[Digikam-users] Suggestion for a Showfoto

[Gilles Caulier]

2008/4/11, Lawrence Plug <ljplug at fastmail.fm>:
> Hello:
>
>
>
>  On Fri, 11 Apr 2008 08:46:07 +0200 (CEST), "Arnd Baecker"
>  <arnd.baecker at web.de> said:
>  > On Wed, 9 Apr 2008, Lawrence Plug wrote:
>  > >
>
> > > Rather than have the tools selected from a dropdown menu, an alternative
>  > > would be to have the tools within tabs stacked vertically, which then
>  > > individually drop down to show their respective sliders etc when
>
> > > selected.  --snippage--
>  >
>  > I like this variant.
>
> >
>  > Another option here would be to just have a subset
>  > of tools visible. Something like "tool collections", e.g.
>  > - one with a default subset
>  > - another  collection with all tools,
>  > - and user-definable subsets (which can be saved and loaded)
>  >
>
>
> That would be a nice option, as would the ability to tear off tools into
>  floating windows as suggested elsewhere in thread.
>
>
>  > >
>  > > On a related note (perhaps I should open a different thread) it would be
>
> > > FANTASTIC if showfoto would operate nondestructively on RAWs.
>
> >
>  > Well, this is the next step and discussed in
>  > http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=125387
>  > Having such a tool collection (whatever you want to call it ;-)
>  > would be the visual representation of the "action lists".
>  >
>  > ((What I would like a lot if such actions could be easily
>  > exchanged/shared; this might also be related to
>  > scripts written in KROSS; http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=146866 ))
>
>
> Good to hear it is in development.
>
>  I suppose a way to exchange/share is to write all PP parameters for an
>  image into a sidecar file which can be reused, emailed, etc. This is the
>  rawtherapee method (and some other SW I guess). The parameters for the
>  final version of the image are written to a text file when you save the
>  png/jpeg/tiff, plus you can take 'snapshot' files of the PP parameters
>  as you work on the image in case you want to revert. For parameter sets
>  you are likely to use over and over, you name these and save into an
>  archive.
>
>  RT also keeps a running list of actions applied to the image. You can
>  click back into it to revert to a previous state. Screenshot here
>  (actions on left panel):
>  http://ljplug.smugmug.com/photos/277935562_WesCp-X2.jpg
>
>
>
>  > Code-wise all this will be a substantial change.
>  > As discussed before: Maybe the most tricky bit is how to treat changes of
>  > parameters in the chain of tools. Eg., if a crop is at the beginning,
>  > followed by a levels adjustment, noise reduction and some sharpening,
>  > then changing the crop means that everything in the chain has to be
>  > re-computed.
>  > In order that this works sufficiently smoothly for the user,
>  > maybe it can only be done on the preview. Only when OK
>  > is selected, all steps are executed on the full image...
>
>
> I'm sure it would be a substantial change to code. My own coding is in a
>  very different field, but i can at least imagine the job involved.
>
>  Regarding speed of execution: Those operations which are particularly
>  slow (sharpening, resizing, noise reduction) might be applied only to a
>  preview while others immediately to the entire image.
>
>  Here is an order-of-operations:
>  http://www.rawtherapee.com/?mitem=4&faqid=20
>
>  With RT, you do need to wait for some operations, but it certainly is no
>  slower (faster, I'd say) than current showfoto workflow. The result is
>  very tolerable in terms of speed (I use both digikam and RT primarily on
>  a Opteron 2.4Ghz with 3GB, but also my 1.6GHz Pentium laptop). It is
>  speedier than megabuck commercial apps I've demoed, like lightzone (a
>  java cow, in addition).
>
>
>
>  > BTW: Shouldn't also the raw conversion itself (including lense
>  > correction) be put at the top of the pipeline?
>
>
> Do you mean distortion correction (barrel, pincushioning) and
>  antivignetting etc? I personally think this should be grouped with
>  transform tools (like resizing and rotating) -- all of which most users
>  will/should do first, before colour, sharpening etc

With digiKam for KDE4, there is a new tool which group all these
correction in the same plugin :

http://digikam3rdparty.free.fr/Screenshots/LensFunPlugin/

It use LensFun library to fix Lens distorsions.

http://lensfun.berlios.de/

This tool can fix automatically an image using Exif info... LensFun
has a database of camera+lens to perform corrections.

Best

Gilles Caulier