[Digikam-users] Workflow with gimp

[Jean-François Rabasse]

Hi Anders,

On Thu, 2 Jan 2014, Anders Lund wrote:

> I will probably do the raw conversion using digikams editor, and global
> adjustments, but after that I will need an external application, so

I use Gimp, I've been using it for the last ten years and I've kept my
habits when starting using Digikam (three years ago only).
(Humans are lazy and reluctant to changes :-)

> - which fileformat is best? png, tif, jpeg?

If you work with Gimp, probably the best working format is Gimp .xcf
That way you will keep all your work, selections, layers, masks, etc.
and just export to a web compatible format, .png or .jpeg, when
creating the final image.

To feed Gimp from your original photos, it will depend on how you
want to process your raw files.
If you do that inside Digikam, you'd probably be better to produce
.png, as Daniel Bauer said, and edit it with Gimp (saving results in
.xcf, and final result in .png or .jpeg).
But Gimp provides a UFraw plugin, so if you work with UFraw (just
another software based on Dave Coffin library, dcraw) you can open
your raw files with Gimp, without intermediate format.

A matter of taste...

> - concerns about metadata?

Current Gimp versions, 2.x, have a broken metadata support.
It will change soon, with Gimp 3.0, but as for today don't expect
Gimp to protect your metadata.
The best way, inside Digikam, is to edit and produce sidecar files
for your images. This will keep your metadata safe and off the way
of XMP metadata killers programs.

Regards,
Jean-François