Simpler Image Management in Ubuntu

Registered by Rick Spencer

Currently, users use one application to view images, and another to do simple editing, which also has a manage "mode", and where "simple" editing is not very simple.

This blueprint proposes to do for images what simple scan did for scanning. Define the 80% use case, and design an experience that "does just that" with no distraction, no bells, no whistles. Other image related tasks can, of course, be accomplished with different software.

Blueprint information

Status:
Not started
Approver:
Sebastien Bacher
Priority:
Medium
Drafter:
Rick Spencer
Direction:
Needs approval
Assignee:
None
Definition:
New
Series goal:
None
Implementation:
Unknown
Milestone target:
None

Related branches

Sprints

Whiteboard

We are covering image use as part of our Lucid usability testing which is happening this week. I will ensure that relevant findings are reported here to help shape the conversation.

bryce 2010-05-07: Here's my thoughts on feature needs, based largely on observing what my wife uses the most.
  * Red eye/green eye removal
  * Rotation
  * Scale
  * Crop
  * Add border
  * Convert to Black and White
  * Convert to Old Fashion (e.g. sepia)
  * Add caption text
  * Print
  * Send by email
  * Send to online photo service (shutterfly, Flickr, Picasa etc.)

[inquata 2010-05-07]
In general, it is key to merge viewer and basic editor. Full functionality could be in a pimped version of F-Spot, for example.

Additional features:
  * Share to Facebook, Twitter etc.
  * Slideshow function
  * Batch processing for nearly every feature (renaming as well)

Maybe:
  * Ability to edit RAW images
  * Adjustment of hue, saturation and brightness
  * (Panorama stitching?)

[amano 2010-05-08]
The gthumb 2.11 series is starting to get there. WIth 2.11.3 importing from your camera and importing from and exporting to picasa and flickr works and facebook support is close (you have to activate the extension first). You can crop, rotate and resize images and remove red eyes. You can turn pictures into greyscale or even into a "negative". Even mass renaming and tagging works fine. It should be considered to replace bot F-Spot and Eye of Gnome. It is not heavy on the resources and is less confusing than the bulky "let's import everything into a huge database" F-Spot.

[frederik.nnaji 2010-05-10]
 * tagging
 * send via IM
 * set as avatar
 * crop scanned images easily
 * crop screenshots easily
 * new photo (webcam)
 * gallery mode with drag and drop:
     drag one, multiple or all images onto
      a) categories
      b) tags
      c) places (folders, webalbums, devices, individual workspace wallpaper)
 * drag and drop effects onto image
 * show web folders & albums (facebook, myspace, picasa, custom etc..) - totem does this for youtube & bbc videos for example

[mmiicc 2010-05-10]
* ability to print straight from Nautilus (Print in right click menu option).

[amano 2010-05-05]
Solang is a C++ photo editor that does't use a complicated Database for importing and exporting and should be more intuitive for new users. I might try to create a discspace vs. RAM usage vs. feature vs. usability overview by the weekend. I hate the tendency of F-Spot to duplicate pictures on your harddisk (original location, ~/Photo folder and inside the database as well). If there are thousands of pictures to be imported, you might easily run out of disk space. And database corruptions/confusions are not impossible as well.

For now I can offer this video review of the Vala based Shotwell: http://linuxfilesystem.com/uncategorized/shotwell-photo-manager-for-gnome-linux-mint-8. It is database driven and doesn't recognize if you added new files to one of your photo folders (same for F-Spot). Thus new photos have to imported manually which can be tiresome. The C++ based Solang uses Tracker 0.8 to check the photo folders and SPARQL is used to gain access to the meta information about the photos. This approach looks perfectly sane but with its current version 0.4.1 it lacks the option to crop and resize files (http://git.gnome.org/browse/solang/tree/TODO?id=SOLANG_0_4_1) which is rather a "must have" since the removal of the GIMP (given that the simple-image-management blueprint doesn't bring to life a 'simple scan' for image editing). On the other hand it is developed at a rapid pace and those options might be included by the maverick feature freeze. To get a sensible decision in favor of Solang the authors should be contaced first. Shotwell on the other hand is not too different from F-Spot but is developed faster and performs better than the current default.

[humphreybc 2010-05-07]
Why don't we replace Eye of Gnome with gThumb? It has all the features that EOG has, but with some basic image editing like cropping, red eye removal, brightness chucked in too.

[amano 2010-05-08]
Yes, the new gthumb development branch looks very promising. Version 2.11.3 from mid April even added a flickr importer and exporter and a facebook exporter (the latter is an extension that currently has to be enabled first). It uses the database of Nautilus to store the thumbnails but doesn't use a database to import the pictures as a whole. And you are right to question the current Ubuntu approach to split the image related tasks into Eye of Gnome and F-Spot ones. Gthumb could replace both of them. 2.11.3 is already stable (at least for me) and featurewise it seems to offer exactly what can be considered basic everyday functionality.

[notes from UDS session]
== Shotwell ==
 * Shotwell wants users to import on first run, but users might not to import photos
 * You can't just do File->Open, you should open
 * Toolbar is at the bottom instead of the top
 * Toolbar should use stock icons
 * F11 works well
 * There is no Thumbnail view in viewer mode
 * A tad cheesey that rename pops up a dialog rather than editing in line
 * We would need to add a resize feature
 * Save as dialog needs adjusted button order
 * Shotwell and gwibber should share the same social networking credentials
 * Shotwell could tweet via gwibber
 * Shotwell could include gwibber photo stream
 * Shotwell should store tags in the headers
 * Shotwell should be able to watch a folder just like Rhythmox does for music
 * Should be in place resizing
 * Should handle deletion on disk better
 * We want the "Photos" directory to be monitored and shown automatically
 * Add a "Show in Folder" right click option to photos so users can find their photos (and perform actions on them that shotwell doesn't know about).

 == Gthumb ==
 * Some people say this is easy]
 * "Metadata"? maybe a friendly name there
 * gthumb was easier when the features were directly in the toolbar
 * Images

 == F-Spot ==
 * Need to import your pictures (no autosync like rhythmbox)

== Picassa ==
 * should have

Opened bugs for issues discussed about Shotwell:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/579801 Show photos from XDG_PICTURES_DIR/Photos on first run
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/579803 Migrate Photos from F-Spot
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/579804 Use EXIF data for tags
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/579806 Jump to photo in file browser
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/579807 Monitor photo directories for changes
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/579808 Update image file with editing operations (store backups elsewhere)

(?)

Work Items