digiKam is a

free and open-source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a Software license, license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term ...

image organizer An image or picture is a visual representation. An image can be two-dimensional, such as a drawing, painting, or photograph, or three-dimensional, such as a carving or sculpture. Images may be displayed through other media, including a proje ...

and tag editor written in C++ using the

KDE Frameworks KDE Frameworks is a collection of Library (computing), libraries and software frameworks readily available to any Qt (software), Qt-based software stacks or applications on multiple operating systems. Featuring frequently needed functionality sol ...

Features

digiKam runs on most known desktop environments and window managers, as long as the required libraries are installed. It supports all major

image file formats An image file format is a file format for a digital image. There are many formats that can be used, such as JPEG, PNG, and GIF. Most formats up until 2022 were for storing 2D images, not 3D ones. The data stored in an image file format may be c ...

, such as JPEG and PNG as well as over 200

raw image format A camera raw image file contains unprocessed or minimally processed data from the image sensor of either a digital camera, a motion picture film scanner, or other image scanner. Raw files are so named because they are not yet processed, ...

s and can organize collections of photographs in directory-based albums, or dynamic albums by date, timeline, or by tags. Users can also add captions and ratings to their images, search through them and save searches for later use. Using plug-ins, users can export albums to various online services including (among others) 23hq,

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

Flickr Flickr ( ) is an image hosting service, image and Online video platform, video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was previously a co ...

, Gallery2,

Google Earth Google Earth is a web mapping, web and computer program created by Google that renders a 3D computer graphics, 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposition, superimposing satelli ...

's KML files, Yandex.Fotki,

MediaWiki MediaWiki is free and open-source wiki software originally developed by Magnus Manske for use on Wikipedia on January 25, 2002, and further improved by Lee Daniel Crocker,mailarchive:wikipedia-l/2001-August/000382.html, Magnus Manske's announc ...

, Rajce, SmugMug, Piwigo, Simpleviewer, Picasa Web Albums. Plug-ins are also available to enable burning photos to a CD and the creation of web galleries. digiKam provides functions for organizing, previewing, downloading and/or deleting images from digital cameras. Basic auto-transformations can also be deployed on the fly during picture downloading. In addition, digiKam offers image enhancement tools through its KIPI (KDE Image Plugins Interface) framework and its own plugins, like red-eye removal,

color management Color management is the process of ensuring consistent and accurate colors across various devices, such as monitors, printers, and cameras. It involves the use of color profiles, which are standardized descriptions of how colors should be disp ...

, image filters, or special effects. digiKam was the only free photo management application on Linux that could handle 16 bit/channel images, until RawTherapee version 4.0 was released in 2011, using a new 32 bits/channel engine for all internal image processing.

Digital Asset Management Digital asset management (DAM) and the implementation of its use as a computer application is required in the collection of digital assets to ensure that the owner, and possibly their delegates, can perform operations on the data files. Termino ...

is the mainstay of digiKam. digiKam relies on libraries such as exiv2, allowing it to edit XMP metadata embedded in images or separately as sidecar files. It also supports DNG format reading and writing
Marble
is also integrated for editing and viewing of geolocations in images. digiKam also efficiently caches image thumbnails and paths in a database, in th
PGF
format, allowing for quick overviews. There are various database backends to choose from, with scalability and portability considerations taken into account. This database file is independent of photo libraries, enabling remote paths, multiple roots and offline backups. As a non-modal image editor; digiKam's UI also supports live search boxes in both sidebars and the main window.

History

digiKam has been in development since before 2006. As of version 0.9 features include a GPS locator and synchronization, iPod Photo upload support, an advanced metadata editor, better support for

s (using dcraw included in digiKam), full color management, a light-table, pan-tool in Image Editor and Preview mode, improvements in usability, and many new plugins. digiKam 2.0 was released in July 2011, sporting a number of new features, including: *

Face detection Face detection is a computer technology being used in a variety of applications that identifies human faces in digital images. Face detection also refers to the psychological process by which humans locate and attend to faces in a visual scene ...

and recognition support * XMP sidecar support *

Reverse geocoding Reverse geocoding is the process of converting a location as described by geographic coordinates (latitude, longitude) to a human-readable address or place name. It is the opposite of forward geocoding (often referred to as address geocoding or ...

* Image versioning * Pick Labels & Color Labels support to improve photographic workflow * Many new RAW decoding features In August 2018 a

beta Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; or ) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Ancient Greek, beta represented the voiced bilabial plosive . In Modern Greek, it represe ...

version of DigiKam 6.0 was published. Improvements comprise support for video files used as photos, as well as new RAW and export options.

Face detection and recognition

Starting with version 2.0, digiKam has introduced

face recognition A facial recognition system is a technology potentially capable of matching a human face from a digital image or a Film frame, video frame against a database of faces. Such a system is typically employed to authenticate users through ID verif ...

allowing you to automatically identify photos of certain people and tag them. DigiKam's photo manager was the first free project to feature similar functionality, with face recognition previously implemented only in proprietary products such as Google Picasa, Apple's Photos, and Windows Live Photo Gallery. Face recognition was implemented in version 2.0 through the ''libface'' library, and from version 3.3 it is based on OpenTLD project work
Version 7.0.0-beta1
uses th

from the

OpenCV OpenCV (Open Source Computer Vision Library) is a Library (computing), library of programming functions mainly for Real-time computing, real-time computer vision. Originally developed by Intel, it was later supported by Willow Garage, then Itseez ...

library.

Other OS

* Windows: Install digiKam via KDE Installer with digiKam-msvc. * There is an official port on macOS that can be compiled from raw or using MacPorts. * Most other Unix-like OSes are also supported.

Awards received

digiKam has been awarded the TUX 2005, 2008, and 2010 Readers' Choice Award in the category Favorite Digital Photo Management Tool.

References

External links

*
digiKam user wiki

digiKam KDE application
{{DEFAULTSORT:Digikam Extragear Free image organizers Free photo software Graphics software that uses Qt KDE Applications Linux image viewers Photo software for macOS Photo software for Linux Windows graphics-related software