[Bug 121310] Allow to have a group of pictures

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=121310


DGardner <[hidden email]> changed:

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--- Comment #11 from DGardner <dkde gardnersworld org>  2009-05-12 19:16:26 ---
I would kill (metaphorically) for this kind of feature. I'm mostly just
repeating what is above, but I hope it shows that groups would be a big
benefit for a typical workflow and provides some use cases for designing
a solution.

I usually shoot RAW+JPEG because most of the time the JPEG is good enough
and I don't have to spend time doing a separate raw conversion. However,
I end up with twice the number of photos (one "x.cr2" for every "x.jpg")
and have to tag them all separately (I don't believe in "albums", I use
saved searches for that kind of thing, so I tag everything in detail and
have one album folder per month).

I rename all the files and have a naming convention for edits. For example,
"IMG_1234.cr2" might become "20090512-dg40d-1234-00.cr2" (where "00" is the
revision number of the original file). The JPEG will have the same name.
I might then do some editing and have "...-01.jpg" or "...-02-7x5.jpg" or
the like. These are all just alternative versions of the same image and
will be derived from the original CR2 or JPEG file. Sometimes there could
be half a dozen versions cropped for different aspect ratios for printing
or display as wallpaper, etc. However, all will have the same base name
"20090512-dg40d-1234". That would be the name I'd use for the group if
I could have a group. I'd probably pick the best edit for viewing on the
screen as the default image for the group.

As well as having lots of edits of one image, I often have lots of
alternative shots of the same subject. More than 50 is not unusual for
portraits (close-ups, head and shoulders, full body, etc.) and I usually
only want to see a few of these when browsing the thumbnails. At present,
I try to do this with filters based on star ratings, but I haven't got
around to rating everything yet, so it doesn't work very well and I can't
always decide which of the bunch I like the best and which one I'd prefer
on screen versus in print. I would not put them all in the same group. I
would have different groups, splitting up close-ups, full-body, etc. The
default image for the group might change over time as I decide which
images I prefer.

So, I have lots of copies of the same image and lots of similar images
and would like to group them. I'd really like two levels of groups. I
could see the default image for a group on the main thumbnail view and
then "explode" this to show the images in that group, but where images
are edits of the same image, they would still be grouped together. I
could then "explode" these and view them individually.

This would have a massive benefit to the usability of digiKam. I have
so many similar images that browsing the thumbnail view can be very
slow. If I could reduce the number of images shown in a way that does
not require a few rounds of tagging and filtering, it would speed up
my workflow a lot. It would also make it easier to show others parts
of the collection without having to say, "Let's skip those 97 images
of a bumble bee."

One level of grouping could be based on automatically matching base
file names. A nominated tag could be used to pick the "default" image
for any such grouping; I might pick "Technical/Default Revision" and
then apply that to one of the images whenever I'm creating revisions
of the same image. That would allow me to search for the images I want
to show on the screen without requiring any new search functionality
for some new kind of image relationship. Until I have added such a
tag (and I might never do so for some images), the system can just
pick one image for me. So, by defining a naming pattern, all my CR2
and JPEG images are grouped automatically on import and the base name
from the naming pattern would become the thumbnail name.

Grouping related images would probably need to be more manual. I could
lasso a few of these "same image groups" together and then allow them
to be collapsed to a single thumbnail. I don't particularly want to
give them a special name. My file names are sequential, so just giving
the base name of the first and last images in the group and the number
of images would suit me on the main thumbnail view. The default image
for the group could be defined by associating a tag or a star-rating
with this purpose. Star rating might suit some people, but I'd probably
have images with the same star rating in the group and only want to
pick the one that looks best on my screen, not the one that was cropped
for printing, so I'd associate a "Technical/Pick of Bunch" tag with
this purpose and assign it to one image in each group (if I had any
preference).

As others have mentioned, panoramic sequences would be much easier if
this grouping feature was available. The stitched image could then
become the default image for the group. (Who wants to browse through
all of the individual images for a panorama all of the time? It just
slows down the thumbnail view.)

That description is a bit rough and ready, but I hope you get an idea
of how much of a killer feature this could be.

Best of luck with the new QT4 Model/View changes. I hope it makes things
like this possible.

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