Introduction
In my last openSUSE based article I took a look at the KDE games that are installed by default.I was slightly surprised that so many people still played card games such as Patience and Mahjongg.
The point of these articles is to elaborate a bit more on the software that is pre-packaged within openSUSE.
Quite often I write reviews listing the applications but without knowing how good the software is or even what the software does.
This time I will be looking at the graphics applications.
I have two confessions to make at this stage. The first is that I am to art what Corey Feldman is to music. The second confession will become all too obvious as we continue.
DNG Image Converter
I am not going to be spending long reviewing DNG Image Converter because to be honest I can't get it to do anything.
In theory clicking on the plus (+) icon allows you to pick an image file and then you can press the convert button to convert the image into another format.
In reality nothing happens.
Pressing the plus button shows an open file dialog. When I select any of the image file types allowed nothing happens.
Exposure Blending
DNG Image Converter doesn't work and I have absolutely no idea what the point of the Exposure Blending tool is for.
The text on the screen says that it fuses bracketed images with different exposures to make pseudo HDR image.
There is also a link to a Wikipedia page which defines the bracketing process.
Unfortunately I know very little about photography and I really only ever use a point and click camera.
It really is a case of going back to photography school for me on this one.
What I can say about the tool is that before I can even continue I need to download the "hugin" plugin. Clicking the download link takes me to this page.
I couldn't actually find a plugin that was available for install from the site. The plugin can be installed from Yast though.
In theory and it has to be theory because I couldn't get it to do anything (but please note this is my fault and not the tool's fault) is that you press the plus (+) icon and select two images.
It says the two images have to be from the same stack. I assume to photography experts this means something.
Upon selecting two images from the same stack you press next and it does the bracketing thing that it is supposed to do.
For a good tutorial and guide about how the exposure blending tool works visit this link.
Panorama
I would like to say that this review is now going to get better but it isn't.
The next graphics application in the list is Panorama.
This application just crashes when I try and open it.
Photo Layouts Editor
The KIPI Photo Layouts Editor is a rather crude tool for editing and laying out photos.
Basically you start off with a canvas which you define the size of and then you add images to the canvas. These are created as layers.
Each individual layer can have effects applied, borders applied, be resized and rotated.
If you are looking for a serious tool then I guess something like GIMP would be a better fit but this tool works for basic editing.
I guess the Grampian Transport Museum take security fairly seriously though, hiring storm troopers.
On a more serious note the Photo Layout Editor crashed on more than one occasion, especially when trying to add the Polaroid border with text.
DigiKam/ ShowFoto
When you open DigiKam for the first time you have to go through a number of screens to define your settings such as where you store your photos and how to handle thumbnails etc.
You can import photos from various sources including digital cameras, web cameras, external USB drives, Facebook, scanners and Picasa.
Once imported you can navigate through the albums and open photos for viewing or for editing.
Out of all the tools I have looked at this is the one I might use as a normal everyday user. It is a good tool for brightening up images, removing red eye and doing stuff to ordinary family photos.
Unfortunately it did crash on more than one occasion.
GwenView
GwenView is an image viewing tool.
You can use it to quickly browse through folders of photos or to run a slideshow.
Simply navigate to a folder of photos using the file manager and right click.
Under the actions will be an option to open with GwenView.
Summary
My attempts at using the graphic tools within openSUSE weren't particularly successful.
Some tools just wouldn't start and those that did had their fair share of crashes.
As someone with very little artistic talent (if any), there are some useful tools,most notably DigiKam, ShowFoto and GwenView.
The other tools are more for specialists if indeed they can get them working.
I would be interested to hear from people who are keen photographers to find out which Linux applications they use and what their experience is of such applications.
In the next article in this series I will be back to territory that I am more comfortable with as I will be dealing with the Internet and chat applications.
Thankyou for reading.
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