[Digikam-users] Image file alterations

[Chris Savery]

Hello,
I'm new to digiKam. I am currently using Lightroom on WinXP under 
VirtualBox. I would very much like to move to using digiKam so that I 
can do my photo work under linux.

First thing that comes to mind when trying this out:

-> if I add my image file tree being used under Lightroom into digiKam 
as albums is digiKam going to write back to the image metadata on those 
images?

I'd rather that all my Canon CR2 images remained intact and unaltered. I 
would also very much like if they can co-habitate in both Lightroom and 
digiKam until I have decided that digiKam offers enough incentive to 
drop Lightroom. I have looked through the manual but can't find a clear 
answer on this.

Second thing that I'm not clear on is when adding images from my CF 
cards using the auto-album mode to create date folders is what those 3 
date options really mean. It isn't stated anywhere that I can find, but 
maybe I'm not looking enough. I want to use the same format I do now - 
eg. 2009/January/03 for the folder name. Is that "full text" or ISO. It 
would really help if that selector box there gave examples of what the 
options mean. I guess that should be added to some wish list.

Lastly, in digiKam it looks like there is no similar concept to the 
"catalog" of Lightroom. As far as I can tell when images are added to an 
album it is simply a way of managing a file folder tree. So if that's 
the case I'm not clear how one works with offline content stored on 
removable media. If the albums are "out there" (not online) is the data 
still stored in the database. So is there only ONE really big database 
for everything ever touched in digiKam or is there some way to select a 
current database, ie. catalog?

I have many years background programming for Win32 GUI in C/C++. If I am 
able to really use digiKam for my photography under Linux then I'd be 
really happy to contribute through programming for digiKam too. There 
would be a learning curve for me as I have not yet coded for Linux Gui 
(just console apps so far).

Thanks for any input on my questions above.

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