Photo Management

[lurch]

Any thoughts on how iPhoto and Aperture compare with Shotwell and Digikam for Linux?

[danieldk]

Aperture is way better than both Digikam and Shotwell.

- It is stable (in contrast to Shotwell).
- Nondestructive editing (in contrast to Digikam).
- Good editing tools.
- Display of hot/cold areas.
- Very good support for raw editing.
- Excellent workflow (with ratings, smart albums, etc.).
- Good support for geocoding (importing of GPS tracks).
- Light tables.

Just watch a few of the tutorials and demonstrations on the Aperture site, and you will notice the difference in quality and options. You can also get a 30-day trial. Of course, Digikam and Shotwell have a nicer price ;). Of those two, Digikam is certainly nice and extensive.

I have worked with Digikam, Shotwell, Aperture, and a bit with Photoshop Lightroom. My preferences:

Aperture (with a huge distance) > Digikam > Photoshop Lightroom (horrible UI) > Shotwell (still unusable)

iPhoto is too limited to be really useful.

[lurch]

Thanks Daniel for your helpful appraisal. How do you rate Aperture compared to Photoshop or Photoshop Elements for Mac?

[fos]

I would also be interested in this comparison. I have been using Photoshop for several years. It has more capability than I use so I have room to grow. Once I am no longer able to purchase the student edition, it will be priced well above my pay grade.

[danieldk]

Thanks Daniel for your helpful appraisal. How do you rate Aperture compared to Photoshop or Photoshop Elements for Mac?

They are programs with a different goal. Photoshop is a photo editor, and is used, for instance for brushing away elements in a photo or extreme retouching of skin in close-ups.

Aperture is a photo manager. It allows you to quickly rate, select, and order a large amount of photos. Additionally, it provides the typical retouching tools, such as filters for overexposure, adding more vibrancy, getting rid of flares and glass effects. Though, Aperture can be expanded with plugins to provide a typical Photoshop toolset.

Most people use a photo editor, where they should use a photo manager. To illustrate, this is a summary of my workflow:

1. Shoot lots of photos: I am a very average photographer, shooting more increases the probability of a nice shot.
2. Import all photo's in an Aperture project specifically for that event.
3. Add some keywords to the first photos, that apply to all photo's, and lift that metadata to all photos.
4. Go to that project, go to full screen mode (hit 'f'), quickly browse photos, and rate all of them with 1 to 5 stars ('1'..'5').
5. Create a smart album with photos with a minimum number of stars (e.g. 3 or 4 stars). These will be the photos you care about, and that the world will see.
6. Go to the smart album, go fullscreen again, and make sure the HUD is visible ('h'), and enable showing of hot cold/areas (Alt + shift +h). Now do detailed adjustments for each photo until you think they are ok. Usually this consists of filtering for overexposure/black point and improving the white balance. Occasionally, it is also useful to apply other filters, such as vibrancy. During this phase you can quickly switch between the master and your adjusted version (hit 'm') to see improvements.
(7. If you really really want to modify the content of a photo, launch a photo editor such as Photoshop or Pixelmator, and do your work.)
8. Upload to Flickr with the Flickr button.

Two tips:

- Family and friends prefer 20 beautiful photos of your trip over 500 average quality photos. Most people lose concentration after seeing more than a few dozens of photos. Shoot a lot, but strive for a selection 25 photos, with a hard upper bound of 50. Aperture's ratings are your friend :).

- 90% of the people who use a photo editor probably should use a photo manager. In case of doubt: use a photo manager!

[fos]

That is an excellent review, Daniel. I appreciate the information. I totally agree with your direction to minimize the number of photos within a collection. I can still remember visits to family where we had to sit through hours of family pictures. It was frequently the same pictures on an annual basis. Boring.......!!!

Jeff

[lurch]

A excellent review indeed Daniel! That has given me a good start on such matters. I sent your comments to my brother-in-law who runs a Debian desktop. He has purchased Lightzone for Linux and commends it as superior to the free Linix apps. I know nothing of the product.

[danieldk]

I am not familiar with LightZone. If you don't have a Mac, DigiKam is probably the best thing to try first. LightZone looks promising, since it does non-destructive editing, and if it's more stable than Rawtherapee and Shotwell...

[danieldk]

Things may change soon, Digikam support for non-destructive editing is up and coming!

http://www.digikam.org/drupal/node/534

As well as face recognition support, and reverse geotagging.

[danieldk]

I have finally bought a GPS logger. Importing a track, and synchronizing locations of photos is a breeze in Aperture 3...

[danieldk]

I have played a bit with the trial of the new Lightroom (3), and it feels faster and more polished than the previous version. If I have time, I will post a short review...

[stafio]

I also recommend looking into Bibble (http://www.bibblelabs.com/). It is not free, but it is cross platform and in my opinion it is better than LightZone. However, the cost is higher than LightZone. There is a free trial on their site.

[danieldk]

I also recommend looking into Bibble (http://www.bibblelabs.com/). It is not free, but it is cross platform and in my opinion it is better than LightZone. However, the cost is higher than LightZone. There is a free trial on their site.

Still, for the same price as Aperture, I'd pick Aperture any day. Except of course, if your camera is not supported.

[stafio]

Still, for the same price as Aperture, I'd pick Aperture any day. Except of course, if your camera is not supported.

Or if you don't have a Mac...

[danieldk]

Then there is LightRoom ;).

[stafio]

There's a relatively new entry into the Linux photo management scene called darktable (http://darktable.sourceforge.net/). The project has progressed quite nicely even though it is very young.

Here are a few of the features:

fully non-destructive editing.
image rating (stars) and color labels
powerful, modular export system, supporting picasa webalbum, flickr upload, disk storage, 1:1 copy, and email.
fullscreen, zoomable user interface.

I have to mention that I haven't really used it much myself, but my wife has been using it for a while now and likes it quite a bit.

There is also a Mac version of darktable, but it is very out of date.

[danieldk]

Looks like an attempt to literally copy the Lightroom interface ;). Compare:

http://darktable.sourceforge.net/screenshots.shtml
http://www.google.com/search?q=adobe+lightroom&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=933&bih=597