[Discuss] Last Night's VLUG Meeting

[Murray Strome]

John Blomfield wrote:
> Thanks very much Murray. I shall try them all and see which one is 
> likely to suit my wife's needs.
>
> John
>
>
> Murray Strome wrote:
>> John Blomfield wrote:
>>> Incidentally, my wife currently uses HP photo software (free with 
>>> the Printer) for managing the printing on her HP Photosmart 8450 
>>> printer, which allows full control over, number of photos per page, 
>>> layout etc plus photo album, viewing and editing features.  I 
>>> personally am not much interested in photography so have been unable 
>>> to come up with a compatible Linux alternative - can anyone 
>>> recommend some suitable Linux programs to do this sort of thing?  
>>> How about the hplip driver?
>>>
>>> John
>> I don't know much about the HP Photo Software, so I am not sure of 
>> all of its capabilities. I have been "playing with" a number of LINUX 
>> based photo organization tools.  I am planning (some day) to try to 
>> write a review on them, but haven't gotten around to it yet.  Here 
>> are the ones I have looked at so far:
>>
>> Picasa2  (also available for Windows) http://picasa.google.com/linux/
>>                         This uses Wine and Firefox
>> JAlbum    (also available for Windows, Mac, AIX, Solaris, HP-UX, etc.)
>>                  http://jalbum.net/software/download/current/all-systems
>> DigiKam   KDE based photo organizer        http://www.digikam.org/
>> KPhotoAlbum  KDE based photo organizer  http://www.kphotoalbum.org/
>> F-Spot    Gnome based photo organizer        http://f-spot.org/
Update: 
If it works out, I plan to make a presentation reviewing all of the 
above at the May VLUG meeting. 

I am now quite a long way ahead of the game in preparing for this.  From 
what I have seen so far, I would only consider JAlbum for producing web 
based photo albums (it is really slick for that), as it has no editing 
capabilities and you should have all your photos corrected and well 
organized in the correct layout (i.e. directories, sub-directories), 
converted to JPEG (if they are not already that format),  and arranged 
how you want them (i.e. by subject, date, or whatever) before you start 
JAlbum.

Picasa2 is probably has the easiest interface and has the simplest, most 
intuitive image correction of all the packages. It arranges things by 
date, so if you are happy with this, it is a good choice. It also 
handles most image formats, including RAW. It is great for sharing 
photos on Google's Picasa Website. It works a lot like the Mac IPhoto 
system. It is a great, simple compromise.  I sometimes use it just to do 
some of the simpler corrections (e.g. red-eye removal, colour 
temperature correction and other image enhancements/corrections) which, 
if they work, are a lot easier to use than, for example, the GIMP (which 
is my "workhorse" for image correction/manipulation). Sometimes they are 
not adequate, though.

All the others have more flexible methods of organization, handle a wide 
range of image formats (including RAW), and have more powerful 
correction capabilities built in.

In the Ubuntu 7.10 W2L edition Live DVD, which is Gnome based, all of 
the above programs (except JAlbum) are  included and work fine with the 
Live DVD.  I had to use it to test F-Spot as I could not get it to work 
on my Kubuntu, KDE based system. To test out F-Spot, I put the photos on 
a USB Drive, making sure that I used less than half the space 
available.  I then created the Album on the same drive so I would not 
lose anything when I shut down the computer.  This is probably an easy 
way for you to test things out without having to bother with any 
installation.

I think all of the packages can readily import photos from most digital 
cameras, though I have not personally tested this very thoroughly.

I hope this is helpful for you, and possibly others who might be interested.

Murray