New member query - PP software to run on Linux

[Cloudhead1]

Hi, I am a new member and new to digital photography, I am also not a very techy individual! This leads me onto my first enquiry - can anyone suggest any free or cheap software for photograph management. I had been using Picaso but now have a new operating system for my laptop called Linux which is not compatible with Picaso. Is anyone able to help me?

[Donald]

Members - I copied Wendy's question above from her introductory post in the New Member section. Hopefully some of you will have suggestions.

[Photon Hacker]

Hello.

Linux is not an operating system but a kernel. You're most likely using a distribution of GNU/Linux. If you're not too busy please take a time to read why and why it matters how we call it.

I mainly use The GNU Image Manipulation Program. It's packed for most GNU/Linux distributions, search for it in your distribution's software repository and read it's documentation. Look if there is a "graphics" category in your package repository.

Most GNU/Linux distributions make easy to set up a programming environment using the package manager, should you want to write a small (Or big) standalone program for this case (For instance, to apply an uncommon signal processing method). Also GIMP is readily extensible and there are several plug-ins listed from its page. You can also use and modify it freely because it is free as in freedom and it's also available at no cost.

[Hero]

Just to make it a bit easier for you, we already started a thread on the topic: Any Linux Users?
Hope it helps

Oh and welcome to the forum Wendy

[Inkanyezi]

Picasa is available for Linux too, and I use it for searching my drives for images, as it is a very good program to locate whatever image you have in all of your folders. Picasa looks them up in the background and eliminates whatever you have erased, without any user intervention.

Your distribution probably already has a program to import and sort images, usually F-Spot. I don't like that program, so I don't use it. I use the file manager to import my pictures and put them into folders of my choice.

Most distros automagically install Gimp, and it is a potent package. I use it for most of my post processing.

For RAW files, there are several converters, I use Raw Therapee, which is not open source, but licensed free. It is a rather straightforward converter, and it passes the image to Gimp as default if you choose to do so. There is only one hitch when using Gimp together with Raw Therapee, that RT stores its output in the temp folder when sending it to Gimp, so you need to choose a folder to save your image from Gimp; if you only use the "Save" option, it will land in your temp folder.

[revi]

Indeed, do have a look at the thread mentioned above.
Just a quick mention of what I use (under linux ofc :
- Digikam (import, classify/tag, basic edits including RAW development, in 16-bit depth),
- GIMP (detailed edits),
- Hugin (panoramas).
I'd say I spent 80+% of time in Digikam, 15% in GIMP, <5% in Hugin.

[Cloudhead1]

Thank you everyone. The earlier thread was particularly useful - we will be taking a look at your suggestions.

[Tim Bond]

I used gimp with ubuntu and it was very helpful
Tim

[casagan]

Have a look at www.darktable.org. It is almost like a linux clone of Lightroom, quite promising.

Cheers,

O.

[Ken Husveg]

Gimp is an excellent must have Photoshop replacement. For a Photo viewer/management/basic editor, checkout XnView. XnView is well supported, can use Photoshop plugins, supports tons of import/export formats. Both Gimp and XnView have versions for Win, Linux, MacOS.