Digikam Workflow Questions

[Eric Mesa]

Hello Digikam list,

Back in 2012 I did a comparison of Lightroom and Digikam and it seemed like
Digikam was pretty awesome, I just happened to have been involved in
Lightroom for a long time and didn't want to change without reason. However,
with the latest Lightroom 5, performance has slowed to a crawl, making me
wonder if it's worth the $150/year vs FLOSS software I already know is
pretty awesome.

So I had a couple questions about workflow that I couldn't find in the
online documentation.
1. Does Digikam write metadata do DNG files or just use XMP sidecar files?
2. Right now if I want to create a black and white version of one of my
photos, here's what I do Lightroom:
   a. On my DNG file I create a Virtual Copy
   b. I make that Virtual Copy Black and White (and any tonal changes I'd
like to do)
   c. I export the Virtual Copy as a JPEG (so I have B/W files to upload to
the net, share, etc)
   d. I export the original as a JPEG (so that I have a color version to
upload, share, etc)

Does Digikam have anything like that? If Digikam doesn't have virtual
copies, how do I represent multiple versions of a DNG file?
3. There's a lot I can Google, but especially in the world of FLOSS software
this is ever-changing: What is the best RAW/DNG-based workflow with the
latest version of Digikam? Does it involve RAWTherapee/DarkTable/something
else to interpret the RAW/DNG file? Or is Digikam currently the best? If
someone on the list uses one of these external programs - would you mind
letting me know your current workflow?

Thanks,
Eric Mesa

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[Gilles Caulier-4]

2015-05-12 17:03 GMT+02:00 Eric Mesa <[hidden email]>:
> Hello Digikam list,
>
> Back in 2012 I did a comparison of Lightroom and Digikam and it seemed like
> Digikam was pretty awesome, I just happened to have been involved in
> Lightroom for a long time and didn't want to change without reason.

I remember to have read your blog post in the past. Great review and objective.

> However,
> with the latest Lightroom 5, performance has slowed to a crawl, making me
> wonder if it's worth the $150/year vs FLOSS software I already know is
> pretty awesome.
>
> So I had a couple questions about workflow that I couldn't find in the
> online documentation.
> 1. Does Digikam write metadata do DNG files or just use XMP sidecar files?

Both. DNG is tiff/ep standardized and very well documented.
This depend of your Metadata settings of course.

> 2. Right now if I want to create a black and white version of one of my
> photos, here's what I do Lightroom:
>    a. On my DNG file I create a Virtual Copy
>    b. I make that Virtual Copy Black and White (and any tonal changes I'd
> like to do)
>    c. I export the Virtual Copy as a JPEG (so I have B/W files to upload to
> the net, share, etc)
>    d. I export the original as a JPEG (so that I have a color version to
> upload, share, etc)
>
> Does Digikam have anything like that? If Digikam doesn't have virtual
> copies, how do I represent multiple versions of a DNG file?

Globally, yes. Feature is called Versionning in Setup dialog, with
multiple tunes.

> 3. There's a lot I can Google, but especially in the world of FLOSS software
> this is ever-changing: What is the best RAW/DNG-based workflow with the
> latest version of Digikam? Does it involve RAWTherapee/DarkTable/something
> else to interpret the RAW/DNG file? Or is Digikam currently the best? If
> someone on the list uses one of these external programs - would you mind
> letting me know your current workflow?

I personally started to implement RAW to DNG converter in kipiplugins.
This tool use libraw and Adode DNG sdk. But as i don't use DNG, i
cannot said if this solution is better than another one. I don't use
also RAWTherapee/DarkTable. digiKam is enough for me, and this is why
i code in this project.

Best

Gilles Caulier
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[Eric Mesa]

Gilles Caulier <caulier.gilles@...> writes:
>
> I personally started to implement RAW to DNG converter in kipiplugins.
> This tool use libraw and Adode DNG sdk. But as i don't use DNG, i
> cannot said if this solution is better than another one. I don't use
> also RAWTherapee/DarkTable. digiKam is enough for me, and this is why
> i code in this project.

Gilles - thanks for the info. Seems like Digikam is likely to meet all of my
needs. I will continue to explore the Workflow issue by visiting the forums
of some of those RAW-specific forums.

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[David Lindblad]

Hello!

A small komment on the workflow: ~90% of my Pictures kan be finished in dK and the rest I convert from CR2 to jpg and pars on to GIMP. 

dK is good for sorting Pictures but the final touch to, say a portrait, needs to be done externaly, eg GIMP.

Best

DL

2015-05-12 17:42 GMT+02:00 Eric Mesa <[hidden email]>:

Gilles Caulier <caulier.gilles@...> writes:
>
> I personally started to implement RAW to DNG converter in kipiplugins.
> This tool use libraw and Adode DNG sdk. But as i don't use DNG, i
> cannot said if this solution is better than another one. I don't use
> also RAWTherapee/DarkTable. digiKam is enough for me, and this is why
> i code in this project.

Gilles - thanks for the info. Seems like Digikam is likely to meet all of my
needs. I will continue to explore the Workflow issue by visiting the forums
of some of those RAW-specific forums.

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Digikam-users mailing list
[hidden email]
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/digikam-users

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