I’ve been experimenting with digiKam and XnView MP to catalogue images for clients as well as my own images. No hard decisions yet so I wonder what experience others have with these. Pros and cons so far:
XnView advantages:
It’s easy to make a template that copies all the metadata that you can paste into another image. digiKam only copies the photographer/contact information to a template, so if you’re adding another image to a series you need to manually enter the caption and keyword information.
It’s easy to export the metadata to a .CSV file directly. With digiKam I need to use exiftool from the terminal, which is not a big deal for me, but would be for a client.
I really like XnView’s batch processes, but of course I could use those even if I did the DAM with digiKam.
digiKam advantages:
digiKam writes XMP metadata as well as IPTC, whereas XnView seems stuck with IPTC. From what I understand, XMP is the future. Also, IPTC doesn’t seem to have a “title” field, which seems like a shortcoming.
digiKam has a more professional feel to it.
Something I haven’t been able to test is the compatibility of the metadata of each program with LR and Photo Mechanic. Does anybody have experience with this? Any other ideas or suggestions?
After playing with this more I think I’ve decided on digiKam for DAM. The deciding factor is XnView’s lack of support for writing XMP. It will read XMP, but can’t write it, and for me that’s essential.
This also allows me to make changes to the title and caption using Geeqie, although Geeqie calls the caption “comment”. Changes from Geeqie show in digiKam and vice versa. However, tags (named keywords in Geeqie) lose their tree structure going from digiKam to Geeqie.
Perhaps not relevant now that you have decided on digikam but in Xnview, if you want to write to xmp or generate xmp files that go with your raw files, go to
View > Update files from database.
You may have discovered this already but took me a while to figure it out.
Xnview is pretty good and opens much more quickly but I think digikam is better laid out and easier to customise.
I’m happy to write xmp sidecar files for raw files, or alternatively convert raw files to DNG so I can embed xmp, in either program, but I do need it to embed xmp into jpegs and tiffs. My primary issue is that xnview doesn’t seem to be fully functional with xmp. For example, there does not seem to be a “Title” field. There’s a “Headline” field, but that’s an IPTC field and not the same thing.
One of the most important aspects for me is that the metadata will be compatible with industry standards, especially Photo Mechanic and Light Room. For my own images I could possibly make do with straight IPTC, but with clients, especially a current project, compatibility is important. That’s what concerns me about Xnview, with the glaring absence of the “Title” field.
You’re right. I was trying to enter XMP data from the Ctrl-I command, then in options selecting XMP only. Unfortunately that doesn’t give the XMP fields. I see now that you need to enter it from Tools/Metadata/Edit XMP. I’ll probably still use digiKam for most cataloguing purposes, however, as I like the layout and workflow better. For batch functions XnviewMP is still a great tool.
Another question about XnviewMP if you don’t mind please. With digiKam I can catalog the photos on an external drive as a new collection. Then, when the drive is not connected to the computer I still have the thumbnails and metadata in the database. If I search for images with a certain keyword, for instance, it will show me the images on the external drive (not attached) as well as the local images. From what I can tell, XnViewMP doesn’t seem able to do this. Do you know if it does?
I have to check as, not being a professional with a huge asset, I didn’t need this function until now. but I doubt it is available.
I suppose the drive is identified by volume name.
I use and like them both.
XnView’s new GPS Editor is quicker/better.
XnView can batch-write jpeg comments that are compatible with FastStone; I have not found another program that can do this.
XnView’s IPTC Editor ROCKS! You have to look for it, but there is also a switch to change the IPTC Editor to a XMP Editor.
One huge advantage of XnView, at least for me, is that XnView can navigate directly to images via the standard folder tree.
digiKam has the best keyword tagging system of any other program I have tried and can support sub-tags several layers deep; in fact, I have some very deep sub-tags and I have not found a bottom yet.
Thanks, I like them both. My plan right now is to use digiKam as my main DAM program because it works with external drives, i.e. showing the thumbnails and metadata for images that are on a drive not attached to the computer. As far as I can tell XnView doesn’t do this.
I also like the search function of digiKam where you can quickly press Ctrl-F, enter some words and it will search all fields. You can also do more advanced searches with values for specific fields, but it didn’t seem that XnView has the simple, quick search function.
On the other hand, I like the templates of XnView that make it easier to copy all the metadata fields and apply them to additional images. digiKam only has templates for contact, copyright info etc, but not for the description and tags metadata fields. Workable, but XnView would be quicker for this function.
digiKam is unfortunately quite sluggish, even when viewing images. But the keyword tagging editing is unsurpassed - something better I have never seen.
For quick viewing and comparing photos I still use XnViewMP, it does it very well. But the real building of my database and tagging: only digiKam.
Unfortunately, I (still) need both programs, in parallel.
I’m fine with using multiple programs for tasks to which they are most suited. For quick viewing, culling and comparing I use Geeqie. RawTherapee for converting raw, Gimp for further editing, Hugin for stitching and stacking, XnViewMP for batch functions such as resizing, adding borders etc, EXIFTool for various tasks, and definitely digiKam for database.
Same here; I jump around from program to program, using whichever is best suited for the task at hand.
I do have two programs that I would be crippled without; unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, both are Windows Only.
The first being FastStone; FastStone is the backbone and workhorse of everything else I do with image files; everything else I do begins and ends in FastStone.
The other program is D.I.M. (Digital Image Mover).
D.I.M. copies the image pairs, RAW and Large jpeg, from the memory card to organized dated folders and custom renames them in the process, providing the same name for all image pairs.
I also often use D.I.M. to rename and organize images that are already in the computer (mostly other peoples images/computers), where someone else has either not followed any organizational plan at all, or done a random hack job at renaming that only made sense at the time and is forever after a mystery.
One more program that I often call upon is Advanced Renamer; it can do all sorts of things that I have not yet learned how to do; plus, it can remove, replace, or add numbers, symbols, or letters, to either end or anywhere in the middle of a whole batch of filenames.
Hello @BuckSkin,
if you got used to FastStone, then I also understand that you are happy with it. But everything you do with FS you can certainly do with XnViewMP, I suspect even better. I used to use XnView almost exclusively on Windows. Now on Linux I still use it too, but digiKam has such a superior ability to manage keywords, XnViewMP can’t keep up at all. I’m doing more and more with digiKam and learning more and more about what this fantastic program can do.
I use both as well and for similar reasons. They both have their strengths and weaknesses. XnView definitely better on the speed but Digikam much better on the tagging / keywording functionality.
