The Archiver

Shotwell Desktop

added by the user in a database. In con- trast to other image management programs (e.g., digiKam), Shotwell doesn’t change the images it manages; it doesn’t even copy them to a special directory unless you tell it to do so. Management with Shotwell is a completely virtual process, although you do have the option of transferring the images to the database directory. During the import process, Shotwell asks what you would like it to do (Figure 1). When Shotwell reads the images, it evaluates the date stored in the image metadata then uses the date to create events whose names match the dates in question. Events are created each time Shotwell reads a file, so two imports Organizing digital photos with Shotwell (e.g., photos from two cameras taken on the same day) will create two events [4]. The events are listed in the sidebar on the left. As of v0.6, importing runs in the background. After completing the import The process, Shotwell provides a status report (Figure 2). In v0.8, newly created files are automatically imported. Shot- well reads images from arbitrary directo-

© Kirsty Pargeter, 123RF.com ries (e.g., from cameras mounted as stor- Archiver age devices). Additionally, it will read images from any camera supported by The Shotwell image manager automates the process of the gPhoto2 library. During the import, Shotwell creates organizing photo collections while also protecting digital thumbnails of all the pictures in two sizes and stores them in the database di- negatives. By Karsten Günther rectory. This process can consume several megabytes of disk space, and you should probably exclude these files from o organize the flood of images since delivered v0.7.2 as its default your backup process. Note that Shotwell that today’s digital cameras pro- image manager, and v0.8 came out in stores the thumbnails in a hidden Tduce, you need a competent December 2010. If you don’t find Shot- ~/.shotwell folder. The program settings piece of software, and a newcomer well in your distribution’s repository, are stored in GConf files (XML format) called Shotwell [1] has recently made a check out the “Setting up Shotwell” box below ~/.gconf/apps/shotwell. name for itself. Previous versions of for more information. When importing images, Shotwell can Shotwell offered by the distribution re- easily trip up if a directory with images positories (typically v0.5) had very few Importing Images also contains other data. In many cases, features; in fact, you couldn’t even im- Shotwell supports PNG and JPEG, but Shotwell will simply stop importing. The port PNGs – not to mention DNG (digital not BMP, GIF, or TIFF files. Limited sup- same thing applies to invalid symlinks. negative) or RAW formats – until v0.6. port for the RAW format lets you view The only remedy is to remove any con- Version 0.6 was available when this re- the image as a JPEG, but you can only fusing files up front. Shotwell relies on view was written, but Ubuntu 10.10 has export edited images as 8-bit JPEG or UFRaw to import digital negatives or PNG. Video formats supported by GStreamer are also supported in Shotwell. Shotwell manages the information from the Figure 1: Shotwell can copy or link an image. If it's in the Pictures (Exif) tags, as well Figure 2: The process of importing images directory, it's automatically linked. as any keywords into the database ends with a status report.

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Listing 1: PPA Configuration Listing 2: Package Installation

$ sudo add‑apt‑repository $ sudo apt-get install libdbus-glib-1-dev libgconf2-dev valac libgee-dev ppa:yorba/ppa libgstreamer0.10-dev libgtk2.0-dev libgudev-1.0-dev libexif-dev libjson-glib-dev $ sudo apt‑get update libgphoto2-2-dev libsoup2.4-dev libxml2-dev libsqlite3-dev libunique-dev $ sudo apt‑get install shotwell libwebkit-dev

choose another month or a year, Shotwell will show you program for the exactly one image for each event. The import (Figure 3). first photo is the default (Figure 5), but The process for you can right-click an image to make it importing directly the key photo for an event. from a camera You can also define your own events with gPhoto2 sup- by selecting the required images manu- port [5] is similar. ally and pressing Ctrl+N to group them. When launched, The new event then appears in the over- or after import, view along with the automatically gener- Figure 3: The Preferences section lets you choose the parameters Shotwell displays ated events in chronological order. You for importing RAW formats. an overview of all can then use the context menu to assign known images an intuitive name to the event. RAW data and thus supports nearly all (Figure 4). The slider at the bottom right Tags are easier to remember than current and most older cameras. The changes the thumbnail size; double- dates, and you can assign a tag to each RAW converter provides very granular clicking an image takes you to single-im- image, but Shotwell provides only rudi- control over the image conversion pro- age mode. Again, you can use the slider mentary functionality for doing so. You cess. Shotwell does use some preset val- to change the image size. The program can assign new tags to selected images ues that don’t exploit the potential of- also shows other controls for manipulat- in the context menu and remove or mod- fered by UFRaw, but you can modify ing the image in this mode. ify existing tags. Shotwell also supports these settings in Edit | Preferences, or The metadata stored in the images multiple tags per image, but does not (typically as Exif tags) with information support auto-completion, which means Table 1: Keyboard on the date taken and exposure settings you need to type tags in full. Shotwell Shortcuts are displayed bottom left in the main does not support tag hierarchies, which Shortcut Function window. You can also add keywords would be useful for grouping. You can Ctrl+I Import images (tags) and then group items by these also “rate” images if you wish, although tags, which also appear in the sidebar v0.6 gave me only two options: Book- Ctrl+Shift+e export images below the entry itself. This and other mark and Hide. Version 0.7 added one- Ctrl+P Print images functions can be controlled using key- to five-star ratings. With Hiding, the Ctrl+Shift+P Publish images (web albums) board shortcuts (Table 1). image disappears, but you can view it by Ctrl+b Use image as wallpaper As mentioned earlier, Shotwell will selecting View | Hidden photos (Table 1). Ctrl+Enter Open image in an group images with contiguous time- A filter lets you view only photos with a external program stamps in events. The software automat- specific star rating or better. Ctrl+Shift+M Open image in file ically creates these events and displays manager them in the sidebar. You might see mul- Image Manipulation Ctrl+n Define new event tiple events occurring for one day if the Shotwell supports non-destructive edit- Ctrl+T Add tags gap between the photos is big enough. If ing, which means you always keep the Ctrl+M Modify tags you choose a longer period, such as a original image; the changes are simply Ctrl+Shift+I Display image information Setting Up Shotwell Ctrl+Shift+X Display extended image The Shotwell installation guide [2] has in- currently included in the “Lucid” reposito- information structions for installing v0.8.1 for Ubuntu ries. Users on Ubuntu 9.10 (“Karmic”) Ctrl+F bookmark image 10.10 and v0.7.2 for Ubuntu 10.04 from the cannot use the valac and libgee-dev ver- Ctrl+Shift+F Display bookmarked images only developer PPA (Listing 1) or from source sions from the distribution repositories Ctrl+H Hide image for earlier versions of Ubuntu. because they are simply too old. Ctrl+Shift+H Show hidden photos Downloading the source code requires The Shotwell website recommends set- F2 Rename image you to install several developer packages. ting up the two packages directly from the F5 Slideshow On Ubuntu 10.04, you can install these Vala team’s PPA [3]. After you've resolved F11 Full-screen mode packages using the command in Listing 2. these dependency issues, you can down- Del Delete image You will also need to build libraw and load, unpack, build, and install the source Ctrl+Q Quit Shotwell gexiv2 from source, because they're not code.

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Future mode, and two others are available in the Photo view. The Shotwell roadmap [6] looks extremely QuickTime, MP4, and AVI container for- The simple controls and the program’s promising. The developers promise the in- mats; Theora, QuickTime, MPEG-4, and quick response to changes make work- tegration of GEGL, and they want Shot- Motion JPEG codecs; and the 3GP view ing with Shotwell a fast experience, and well to identify image folders automati- format common on mobile devices. automatic image correction works well. cally and thus register new images when- As of v0.8, you cannot view video directly However, you need a workaround to ever launched. in Shotwell. It launches an external video scale images: When you export an The ability to evaluate geotags and an au- player. Version 0.8 added a command-line image, the software lets you manually tomatic face-detection feature could also define the (reduced) target size, and the option, ‑d, allowing Shotwell users to help users catalog images in future. The quality, for JPEGs. You can then reim- choose a different database than the de- slideshow will benefit from configurable port the image to your database. fault. Migrating F-Spot databases and al- transitions and the ability to add back- Pressing Ctrl+Enter lets you pass the ground music. Shotwell supports Ogg, bums was possible as of v0.7. current image to an external program like GIMP, where you can access a full stored as instructions in the database. To tools offered by, say, GIMP or digiKam. set of image manipulation tools. How- tell Shotwell to create new files for ma- For example, rotation is restricted to ever, you can only do this for a single nipulated images, you must explicitly ex- 90-degree steps, and the color and expo- image, and using an external program port them in File | Export… . sure tools are limited. The positioning of invalidates the concept of non-destruc- The software has very few tools, and the tools also seems illogical: Five are at tive editing. they are not in the same league as the the bottom of the screen in single-image Conclusions Shotwell mainly lacks the ability to net- work various image search criteria. Al- though the application lets you find bookmarked images from an event, this feature doesn’t work if you have hidden the photos. The program also lacks an option for navigating from an image in one event to the group and thus to other images taken at the same time. Shotwell’s printing function only gives you one image per page, whereas other programs offer con- siderably more. I still like Shotwell because of its good desktop integration, easy controls, and frugal use of resources. And, develop- ment is going full steam; if the develop- Figure 4: The main Shotwell window shows you an image overview when launched. ers keep up the good work, users will see some interesting changes (see the “Future” box). n

INFO [1] Shotwell overview: http://gnomejournal. org/ article/ 99/ shotwell‑photo‑manager [2] Installation guide: http://www.yorba. org/shotwell/ install/ [3] Vala PPA: https://launchpad. net/ ~vala‑team [4] Automatic events in Shotwell: http://trac.yorba.org/ticket/139# comment:25 [5] gPhoto2: http://gphoto.sourceforge. net/proj/ libgphoto2/ support. php [6] Shotwell wiki: http://trac. yorba. org/ wiki/ Shotwell Figure 5: Below the image viewer are the number of pictures for an event and statistics.

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