Organize Photos on Linux
While most of the cameras come with Windows-only installation disk and does not even mention Linux in the manual, it is usually possible to use Linux to organize the photos. When the recent camera with the USB connection is connected to a Linux - running computer, it normally represents itself as a "mass storage device" - a kind of the hard drive-like device that contains folders with images. You can manually copy the images where you like and then (if preferred) manually delete them from the camera.
Cameras with non proprietary memory card types also have another, even more convenient way - to remove card from the camera, insert into computer card reader and then work with the files. This saves the camera USB socket that is usually tiny and can be easily damaged if connected very frequently.
The ordinary file managers line Nautilus or Konqueror offer pretty enough support to work with the images, including thumbnail previews. There is also a big choice of programs that would allow to view pictures in a full screen mode. Alternatively, you can try one of freely available dedicated picture managers.
Contents
Steps
- When buying a camera, try to be as sure as possible that you can access it under Linux. The camera should have USB connection and in the ideal case have the standard memory cards like Compact Flash or SD. If you are not sure if the camera will cooperate with Linux computer, check if it supports Mac. Cameras that support Mac frequently support Linux as well.
- When buying a computer, look for the model with the built - in card reader in a well accessible place.
- Test Linux access when you bring the camera home. If it does not work, you can usually bring the camera back.
- Create a camera folder for all photos and have the bookmark to that folder on the file manager you use.
- Store your photos in sub-folders named according to year followed by month followed by date followed by topic. Computer file managers order file names better this way.
- You can tag your photos. But make sure the tag data is stored in the files (exif) metadata and not a database unique to the software.
- Make regular backups to the different hard drive. Linux is efficient in making efficient backups with tools like rsync. Tools like Anacron allow to have automated backups.
- Back photos to some external data storage regularly. Optionally back up to online services such as Flickr or Photobucket.
Tips
- If you have two hard drives and some experience, it may be a good idea to store pictures in RAID, having a backup automatically that way.
- It may be useful to download and try a dedicated photo organizer like Xnview, Picasa or digiKam.
- The image processing tasks like cropping, scaling and brightness / color corrections can be easily done with GIMP.
Warnings
- Avoid making backups on DVD - this media is not very reliable. It is better to have backups on CD or external hard drive.
- If you make backups into another place of the local file system, be sure that the backup location is in another hard drive or at least in a different partition.
