Best Linux software to import still images from a digital camera

Bogdan — Sat, 01 May 2010 22:08:01 +0000

Back in the times when Windows was my OS more than 75% of the time in front of the computer, I really liked a simple photos import utility, supplied for Canon digital still image cameras. It allowed the import of all the new media items (photos and movies) from a camera into a pre-configured location in one click, and it also automatically created date-based directories for new photos. Given the removable media autoplay feature, after connecting the camera it was really a matter of one click (or one button press) to have everything copied.

Today, I decided to have a look at what the FOSS community has to match that simple and useful Canon utility. Here’s my “rating”:

digikam: nice and easy import; supports date-based auto-creation of albums (directories); feature-reach, suitable as a primary images-viewing application; my personal “number one” for now.
f-spot: easy import; has nice date-based photos browser; on import, converts photo filenames to lower case; my second choice, will have a closer look at its features.
gThumb: good import, but haven’t found a way to configure/create target directory during import.
gtkam: unusual interface; while testing, it died once unexpectedly; otherwise easy to use.
picasa: haven’t tried to import with a recent version, but I generally dislike the idea of using software which requires an extra layer to run (wine in this case), unless it is unique. Picasa is not unique, and thus looses (in my opinion) to digikam.

Autarchy of the Private Cave » f-spot

Best Linux software to import still images from a digital camera