digiKam, take a look at the Replace digiKam’s Default Splash Screen article.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Publish Photos on a WordPress Blog from digiKam
While digiKam doesn’t allow you to publish photos directly to a WordPress blog, you can work around this limitation. Enable the Post by Email feature on your WordPress blog, and you can use the SendImages Kipi plugin in digiKam to email photos directly to your blog.
To make this workaround work, you have to prepare your WordPress blog first. If you host your blog on WordPress.com, navigate to Dashboard | My Blogs and press the Enable button to activate the Post by Email feature. This will automatically generate a unique email address where you send your photos.
digiKam relies on an external email client to send photos, so before you proceed, make sure that you have a supported email program installed and configured on your machine. digiKam supports a wide range of email clients, including Thunderbird, Evolution, KMail, and Claws-Mail.
To send photos, switch to digiKam, select one or several photos, and choose Image | Email Images. In the Email Images Options window, switch to the Mail section and select the appropriate email client from the Mail program drop-down list. If you want to reduce the size and image quality of the selected photos before you send them, tick the Adjust image properties check box and adjust image settings. Hit the OK button, and digiKam automatically creates a new email with an attachment containing the photos using the specified email client. Add the subject and body (read more on how to format your email message for blog posting at http://en.support.wordpress.com/post-by-email/), then send the email to the unique WordPress address. Visit your blog, and you should see a new blog post with all the photos.
digiKam user? Read the digiKam Tricks book!
