[clue] Light-table style photo editor?

[Lorin Ricker]

Matt -- The functionality you're looking for is indeed a "light table", 
similar to what Mac/Win users have had for years in applications like 
Aperture and Adobe Photoshop LightTable.  Think about the old days with 
35mm slides (or larger transparency formats), with the ability to place 
them over a uniformly back-lit white-translucent table so that you could 
compare exposures and make a best-selection from among them.

In our FOSS world, there are lots of choices, but probably only one 
really good one for your needs -- digiKam (www.digikam.org).  From their 
Overview page:

"Another tool, which most artists and photographers will be familiar 
with, is a Light Table.  This tool assists artists and photographers 
with reviewing their work ensuring the highest quality only.
A classical light table will show the artist the place on the images to 
touch up.  Well in digiKam, the light table function provides the user a 
similar experience.  You can import a photo, drag it onto the light 
table, and touch up only the areas that need it."

Apps like Shotwell and F-Spot are photo "managers" and "organizers" 
(only) -- although you can see many thumbnails side-by-side, these don't 
include the ability to select two (or more) photos for side-by-side 
comparison of exposures (etc.).  digiKam does have this capability 
explicitly designed in (see www.digikam.org/node/329).

Of course, digiKam includes much, much more (no, I'm not a salesman for 
them!), including image editing, plugins, albums (organization like 
F-Spot & Shotwell), etc.  Don't think it'd ever fully displace Gimp for 
image editing, but it's a good complement; the two make a nearly 
complete digital photo shop, at least for us amateurs.

Latest released version (tarball on digikam.org) is v1.9.0 -- website 
recommends installing from your distro's repositories, even if that's a 
bit older version.  For my Ubuntu 10.4/LL-LTS, my repo lists v1.2.0, and 
your mileage may vary.  But digiKam's got the light table functions that 
you're asking for!...

best regards,
   -- Lorin

On 07/24/2011 07:51 AM, chris fedde wrote:
> Use shotwell to organize photos.  Right clicking on the thumb print
> will give you a chance to open with an external editor. It also has
> basic stuff like color balance, brightness and redeye built in.
>
> On Sat, Jul 23, 2011 at 12:21 PM, Matt Gushee<matt at gushee.net>  wrote:
>> Hello, good linux folk--
>>
>> I am trying to find a special kind of photo editor for Linux. I know
>> about GIMP, of course--been using it for many years--and the other usual
>> suspects like Krita. But I need something a little bit different.
>>
>> I am doing some product photography for my web site, and I need to
>> achieve a consistent appearance across a large number of photos, where
>> the originals are very inconsistent (because they have been taken at
>> different times with varying light, and by an inexpert photographer [me]
>> working on a shoestring budget). So batch processing (e.g. ImageMagick)
>> will not work.
>>
>> What I need is an interface where I can view a number of large
>> thumbnails side-by-side, and have easy access to editing functions.
>> Ideally, I would like to be able to right-click on a thumbnail and,
>> using the context menu, have a choice of applying a filter directly
>> (say, to adjust the contrast) or opening the photo in a separate window
>> (e.g., for cropping). I also would like to be able to preview the
>> results of the edit *in the thumbnail view*--again, it's that
>> side-by-side comparison thing.
>>
>> If there is no single application that will do this, I suppose I can use
>> some file manager in combination with GIMP ... it would sort of work,
>> but it wouldn't make for a smooth workflow, and I expect to be doing
>> this on a regular basis for the forseeable future.
>>
>> Anyone have a recommendation? Thanks!
>>
>> --
>> Matt Gushee
>> matt at gushee.net
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