[Digikam-users] questions about using RAW format...

[gerlos]

Hi!

Alexandre Racine ha scritto:
> Currently I just used irfanview (with Wine) to convert them to JPG, 

But... isn't it extremely slow and clumsy?
Isn't it a lot easier using "save as" or that tools in the batch menu of 
Digikam to do just this thing? Or, even better, shouldn't be easier use 
some bash black magic ;-) together with ImageMagick?

For example, to convert to jpg every png image in the current directory 
you just need something like:
for image in `ls *.png`
do
    convert $image $image.jpg
done

Just put these lines in a script, and conversions won't be a problem any 
more. Ok, it's a stupid example, but believe me, you can do a lot 
smarter things!


And also you can do a lot of interesting things using *.desktop files in 
KDE and/or konqueror (so, once setup, without the terminal!).
For example, put these lines in a text file, let's say, "resize.desktop":
|[Desktop Entry]
Comment=Resize images to 1024 px, and put a copy on the Desktop
Encoding=UTF-8
Exec[$e]=convert -size 1024x1024 %f -resize 1024x1024 `basename %f `
GenericName=Resize images for the Web
Icon=filter
Name=||Resize images for the Web|
|Path[$e]=$HOME/Desktop
Type=Application|

When you drag any image or any group of images from any program like 
Digikam or konqueror or dolphin on the icon of "resize.desktop", after a 
while you will get on you Desktop a copy of each image, rescaled so that 
the larger border will be 1024 px. Just drag and drop. Easy!

Another example? This one convert any dropped image to jpg and put it on 
the Desktop:
|[Desktop Entry]
Comment=Convert image to jpg, and put a copy on the Desktop
Encoding=UTF-8
Exec[$e]=convert %f `basename %f `.jpg
GenericName=||Convert image to jpg|
|Icon=filter
Name=Convert image to jpg|||
| Path[$e]=$HOME/Desktop
Type=Application|

Obviously, to make things easy (sorry, I can't know if you know the 
command line) I didn't add some more interesting features, like 
manipulating the base name of the image or changing the jpg quality, or 
just play a sound notification when processing end! Once you work with 
the command line for a while you'll figure how to do these "esoteric" 
things! ;-)

Jus ask google about "KDE service menu" for more.

> but I
> have no intention du put Photophop on my Linux/GNU/Ubuntu box.
>   

I think that once you know a little more gnu/linux you won't feel the 
need to use Photoshop any more. You can do almost everything with 
Digikam, and if it isn't sufficient for you, there's always Gimp! (Now 
it is starting to support 32 bit image processing, great!) or Krita!

regards
gerlos