April 02, 2024

HPR4087: Getting started with the digiKam photo management software

8 minutes

Getting

started with the digiKam photo management software.

In hpr4071 I talked about my migration from Adobe Photoshop Elements

and Lightroom to digiKam.

Today I will give you some suggestions to getting started with

digiKam, based on my experience and my opinion.

You find the digiKam website at https://www.digikam.org/.

On the documentation page you find a good and exhaustive

documentation. The big user manual can be read online or downloaded as

an epub book. I suggest you browse the manual before you install

digiKam.

My second suggestion is that you go to the Support page on the

digiKam site and look at the Mailing List Subscription section. You can

browse the mailing list archive online. But I really recommend you to

also join the mailing list. It is a very active mailing list where also

the main developers participates actively. Many questions are specific

and may not be of interest to you. But I have found that I learn a lot

about digiKam, its capabilities and other ways of working with photos

than I have thought of. Of course I also learn about issues. I have

asked some questions myself and also contributed with answers. I highly

recommend you to join the mailing list.

Thirdly, before you install digiKam, I suggest you copy a couple of

your photos into a new sample folder. When you start digiKam for the

first time a guide starts to help you to configure initial settings. One

configuration is to tell digiKam where your photos are located. I

suggest you use this sample folder only. Later on you add your real

photo folders and you can also at the same screen delete the sample

folder from digiKam. I suggest this because then you can consider

settings in more detail first which includes the settings for meta data

import to digiKam.

Forthly, consider also where you want to store the digiKam databases.

Myself, I created a folder for them at the top level of my home catalog.

But you can store them wherever you want to.

Install digiKam. Go to the digiKam settings. There are a lot of

settings. I will focus only on meta data settings.

DigiKam stores what you do in its own databases. That is mandatory.

In the settings, it is possible to select what should be written to

metadata and not. Meta data settings also have settings for associated

files, which most of all is about xmp side cars.

You can select that digiKam should read from associated files. This

is important to decide before your photo collection is imported into

digiKam. If you forget, it is possible to read meta data again after you

change settings.

Then there is an option if digiKam should write to side cars or not.

And if yes, if it should write to both side cars and the object, or only

if the object is write protected.

Next I want to highlight the tick box if Associated files should be

compatible with commercial programs. This needs further

explanation:

Default in digiKam is to have separate xmp side cars for each type

of photo file. For example, if you have a photo stored both as jpg and

raw, they will have separate side cars. This indeed has its advantages

but is in my knowledge not according to xmp side car standard. According

to standard, which digiKam refers to as commercial, the jpg and raw

share the same sidecar. For example Adobe Lightroom uses the commercial

method.

Examples to clarify:

DigiKam side car file syntax: photo1.jpg.xmp and

photo1.raw.xmp.

Standard/commercial file syntax: photo1.xmp.

I highly recommend you to spend an hour or two to review all

settings, not only meta data, before you start to use digiKam for your

real photos. If there is something you do not understand, go to the

documentation and do not hesitate to consult the digiKam maili

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