Proposed Photo managers for Ubuntu 10.04, Lucid Lynx

All of you would know by now that Ubuntu Devels are planning to remove GIMP as a default program. This has led to a lot of discussions among them about the default photo manager for Ubuntu Lucid that will compensate for it. They are not supposed to be as powerful as GIMP but should be able to handle some minimal image manipulations. In this article, we will look into the 3 top competitors F-Spot, Shotwell and Solang.

And we will see what all features each of them aims to provide to be considered as the default photo manager cum image manipulator and viewer for Lucid.

Shotwell

Shotwell is an opensource photo manager designed for Gnome Desktop Environment. Instead of just being a photo organizer it is capable of doing some small image manipulations too like reducing red-eye, rotate, crop and mirror photos.

It can act as a separate image editor and image viewer too i.e. you don't have to import images anymore. The TODO list includes implementing Facebook and Flickr export feature, creating slideshows with customizable music and transitions.

Solang

As far as the developers' views go, Solang doesn't aim to be a universal photo management and processing tool. It aims to act as a front-end for all photo-sharing containers, namely,Folders, CD/DVD, picasaweb, Flicker etc. They are planning to make it fast and flexible with powerful search capabilities and design.

Solang can be directly installed from the repos.

F-Spot

I don't think people are really happy with F-spot. It might seem to be a bit heavy but the complains about its importing everytime are wrong. I used to think the same but running it in view mode "f-spot --view" solves this problem, it doesn't import anything.

In a similar way, it can act as a small image editor too. No need to import anything. Though the developers may work on adding some more image manipulation features, slide show creating capability and online photo galleries export feature like Solang.

Inspite of the major three, there have been some other proposals too. e.g. to keep the F-spot as it is and instead add some image processing capabilities in EOG. The other tools proposed are gthumb and nautilus-image-converter.

I haven't tried Solang and Shotwell much, still a F-spot fan. But all of you linuxers can help the Developers decide which one should be used for the next LTS release. So, if you have tried any of the three, feel free to leave a comment sharing your view.

24 Comments

seif sallam's picture
seif sallam (not verified)
December 19th, 2009 02:12 pm
you should've tried the new F-Spot 2.11, they really did a great job.
December 19th, 2009 02:38 pm

I think you probably missed something.. the latest f-spot version is 0.6.1.5 . gthumb's recent version is 2.11, I haven't used it but will sure give it a try..

FreeBooteR's picture
FreeBooteR (not verified)
December 20th, 2009 04:01 am
I would pick gthumb over all the other alternatives.
Jethro's picture
Jethro (not verified)
December 20th, 2009 04:16 am
I'll stick to Gimp, thank you. :)
Anon Linuxer's picture
Anon Linuxer (not verified)
December 21st, 2009 07:25 pm
Gimp is more of a photo editor like Photoshop, not a photo manager like these other products seem to be. I don't see them as being in the same category, so how could one of these three (or any other) be a "replacement" for Gimp?
Anon Linuxer's picture
Anon Linuxer (not verified)
December 21st, 2009 07:36 pm
They aren't most Ubuntu users don't require the functionality of GIMP, there is a massive learning curve to use GIMP. So it is being removed based on being a pro-tool and not noobie friendly.
December 21st, 2009 09:42 pm

I was talking about  using the image editing feature of the photo managers  as a replacement for GIMP, not photo managment.

aNon's picture
aNon (not verified)
December 21st, 2009 07:35 pm
Does f-spot still rely on mono? If so then I will use something else. I have been using Digikam and am quite happy with it but I will try out the ones mentioned and will install Gimp as always.
Anon Linuxer's picture
Anon Linuxer (not verified)
December 21st, 2009 07:37 pm
I use Image Viewer to look at images, and gthumb for my photo editor. I don't particularly like F-spot. For the heavy photo stuff there is GIMP. Even if GIMP is not included in Ubuntu 10.4LTS, it can be added very easy anyway.
Anon Linuxer's picture
Anon Linuxer (not verified)
December 21st, 2009 07:41 pm
I use gthumb and like it a lot. (I've tried f-spot but was not amused.)
Anon Linuxer's picture
Anon Linuxer (not verified)
December 22nd, 2009 01:11 am
Digikam is a great program to manage photos: http://www.digikam.org/
Anon Linuxer's picture
Anon Linuxer (not verified)
December 22nd, 2009 02:23 am
gThumb is great. It syncs with my camera and import pics easily. Just add some simple functionality to EoG (cropping, red-eye removal, save-as etc.) and all's well.
Anon Linuxer's picture
Anon Linuxer (not verified)
December 22nd, 2009 02:39 am
Gthumb - does everything 'normal' people would want. F-Spot needs Mono - bad idea.
Hong Quan's picture
Hong Quan (not verified)
December 22nd, 2009 05:18 am
I like F-Spot's appearance but not its performance. Too heavy and too slow. I wish gThumb would improve its look n feel and facility in file manipulation.
Anon Linuxer's picture
Anon Linuxer (not verified)
December 22nd, 2009 08:54 am
There is a great photo editor called fotoxx . Its very light on its feet.
simon@syd's picture
simon@syd (not verified)
December 22nd, 2009 08:59 am
There is one thing I like about my XP box at work - Microsoft Picture Manager. The great thing about it is that it is so easy to do batch jobs in it, with an easy to use GUI. I'd love to see a similar thing in the default build of Ubuntu - this is classically, why it would be an okay idea to replace the Gimp (and F-spot, which I've never gotten to love) with a picture manager, as opposed to a picture editor.
Anon Linuxer's picture
Anon Linuxer (not verified)
December 22nd, 2009 08:16 pm
F-spot is a mono-dependant program. Bad idea to use it. Bthumb is so much better. Digikam really looks good. Release 1.0.0 is just out!!
Anon Linuxer's picture
Anon Linuxer (not verified)
December 22nd, 2009 08:18 pm
I meant Gthumb
Anon Linuxer's picture
Anon Linuxer (not verified)
December 24th, 2009 04:10 am
phraymd seems interesting too : https://launchpad.net/phraymd
Fotoğraf Makinaları's picture
Fotoğraf Makinaları (not verified)
January 8th, 2010 07:56 am
I like F-Spot's appearance but not its performance.
web tasarım's picture
web tasarım (not verified)
January 8th, 2010 06:10 pm
phraymd seems interesting too
joeyjuviyani's picture
joeyjuviyani (not verified)
January 15th, 2010 10:50 pm
The Ubuntu 10.04 release is near. Recently the Ubuntu 10.04 final version was made avaialble to testers for testing.It is also known as Lucid Lynx. This technology supports kernel mode-setting for Linux kernel image boot more fluid between the boot and start X server. I am a Linux- Ubuntu user and I am very much eager to get the Ubuntu 10.04. I got the information about this from: Ubuntu 10.04
hardy234's picture
hardy234 (not verified)
February 10th, 2010 09:43 am

Great Blog I love the lay out and the color scheme is it possible to get a copy of your theme? Please send me an email at JoanBm@gmail.com

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