DigiKam

[capt-zero]

This is a rah-rah post more than anything else. I tried, for the first time, to download my photos into Kubuntu 12.04. I became very frustrated. First I assumed that Kubuntu would recognise my camera, as I have a USB hookup and I figured all I had to do was plug it in, turn it on and gwenview would do the rest. No luck. Then I wanted to download Picasa for Linux, as I was used to it from Windows and I knew it would work, only to find that Google no longer supported it. Drat! Okay, what do I do. I went to my favorite how-to site, http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Kubuntuguide a users guide for Precise. I was shown how to make Dolphin recognise my camera. Okay, part of the job done. Only one problem, in order to do it that way, I have to copy the photo files twice (renaming once to prevent overwrites) in order to have the photos where I want them, namely in my photos folder. Like the dummy I am I had failed to read all of the Precise documentation before charging ahead with my fiddling. Once I had read all of the article, it suggested using DigiKam for basic organising, editing and viewing photos. So I decided to try that. I went to my launcher and found a DigiKam configuration tool and started it. Oh no, my camera wasn't listed in the menu, and DigiKam wouldn't recognise it. I went back to the website and they posted CLI instructions to install DigiKam with all of it's plugins: "sudo apt-get install digikam kipi-plugins digikam-doc". Abra-kadabra, presto-changeo everything worked like a charm. DigiKam makes Picasa look like a childs toy. I'm so glad I went to the effort. Once again, I'm amazed at the resources available through open source. If you are new to Linux and reading this, you may be thinking, "What a pain to go through", but the first time I tried to set this up in Windows; I spent several days before I had a basic tool I could use. I spent roughly an hour on this. I could have spent half that time if I could be bothered with reading all the instructions before trampling willy-nilly into it.

capt-zero

[wfischer]

As a semi-professional photographer who takes hundreds of photos per event, I think DigiKam is the best thing since sliced bread. I don't know what I would do without it!

[GreyGeek]

For a long time DigiKam recognized my Kodak DX7630. Then it stopped doing so.

Rather than fight with it I pulled the SD card and stuck it into the SD slot on my Acer 7739 and up popped the files in Dolphin. I dragged and dropped them into the appropriate ~/Pictures sub directory. When Digikam started up it re-indexed the directory. Turned out to be just as easy as using DigiKam's import feature.

[james147]

For a long time DigiKam recognized my Kodak DX7630. Then it stopped doing so.

Rather than fight with it I pulled the SD card and stuck it into the SD slot on my Acer 7739 and up popped the files in Dolphin. I dragged and dropped them into the appropriate ~/Pictures sub directory. When Digikam started up it re-indexed the directory. Turned out to be just as easy as using DigiKam's import feature.

I tend to do this as well, except I import them directly from the sd card into digikam.

[perspectoff]

Yeah, I use the Dolphin camera:/ trick for most of my cameras.

However, in the checkout line of my local bagel shoppe / software outlet (Big Lots) was an SDcard to USB adapter for about $4 (less, if I used my foodstamps).

If the camera isn't recognised immediately for some reason when I plug it in, it's easier to just use the adapter and put the SDcard into it directly. Besides, I have lots of other devices with SD cards, too -- MP3 players, video cameras, ebook readers, Wii gaming console, tablets, cell phones, etc.

Rather than fiddle with all of them, that little $4 adapter sure comes in handy... then photo imports can go directly through Dolphin or DigiKam.