[Digikam-devel] Non-destructive image editing

[Jean-Michel Pouré]

Dear friends,

At Kdenlive.org, we are still very impressed by showfo quality. We would
like a solution that would allow to use showfo in conjunction with MLT.

We thought of a feature that may interest you:
non-destructive photo correction

In video, Kdenlive works as such : 
* The source video is left unchanged.
* During video editing, Kdenlive processes the video using the MLT
syntax. The film is previewed without modifying the source.
* Video is exported only during final rendering.

One drawback of image manipulation programs like Gimp or Showfoto is
that they modify the original image. 

Of course, you can duplicate images but it is a loss of space. 

So the idea is to ask MLT to process photos. 

The beauty is it would possible, in theory to store MLT processing
syntax in PNG tags. This would make a completely non-destructive
solution.

Only when exporting to third-party on-line solutions or DVDs the photos
would be processed. But the source would remain.

MLT is very reliable and quite easy to implement. You would only need to
implement plugins in MLT and load your effects. Then modify showfoto to
use MLT. It would require layers to showfoto. But it is probably a
needed feature.

What do you think of this solution? To have a view, you can install
Kdenlive 0.7.5 from Debian SID and try to process an image with effects.

Kind regards,
Jean-Michel