[Digikam-users] Some questions about the ImageEditor

[Chris G]

On Sun, Nov 25, 2007 at 10:17:36PM +0100, Arnd Baecker wrote:
> Hi Chris
> 
> On Sun, 25 Nov 2007, Chris G wrote:
> 
> > First question (whose answer may clear up a lot of the subsequent
> > ones), is there no help?
> >
> > When I click on help or use the links from the main Digikam manual I
> > get:-
> >     There is no documentation available for /digikamimageplugins/index.htm
> >
> > This is on a standard digikam 0.9.2-final installation on Fedora 7.
> 
> So this is provided by Fedora, and not self-installed?
> Then I have no idea why it is not there, and
> it should have been provided  in the default installation.
> 
> But you can access the really good documentation online via the link at
>   http://www.digikam.org/?q=docs
> (as always comments/suggestions/additions are welcome)
> 
Aha!  Maybe I have found the (an?) issue here.  My digikam manual says in
Chapter 1  Background:-

    digiKam incorporates a fast Image Editor with basic image editing
    tools. You can use the Image Editor to view your photographs,
    comment and rate them, make corrections and alterations. The
    editing power can be easily extended by two sets of plugins, the
    Kde Image Plugins Interface (manual) and the DigikamImagePlugins.
    (manual)

I.e. it has links to separate Kipi and Image plugin documentation.
However the online documentation you have pointed to at
http://www.digikam.org/?q=docs *doesn't'* have the link to Image
plugin documentation, it says:-

    digiKam incorporates a fast Image Editor with many image editing
    tools. You can use the Image Editor to view your photographs,
    comment and rate them, correct, enhance and alter them. The
    editing power can be easily extended by a set of plugins, the Kde
    Image Plugins Interface (manual)

So which is right?


> > Anyway, to a question and a comment:-
> >
> >     I'm confused by the two ! icons which appear in various places.
> >     They're in the view menu marked as "Under Exposure Indicator" and
> >     "Over Exposure Indicator", what do they do?  Do the same icons do
> >     the same thing in the other places where they appear.
> 
> Yes. If not this should be corrected.
> 
No, I think they do the same thing, I just wanted to confirm what they
did as there is no 'hover' hint for them so when they appeared in the
image editor I didn't know what they did.


> Images may show over-exposed (i.e. just white) or
> under-exposed (just black) regions.
> This should at best be avoided when taking the picture.
> In addition, one may create over-/under exposed regions
> when applying image manipulations.
> (Presumably the best is to try it out in the curves editing
> by fiddling around with the curve to lead to over-exposed/under-exposed
> regions ...)
> 
What confused me to start with was that these two icons did *nothing*.
They (of course, when you know what they do) only do anything visible
when there are either under or over-exposed regions. 


> 
> >     What confused me a lot in the View menu is that many (all?) of the
> >     commands are toggles, so "Fit to Window" for example does the
> >     opposite of "Fit to Window" the first time you click on it!
> >
> 
> hmm, sounds like a useability issue. Will have a look tomorrow.
> Please, continue to report issues like this,
> because after a while one gets just "blind" to such obstacles...
> 
Yes, I know the problem!  :-)   I'm very fresh to digikam and thus may
see things with different eyes.

> > I suspect that for the rest I will begin to get more familiar with
> > digikam, it's certainly 'smoother' than when I last tried it a couple
> > of years ago and it's beaten Picasa for me this time.
> 
> Good to hear that, still comments/suggestions are very welcome!
> 
I used Picasa for a while but its major deficiency for me is its
separation from the 'real' directory/file structure behind it.  The
fact that digikam's albums are *real* directories is a huge plus for
me.

-- 
Chris Green