[Digikam-devel] digiKam and DigikamImagePlugins 0.8.0-beta1

Tue Aug 23 14:20:55 BST 2005

The digiKam team is pleased to bring to you the next generation
of the user-friendly digital photo management software and its 
image plugins. The primary focus for this release is new ways
of photo organization and searching. This release is the result of 
4 months of development and we hope it will be as much fun for 
you to use it as we had developing it.

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<<< What's News >>>

The noteworthy features in this release:

* NEW USER INTERFACE: Albums and Tags have been separated out into
  different views and these views are collapsible.
* PHOTO DATES AND COMMENTS: Photos are now scanned for their
  metadata which is then stored in the database. The EXIF 
  timestamp (if available) is used for sorting and searching.
* DATE BASED VIRTUAL FOLDERS: Each corresponding to the month in 
  which the pictures were taken. Its also possible to filter this 
  view to show photos from single or multiple day(s) and week(s)
* SEARCHING: Two interfaces have been implemented for searching
  on photos:
  - QUICK SEARCH: a keyword based search which also allows 
    date based lookups
  - ADVANCED SEARCH: build rules and groups of rules to do 
    very precise searches.
  - LIVE FEEDBACK: Both searches show instant results based on 
    the current search criteria
* SEARCH BASED VIRTUAL FOLDERS: The searches can be saved as 
  virtual folders and its possible to edit the search criterion
  later.
* TAG FILTERING: A new view has been added to the right side 
  which allows quick drag and drop tag assignments and also
  filtering of photos in the current view. This view is again
  collapsible
* ALBUM LOCATION INDICATOR: When photos are shown from a virtual
  folder (tag, date or search), the photos are grouped together
  based on album locations.
* MEMORY OPTIMIZATION: Thumbnails are now loaded on demand
  and only a fixed cache of thumbnails is kept in memory
* NEW THEMES: Dark, Sandy and Orange Crush
* BACKEND CHANGES:
  - Database upgraded to sqlite3
  - New kioslaves for handling date, search, tag, album listing
* SHOWFOTO : new slide show tool
* IMAGE PLUGIN CHANGES :
 - Plugin dialogs have been revamped for better usability 
   and easier comparison of filter effects.
 - Plugin computations are now threaded
 - Plugin preview is now resizable.
 - BigEndian fixes.
* NEW IMAGE PLUGIN FEATURES :
 - Aspect Ratio Crop : new photograph composition guide tool based 
   on Fibonacci series (golden mean).
 - New Color AutoCorrection tool with preview 
   (Normalize, Autolevels, Equalize, and Stretch Contrast).
 - Free Rotation : Auto crop and antialiasing options.
 - Shear Tool : Antialiasing option.
* NEW IMAGE PLUGINS :
 - Refocus : An advanced sharpness editor
 - HotPixels : An hot pixels removal tool to fix bad pixels from 
   camera CCD.

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<<< Bugs Fix >>>

110214
110115
109703
109705
107742
109355
109946
109253

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<<< About digiKam >>>

 digiKam is a digital photograph management application for KDE, which makes 
importing and organizing digital photos a "snap". The photos can be organized 
in albums which can be sorted chronologically, by directory layout or by 
custom collections. Additionally images can be tagged and these tagged images 
can be viewed in virtual albums. 

 An easy to use interface is provided that enables you to connect to your 
camera and preview, download and/or delete your images. 

 digiKam includes a fast Image Editor with a few advanced image editing tools. 
You can use the Image Editor to view your photographs and to make corrections 
and alterations. A stand alone version of image editor named ShowFoto is also 
available. 

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<<< About DigikamImagePlugins >>>

 DigikamImagePlugins are a collection of plugins for digiKam's Image 
Editor and ShowFoto. These plugins add new image treatment options like color 
management, filters, or special effects:

 1) AdjustLevels     : A plugin for to adjust the image histogram levels 
manually.
 2) SolarizeImage    : A plugin for to solarize an image.
 3) NoiseReduction   : A noise reduction filter (based on Despeckle Gimp 2.x 
algorithm).
 4) OilPaint         : An oil painting effect filter.
 5) Emboss           : An embossed image effect filter.
 6) Charcoal         : A charcoal drawing image effect filter.
 7) Unsharp          : An unsharp mask image filter (based on Gimp 2.x 
algorithm).
 8) RainDrop         : Adding Raindrops randomly in an image.
 9) FilmGrain        : Adding film grain in an image.
10) FreeRotation     : Perform an image rotation with a free angle in degrees.
11) AdjustCurves     : A plugin for to adjust the image histogram curves.
12) ShearTool        : A tool for shearing an image.
13) AntiVignetting   : A tool for to reduce image vignetting.
14) LensDistortion   : A tool for to reduce optical lens distortions.
15) SuperImpose      : A tool for to superimposed a template to an image.
16) Perpective       : A tool for adjusting image perpective.
17) Border           : A tool for add a border around an image.
18) InsertText       : A tool for add text in image.
19) Infrared         : Simulate infrared film.
20) ChannelMixer     : Color channels mixer tool.
21) BlurFX           : Blurring special effects package.
22) DistortionFX     : Distortion special effects package. 
23) Texture          : A tool to apply a decorative texture to an image.
24) WhiteBalance     : A tool to correct image white color balance.
25) Restoration      : An advanced filter to restore photograph using CImg 
library.
26) Inpainting       : An advanced filter to inpaint photograph area using 
CImg library.
27) Blowup           : An advanced filter to blowup photograph using CImg 
library.
28) Refocus          : An advanced sharpness editor based on deconvolution 
filter to refocus a photograph.
29) HotPixels        : A tool to remove Stuff/Hot Pixels on pictures taken 
with deficient camera CCD.

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<<< Download >>>

 You can download the source tarballs from this page :
https://sourceforge.net/projects/digikam/

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<< Packaging >>>

Notes to packagers :

- The tarballs of digiKam 0.7.x series became pretty big due to the detailed 
documentation digiKam has. That is why we splitted the tarball into the main 
application and a seperate tarball for the documentation. 0.8.0 documentation 
tarballs are not yet done and will be done later.

- ShowFoto program is independant of digiKam core. digiKam 
is only require during ShowFoto compilation, but ShowFoto program has no 
dependency on digiKam.

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<< More Informations >>>

Further information about digiKam and digiKamImagePlugins is 
available from the following websites:

http://www.digikam.org
http://extragear.kde.org/apps/digikamimageplugins

-- 
Gilles Caulier