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DAM: Anyone Use digiKam for Asset Management?
- Thread starter Night Pixel
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Dave Symington
Active member
Yes. After years of using Lightroom and then Lightroom Classic, I've moved to Digikam for my DAM. I find I can do in DigiKam everything I used the LR DAM features for.
bastibe
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I do, but only minimally so. I use it for importing mostly, and automated sorting into directories. And I use it for browsing my exported images. But really, I rarely use it for more than sorting by date, and filtering by stars.
Been using it for a couple of years, after trying several other "solutions". I don't know why it doesn't get more love on the various forums, as it's a solid mature DAM with great features and the price is really right.
It's generally very good, but definitely has that "open source" vibe — i.e., things aren't always as polished or intuitive as commercial software tends to be. Also some terminology may not always be consistent with what you're used to.
It does work well, though. It's fairly fast, and does an excellent job of catching when files are updated. It's extremely configurable, which for some people may be a downside — there's a lot going on, and a lot you can customize, enough to be occasionally overwhelming.
The captioning/metadata features are extensive, although its handling of hierarchical keywords is a little funky.
Caveat: I've never used any of the built-in editing features; I use it strictly as a DAM and call up outside editors (DxO, Affinity Photo) as needed. I've also never used the facial recognition features, which they've spent a lot of time on over the last several releases.
My biggest gripe is that it doesn't read the embedded JPEG in Affinity Photo files, so it just shows a generic blank icon. Since I keep the raw and a TIFF of each image (I don't do JPEG except for rare occasions), and it reads those, it's really not a problem. It's more annoying than anything.
One tip: be sure to install Exiftool (Preferences > Metadata > Exif Tool). It's not included (you have to download it, but there's a button in the app to do so) and it's really necessary to read that information efficiently. If you don't, when you click the "metadata" tab the app will churn for 2-3 MINUTES before returning anything. Also, even with Exiftool installed, don't have a group or stack of photos selected when you hit "metadata" tab; the same thing will happen. It's lightning fast with single images, though.
It's generally very good, but definitely has that "open source" vibe — i.e., things aren't always as polished or intuitive as commercial software tends to be. Also some terminology may not always be consistent with what you're used to.
It does work well, though. It's fairly fast, and does an excellent job of catching when files are updated. It's extremely configurable, which for some people may be a downside — there's a lot going on, and a lot you can customize, enough to be occasionally overwhelming.
The captioning/metadata features are extensive, although its handling of hierarchical keywords is a little funky.
Caveat: I've never used any of the built-in editing features; I use it strictly as a DAM and call up outside editors (DxO, Affinity Photo) as needed. I've also never used the facial recognition features, which they've spent a lot of time on over the last several releases.
My biggest gripe is that it doesn't read the embedded JPEG in Affinity Photo files, so it just shows a generic blank icon. Since I keep the raw and a TIFF of each image (I don't do JPEG except for rare occasions), and it reads those, it's really not a problem. It's more annoying than anything.
One tip: be sure to install Exiftool (Preferences > Metadata > Exif Tool). It's not included (you have to download it, but there's a button in the app to do so) and it's really necessary to read that information efficiently. If you don't, when you click the "metadata" tab the app will churn for 2-3 MINUTES before returning anything. Also, even with Exiftool installed, don't have a group or stack of photos selected when you hit "metadata" tab; the same thing will happen. It's lightning fast with single images, though.
Glen Barrington
Forum Pro
So, I downloaded it (from the project page) to test it out. In addition to DigiKam another program called "ShowFoto" was also loaded. It's an odd little program that seems to duplicate some of the DigiKam functionality in a 'bare bones' manner.
Who uses it? What's it for? And how do you incorporate it into the DigiKam workflow. Or do you?
Life is an ongoing learning process. You can stop once you are dead.
glenbarrington.blogspot.com
Who uses it? What's it for? And how do you incorporate it into the DigiKam workflow. Or do you?
--digiKam
The developer says "digiKam is an advanced open-source digital photo management application that runs on Linux, Windows, and macOS. The application provides a comprehensive set of tools for importing, managing, editing, and sharing photos and raw files."
Life is an ongoing learning process. You can stop once you are dead.
Glen Barrington - My Dynamic Range
A personal blog about Photo Editing, m43s photography, and shooting techniques.
glenbarrington.blogspot.com
Glen Barrington
Forum Pro
Such as Affinity Photo? I see an Open with default software, but it seems to be set up to default to ACDSee with no way to change it.
H
Henry Richardson
Guest
How do you "call up" outside editors? Is there a way from within digikam to send a photo to an outside editor? Can you explain how to do it?
newmikey
Veteran Member
It is my goto tool for managing huge photo collections on network shares, removable (USB) drives and internal harddrives. It makes searching and tagging incredibly easy.
As an example, someone plucked an (thumbnail) image I once made off a website and asked if I could still find the original for republishing. I downloaded the thumbnail and using "similar search" I found the original on a 4Tb backup drive with many tens of thousands of images literally in seconds.
I also love the quick image fixes the built-in editor (Showphoto) provides and I make extensive use of the image merge plugin which uses Hugin's alignment tool and pipes its output to Enfuse for an extended dynamic range endresult.
I have to admit, when I started using it, it was still a bit clunky but upgrades have been 3F: fast, furious and of course totally free!
The only thing I do not use is the raw conversion part of Digikam which uses libraw and seems still a bit underdeveloped. I use the powerhouse Darktable for that.
But Digikam is the Grand Central Station of my entire workflow and has been for, well almost forever.
--
https://eu-web.online/photographics
As an example, someone plucked an (thumbnail) image I once made off a website and asked if I could still find the original for republishing. I downloaded the thumbnail and using "similar search" I found the original on a 4Tb backup drive with many tens of thousands of images literally in seconds.
I also love the quick image fixes the built-in editor (Showphoto) provides and I make extensive use of the image merge plugin which uses Hugin's alignment tool and pipes its output to Enfuse for an extended dynamic range endresult.
I have to admit, when I started using it, it was still a bit clunky but upgrades have been 3F: fast, furious and of course totally free!
The only thing I do not use is the raw conversion part of Digikam which uses libraw and seems still a bit underdeveloped. I use the powerhouse Darktable for that.
But Digikam is the Grand Central Station of my entire workflow and has been for, well almost forever.
--
https://eu-web.online/photographics
Last edited:
Dave Symington
Active member
Just right-click on an image then choose Open with… from the menu. It should list all your installed editors. It took me a while to find that too.
Default editor is what you select in the OS ( Windows, Mac ) and if I remember right with the key press CTRL - F4 together. At least on a Windows machine you should see different options when selcteing open With...
Night Pixel
Senior Member
Thanks for the input. I never heard of this app until running across it a few days ago. It seems very powerful, and as a free open source program, I wonder why more folks who are outside the Adobe world do not mention it.
bastibe
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newmikey
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Glen Barrington
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Doesn't Darktable use libraw? I'd be interested in some comparative photos if you (or someone else) have any.
newmikey
Veteran Member
It does, but with a much better interface and many more options for image editing after demosaicing. The GUI interface to libraw in Digikam is pretty basic IMHO and still fairly clunky. I get faster and more predictable and flexible results in DT. Digikam can be handy in a pinch but the full power of DT suits me better.
But you can choose how to deal with raws in Digikam - I have mine set to open in DT:
If you choose the built-in libraw interface, you get this:
--
The strength of DIgikam is the asset management. ( Face recognition, keywords, etc. etc. ) There is no problem using digikam as a database for your photos and use another program for RAW development.It does, but with a much better interface and many more options for image editing after demosaicing. The GUI interface to libraw in Digikam is pretty basic IMHO and still fairly clunky. I get faster and more predictable and flexible results in DT. Digikam can be handy in a pinch but the full power of DT suits me better.
But you can choose how to deal with raws in Digikam - I have mine set to open in DT:
If you choose the built-in libraw interface, you get this:
--
Torstein
When I compiled Darktable to add camera support for the Fujifilm X-T200, it did not use libraw. It used rawspeed.
Since that time, Darktable added support for Canon CR3, but only by incorporating libraw. I'm not certain but strongly suspect rawspeed is used for everything else.
DigiKam sure looks nice in the screenshots at top of thread!
Last edited:
Night Pixel
Senior Member
Thanks, works as expected.
Kameratrollet
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