Scribbles and Snaps

There are so many clever ways to share photos on the Web that the idea of creating a static HTML photo gallery may sound positively obsolete. But in certain situations, the ability to turn a bunch of photos into an HTML gallery can come in rather handy. For starters, serving a bunch of static HTML pages is less complicated than setting up a dedicated photo sharing solution, which can be useful if you want to host a photo gallery on your own server. An HTML gallery usually requires less resources, too, so you can host it on modest hardware. Also, you can store an HTML gallery on a USB stick and use it as your photo portfolio you can display even when offline.

In any case, if you end up in a situation when you need to quickly generate an HTML gallery using photos stored in digiKam, you will be pleased to learn that you can easily do this using the Export to HTML Kipi plugin available via the Export » Export to HTML command. If you don’t see the command, it’s most likely because the Kipi plugin is not enabled. To activate the plugin, choose Settings » Configure digiKam, switch to the Kipi Plugins section and enable the Export to HTML plugin.

Generating an HTML gallery using the plugin is a rather straightforward process, and the export wizard guides you through the entire procedure. As you would expect, you can generate a gallery from one or several albums. But the clever part is that you can also create galleries containing photos from a search result. This way, you can use digiKam’s advanced search capabilities to find photos that match specific criteria (e.g., ratings, tags, color labels, etc.) and then create an HTML gallery from the search result.

Most options in the export gallery wizard are pretty self-explanatory, so you shouldn’t have problems figuring them out. Select the desired album or saved search, select a gallery theme you like, and specify the dimensions and quality of the photos and thumbnails. If you want to give your visitors the ability to download full-resolution photos, enable the Include full-size original images for download option. Hit then the Finish button, and let digiKam generate an HTML gallery in the specified location. That’s all there is to it.

The Rawstudio raw photo editor made its 2.0 release on April 8, boasting a hefty list of improvements. There are new features, such as tethered shooting and automatic distortion correction, almost every tool in the toolbox has seen an improvement — including some you might not think needed improving. If you shoot with a raw-capable digital camera, it’s time to update. Continue to read

Face recognition has been one of the most requested digiKam features, and the latest version of the photo management application provides this functionality.

As the name suggests, the face recognition functionality can be used to find photos containing faces and attach face tags to persons in photos. This lets you quickly locate all photos of a specific person using digiKam filtering capabilities.

Tagging faces in digiKam is a rather straightforward procedure. Open the photo you want in the preview pane, press the Add a Face Tag button, draw a rectangle around a face on the photo, enter the face tag (e.g., the person’s name), and press Confirm.

Tagging faces manually can be a daunting proposition, especially if you have a considerable number of photos of people. Fortunately, digiKam can do the donkey job of automatically identifying faces for you. Expand the People sidebar, and press the Scan collections for faces button. In the Scanning Faces window tick the Detect and recognize faces check box. By default, digiKam scans all collections and tags, but you can limit the scan operation to certain albums and tags. To do this, press the Options button and select the albums and tags you want from the Search in drop-down list in the Albums section. While at it, you can tweak the face detection parameters in the Parameters section. Press then the Scan button and let digiKam do its job. Once the scan is completed, you should see all photos containing faces. You can then go through the scanned photos to fix face tags and remove incorrectly identified images.

This is a major release of the digiKam Tricks book, featuring a completely revised and updated content that reflects changes in the upcoming version 2.0 of the digiKam photo management application. In addition to that, the book includes the following new material:

• Batch Process Photos in digiKam
• Manage Photos from Multiple digiKam Installations
• Use Color Labels and Picks (digiKam 2.0)
• Tag Faces with the Face Recognition Feature (digiKam 2.0)
• Use Versioning for Non-destructive Editing (digiKam 2.0)
• APPENDIX A: Set up Photographic Workflow with digiKam

Readers who already purchased the book will receive the new version free of charge. If you haven’t received your copy, please send your order confirmation as proof of purchase to dmpop@linux.com, and I’ll email you the latest version of the book.

Happy reading!