I switched from Flickr to SmugMug for data storage of the photos I took, and last year I started to I also pulled out of SmugMug and replaced it with simple cloud storage storage. At the same time, I switched from Lightroom to RawTherapee and ART. In each case, the direct motivation was to save on subscription fees. In short, I’m stingy.
I have no problems with the software environment for storage, RAW development, and blog posting, but the only thing that bothers me is the organization of the ever-increasing amount of photo data.
Currently, I simply store primary data in folders by camera equipment and shooting date, and only the data that I am satisfied with are developed in RAW, sorted into different folders, and embedded in blog posts and so on.
When I used to be a Lightroom user, I could freely organize primary data. As long as I uploaded the developed data to Flickr or Smugmug, the data management functions of these sites helped me a lot.
Now that I have given up such a working environment, I wonder how to organize the accumulating photo data.
One tool I found this time is digiKam, which I think can be used as a countermeasure.
It allows you to browse and edit metadata, including tagging and ranking of each data, for photo data(RAW & jpg) from almost all manufacturers, and search within a specified folder or subfolder. Since metadata is not written directly to each file, but only associated virtually, there is no need to worry about touching and modifying the original file itself.
The operation screen looked like this, for example
It’s a very functional image management tool. It’s open-source freeware, which I like.
It seems to have various other functions such as exporting to various cloud storage and SNS, photo editing, etc., but it will take a lot of effort for me, a weak-willed person, to understand all of its functions. Well, I guess I’ll just have to try it out slowly as I use it.
If you are already using digiKam or are planning to use it in the future, it would be great to exchange information with you.
