Managing Your Digital Photos: Day 2
Review: Copying Photo Files & Organizing Folders
- Digital camera images are stored in a folder named "DCIM",
then with a number and maker-specific name like "100NIKON".
- One trick: rename the "100NIKON" folder as something
meaningful, like "Summer 2017 Photos", and then you can copy or
move the whole folder and still remember what it's called.
Installing DigiKam & Showfoto
We'll be working with a free software photo manager called DigiKam and its included photo
viewer Showfoto.
The flash drive has a copy of the DigiKam installer for Windows:
- On the flash drive
- In the folder "course"
- In the folder "software"
- The installer is named digiKam-5.7.0-02-Win32.exe.
Double click it to install it.
- DigiKam will install in the Windows Start menu, under "All
Apps", "DigiKam"
(If you have a Mac, download the Mac installer from the DigiKam Download Page)
We'll be working with the photo viewer part Showfoto this week, and
the more complex photo manager DigiKam next week. The same
installer installs both parts.
Working with Photos in Showfoto
Open Showfoto via the Windows Start menu, "All Apps", "DigiKam",
"Showfoto".
Once the program is open, hit "Open Folder" in the row of functions
on top to open all the photos in a folder. For example, on the
flash drive the photos are in DCIM folder, then 100NIKON folder, so
you'd navigate to 100NIKON and click "Choose Folder".
Once Showfoto shows a list of photos, you can hit "Slideshow" in the
row of functions on top to show each photo full screen, in sequence.
The right side of the screen has a bunch of sub-menus:
- "Properties" or "Metadata" shows you the information stored
about the photo, like the time the photo was taken, the camera
that took the photo, exposure and ISO settings on the camera,
and GPS coordinates if the photo was taken on a phone (or an
expensive camera with GPS).
- "Tools" has a number of ways to edit the photo:
- You can trim down or "crop" a photo by dragging out a
rectangle, and hitting "Crop to Selection".
- "Add Border" or "Insert Text" lets you add simple elements
to a photo (although a dedicated image editor like Photoshop
or GIMP does a better job).
- "Free Rotation" can help you correct a tilted photo: click
one end of the horizon, click "1", click the other end of the
horizon, click "2", and hit OK to rotate the horizon to
level. You may need to crop afterwards to eliminate the
black border.
- After using tools to edit the photo, be sure to "Save As"
using the button on top, since the "Save" button overwrites
the original photo!
If you have a high-end camera, Showfoto lets you work with
uncompressed or "RAW" photos, which take up more space on disk, but
can give you slightly better detail and much better control over the
exact color processing.
All the details are in the
Showfoto manual. We won't be using the program again in
this course, but DigiKam has a similar interface.
Managing
Your Digital Photos is an Osher Lifelong Learning
Institute course taught by Dr. Orion Lawlor.