[Digikam-users] New User: is digiKam right for me? and if not, what alternative?

[Yuval Levy]

Gerhard Kulzer wrote:
>> digiKam was significantly slower than gqview. Unfortunately too slow for
>> me. So my question is: why is it so slow (after all, most tools use
>> dcraw for RAW decoding)? and: can I do something to help change that?
> 
> I can only second what Gilles has already said: compare the same things!
> 
> digiKam can't be slow in RAW decoding because if you compare it to dcraw it 
> matches. In other words, it can't be faster than dcraw. If other applications 
> are, they use degraded modes of dcraw like half resolution and 8 bit 
> decoding, linear interpolation.

have I hurt some feelings here?

with all due respect, I have not compared the quality. I have not 
compared bit depth nor accuracy. I did not check if it removes chromatic 
aberration, nor if it applies a noise filter.

Because at this stage, *speed* is the factor that counts, at a thumbnail 
quality, displayed on an 8bit LCD. A better than needed quality for a 
longer processing time is not an improvement to me.

All the other qualities become important at a later stage, when 
*developing* an image from a RAW file.

Today I got back with 2x 2GB Flash cards full of RAWs. I will end up 
using maybe 10% of that, and for that 10% I will want all the accuracy 
you are asking me to compare. But while just browsing the catalog I 
don't need that.

There are two type of process: interactive and automated. The most 
important factor for interactive processes is *time*, because human time 
is limited and expensive.

Probably Canon's DPP, Adobe's Lightroom, Apple's Aperture and other 
professional tools use two different algorythms, one for the thumbnails 
and for browsing; the other for exporting images from the RAW files. I 
don't really care how they do it - the browsing is faster and this is 
what counts to me.

human time is expensive. A tool that makes me wait for a higher quality 
conversion than what I need is *worse* IMO than a tool that adapts its 
quality to my needs and saves my time.

Yuv