DAM on Linux - derived from: Delimited Keywords

[clifford]

does anyone recommend any DAM programs for linux?

i've been using aftershot as my DAM but after reading this thread im now under the impression its not so great? however, the programs you where using seem to be windows only? anything for linux?

while im at it, ive been using aftershots xmp format, example, 1234.NEF.xmp, do you guys recommend this or standard format. any clarification would help.

cheers

[afx]

does anyone recommend any DAM programs for linux?

Unfortunately they all suck compared to what is available on Windows.
The best functionality still seems to be in DigiKam.

while im at it, ive been using aftershots xmp format, example, 1234.NEF.xmp, do you guys recommend this or standard format. any clarification would help.

What happens when you have a NEF and a JPG in the same directory?
On the other hand, the brain dead image.xmp style offers better interoperability.

cheers
afx

[clifford]

thanks i'll take a look at digikam. to be honest ive had not too many problems using aftershot as my DAM, however considering its future seems to be on shakey grounds these days i dont want to put all my eggs into one basket so to speak, cliché cliché

i dont put jpegs into the same folder as my raws, although i see your point and will stick with the format im using.

[clifford]

does shotwell have any use as a DAM from anyones experience?

[hannes_hab]

I use ASP in catalog mode - make rating, IPTC editing, keywords, GPS data within ASP - I use the catalog also for simple searches ...
I send final edited pictures to a special folder which is watched by bibble 5 (since ASP has no watched folders so far to move and reimport pictures)
The finished pictures under tree /mnt/NASxx/PHOTO_FIN are managed by PHOTOZORA (available for WIN and linux) which has watched folders to autoimport the finished .jpg (but it also supports raw, tif, png ...)

two (more) free tools for linux:

MAPIVI and PHOTOZORA

http://mapivi.sourceforge.net/mapivi.shtml
newest version:
http://mapivi.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/mapivi/


http://www.photozora.de/
http://www.photozora.de/html/neuigkeiten.html

Within Photoozora you have the ability for more complex searches and editing than in ASP/bibble.
I think Photozora has some nice features and its easy to use - I tried imatch - rich real DAM features but too complicated for me (had not much time to try it - as I really like it better to work on linux ), I tried idimager too - easier to use, but slow.

Photozora
No profession DAM, maybe not perfect, but I like it.
Try photozora, maybe it fits to your needs.

[grubernd]

i took the liberty to split this thread, because i consider it a very useful one.

my current approach is to use ASP as my converter, do monster-bulk-edits in catalog mode if necessary.
then output JPGs to a special folder and use Google Picasa as a search engine on that.
since my usual workflow rarely has me visiting old projects other than for specific searches or nostalgic reasons this works very well.

also it allows me to use any old converter (e.g B4 for my Fuji S2 files) and not bother about it.

the output/search JPGs are NEVER changed by picasa.

[Pixel]

does shotwell have any use as a DAM from anyones experience?

I didn't try it very long, but it doesn't have some basic features I need.

If you intend to manage your raw files with it, there are too many bugs (developers say so), one of the most annoying being that it adds a "photo_embedded.jpg" (or "photo_shotwell.jpg") for each "photo.raw" (http://redmine.yorba.org/issues/4261). If you then browse a folder with ASP (or another viewer, like geeqie), you will see this jpg that you (probably) don't want...

If you just want to manage your jpgs, maybe it's okay, but you will need to have two different folders for jpg and raw (otherwise you will have to deal with the aforementioned problem). There is indeed no option to avoid diplaying/managing raw files (like PIcasa does for example).
Since my pictures are organized as follows, it doesn't work for me (and I didn't try it a lot more I must admit):

Photos
- YYYY
- - YYYY-MM-DD Event => jpg are here
- - - cr2 => raw files are here (folder is created with the extension name on import)

[Pixel]

Maybe my folder organization is not optimal, but what I like is I can set ASP to export to the parent folder with "..", so I don't have to choose the export folder manually each time. I don't think I could do so (=automatically) with an organization like :

Photos
- raw
- - YYYY
- - - YYYY-MM-DD Event => raw files in this folder
- jpg
- - YYYY
- - - YYYY-MM-DD Event => jpg files in this folder

But if it is in fact possible, I would gladly learn how!

[grubernd]

try these settings in your output batch:

Code: Select all

Destination: fixed: /media/..whatever../jpg
output name: [vname][ext]
save in subfolder: [opath-2][opath-1]

btw, for my JPG folder i use

Code: Select all

[vname][oext][ext]

to be able to have different source files with the same name there (e.g. incamera JPGs, edited TIFs, etc)
file.NEF.jpg
file.TIF.jpg
file.JPG.jpg

and that batchQ is the only one set to overwrite existing files, that way i dont accumulate dead old files in there. in fact, every now and then i just let aftershot burn the midnight oil and rebuild all those jpgs. or at least parts of it without worrying about the details.

[clifford]

so let's talk about work flow and aftershot as I think this is related to the topic and will help me understand a few things.

I take photos and then use rapid photo downloaderon Ubuntu to import rename and organise my raw files into the folder structure I want.

I then import these folders into aftershot catalogues. I catalogue by year so 2011, 2012 etc. I then keyword the imported folders.

when I want to search for images its then easy to do using keywords and colour labels, camera info etc using the refine button.

my question therefore is what advantages does an external DAM program bring to the process and what is ASP lacking?

cheers

[grubernd]

i just tried to give Zora a testrun.. not so sure if i want to let a software touch my archive where the installer is already so crappy that it wants to make me puke. sorry for the harsh words, but this is 2012 and i expect an installer of a purely graphical software to be at least half-decent. entering "1" then "Enter" to confirm an option is not enough. suggesting the download location of the installer as default install point neither. not checking on root capabilities to be able to install until the end and then just fail.. ouch.
another notch in the "java attracts really badly designed software" wood.
sometimes having prejudices is just an accumulation of bad experiences.
for me.. java is 99.9% bad experiences. zora is now part of that percentage.

(sent a copy of this rant to the zora devs)

[afx]

I take photos and then use rapid photo downloaderon Ubuntu to import rename and organise my raw files into the folder structure I want.

I then import these folders into aftershot catalogues. I catalogue by year so 2011, 2012 etc.

Why an extra downloader? You can do this all in one step with a download queue that copies to the appropriate directories and then imports into the catalog.

when I want to search for images its then easy to do using keywords and colour labels, camera info etc using the refine button.

For simple queries on small databases yes. But there is no truly boolean search (NOT is missing) which makes things often harder than needed. And the silly lists are not really fast to set up compared to a query expression.
I can type "city=munich and format=nef and year=2012" much faster than waiting for the metadata browser to even just show me the keywords.

A decent DAM also would support saved queries, virtual collections/folders and of course scripting for more elaborate tasks and interfaces to external tools so that I could not only automate uploads to image hosters but also to query them to see which images of mine are currently online and where I have the master copies locally.

cheers
afx

[afx]

i just tried to give Zora a testrun..

me too.
Yuck, what a waste.
It can't even import the subset of images that I have on my work laptop.
It pops up an error and wants to terminate.
There is no refresh of the DB.
And I absolutely hate childish software that thinks audio errors are cute.

cheers
afx

[clifford]

Why an extra downloader? You can do this all in one step with a download queue that copies to the appropriate directories and then imports into the catalog.

i started doing this after aftershot imported over a previous days shoot and i lost half of my images from that day. i used to import straight from my cf card in aftershot as you describe but after that fatal error i stopped. i think you recommended that i didnt use aftershot for taking the photos from my cf card. plus i think rapid-photo-downloader is great for what it does.

also i dont always import all my folders into aftershot.

For simple queries on small databases yes. But there is no truly boolean search (NOT is missing) which makes things often harder than needed. And the silly lists are not really fast to set up compared to a query expression.
I can type "city=munich and format=nef and year=2012" much faster than waiting for the metadata browser to even just show me the keywords.

A decent DAM also would support saved queries, virtual collections/folders and of course scripting for more elaborate tasks and interfaces to external tools so that I could not only automate uploads to image hosters but also to query them to see which images of mine are currently online and where I have the master copies locally.

thanks for clearing this up for me, though can i ask what is your workflow in terms of from camera to aftershot pro? do you bother with catalogues at all if you use an external DAM? can you import only certain queries from your DAM into ASP? although i guess its irrelevant as there are no decent DAM for linux, im still curious how you eliminate repetition of similar steps using external DAM and aftershot?

cheers

[afx]

thanks for clearing this up for me, though can i ask what is your workflow in terms of from camera to aftershot pro? do you bother with catalogues at all if you use an external DAM? can you import only certain queries from your DAM into ASP? although i guess its irrelevant as there are no decent DAM for linux, im still curious how you eliminate repetition of similar steps using external DAM and aftershot?

At the moment, AS is a bit slowish for the DAM tasks I have, but I only have a few tasks so AS is sufficient.
I used to work quite a bit with iMatch. I still sync the metadata into it occasionally, which gotten much easier now that B5/AS started to support Adobe XMPs (in Bibble 4 times I used a dedicated sync script).
For extensive metadata operations I can use iMatch and then sync back into AS, but basic entry happens in AS and is then synced into iMatch.
In iMatch I have scripts that construct work queues that can be loaded into AS when I want to work on a selection of images that I prepared in iMatch.
So there is no repetition, only syncing involved.

cheers
afx