.png)
Managing and editing your photos using F-Spot, Tutorials and Tricks
F-Spot is photo manager designed to work on GNOME desktop. If you have got many personal photos or you are just into photography, then you got to use F-Spot. People tend to store photos in folders and try to manage them manually now that is alright for a few hundred images but once the number increase this becomes hard. Photos become hard to search and adding more photos becomes tough as well. So, if you have got lot many pictures or you don't want the labor work of managing them or simple you are just too lazy (like me), don't worry F-Spot will save the day for you.
My first impression of F-Spot was that the interface was really sweet. Sweet in terms of simplicity and ease of use, not much buttons not much confusion. There are two panes, the one on the left shows tags (by default) and can be switched to either one of metadata, Edit, and Folders (each one explained later), and the right pane shows the thumbnails to images. In addition to the two panes there is a very cool timeline, a tool-bar, and a standard menu-bar.
F-Spot currently supports 16 different image formats, so one expects not to have any trouble opening any image that a digital camera takes. It is the default picture manager in Ubuntu and is also available on the package repository of nearly all the major Linux distributions making it easily available to install if not preloaded.
Installing F-Spot
As mentioned above nearly all major linux distributions have got F-Spot on their repositories, so you can use your package manager to install F-Spot on your machine. But, if your linux distribution does not have it in its repository then you will have to do the installation manually.
I will advice you to first look into your package manager and search for F-Spot, in case you can't find it go to F-Spot website. Once you are on the website click on the download option on top bar or visit the download page directly. Under the release section you will see the link to download the package, click it and download the package. Once the package is downloaded extract it in a desired folder. Once extracted, open that folder in terminal and type the following commands in order.
./configure
make
make install
Note: if you are still unable to install, check the readme file or drop in a comment or mail me personally.
How to import photos in F-Spot
When you will run F-Spot for the first time you will be prompted for photo import by F-Spot itself, but if you manually want to import more photos in F-Spot later, like from a camera or some other device, you can do it by pressing the big import button just below the menu bar in the top left corner.
When you will press the import button a screen will pop up in front of you, the same screen comes up when you start F-Spot for the first time.
Once the above screen comes up, click on the import source to either select a folder or some external media to import images from once you have selected the folder that has the images press import button and the images will start to load.
Once the images are loaded into the window you can press the import button to import them into F-Spot. But, here are a few options you should consider of before importing images:
- Detect Duplicates (Select this option if you don't want to include duplicate photos.)
- Copy files to the Photo folder (If files are being imported from an external media like camera this option must be selected so that the photos are automatically imported to the hard disk.)
- Include Subfolders (I prefer this option so that all of the folders are scanned.)
Photo Editing with F-Spot
While in the browser mode double click a photo to enter into the edit mode here in the edit mode you can do some basic (yet useful editing to your photos). F-Spot allows you to do following editing to your image (we will discuss some in detail):
- Crop
- Straighten
- Adjust Colors
- AutoColor
- Desaturate
- Sepia
- Remove Red-Eye
- Soft Focus
- Sharpen
- Describe
- Adjust Time
Croping Photos in F-Spot
Croping a photo is like cutting a piece of it, it is good if you want to use the part of the picture only. Like in this whole post images have been cut into pieces just to show you the main parts.
To crop a photo first double click a photo to go into edit mode, and then click on the crop button on in the left pane. Now just click on the photo and keep clicking to select an area that you want to crop. You may also select constraints from the left pane if you prefer.
Straighten Photos in F-Spot
If you took an image that is not straight dont worry F-Spot will correct it. Straighten effect is a tool to level a photo, quite helpful for landscapes taken without a tripod. This tool rotates an image by a specified angle and automagically crops the resulted image, so that you always see a perfect rectangle and a straight photo.
to Straighten a photo just select straighten from left pane (in edit mode). and move the bar to select the number of degrees to straighten the image.
Adjust Colors of Photos in F-Spot
It is another useful option, you can do color correction and even change the white balance. So, if you think the image colors are not good and need a but of adjustment go for this option. If you are creative enough you can make the image look artistic.
AutoColor, Desaturate, Sepia Tone in F-Spot
These are basic option not much selection to make just select them from the left pane in the edit mode and click on the button to apply them. Auto Color will adjust the color of the image. Desaturate will wash the colors away, Sepia Tone will add Sepia effect to it.
Sharpen a Photo in F-Spot
To sharpen a photo first open picture in edit mode. Then, click 'edit' in the menu bar and select sharpen
Now you will see a preview of the image and a small window through which you can adjust the values to modify the image.
Shortcuts in F-Spot
Global Shortcuts
| Key | Action |
| [ | Rotate the selected photos to the left |
| ] | Rotate the selected photos to the right |
| Del | Remove selected photos from F-Spot's catalogue |
| Shift + Del | Delete selected photos permanently from the drive. If possible, they will moved to trash |
| t | View or edit tags for selected photos |
| F11 | Full screen view |
| Ctrl + I | Displays information about the photo |
| Ctrl + = | Zoom-in |
| Ctrl + - | Zoom-out |
| Ctrl + N | Import photos |
| Alt + (0 to 5) | Alt plus a number from 0 to 5 rate the selected picture(s) |
Browse Mode Shortcuts
| Key | Action |
| Ctrl+A | Select all |
| Ctrl+Shift+A | Un-Select all |
| Arrow keys or H, J, K, L | Move focus |
| Ctrl-Arrow key | Move the focus without changing the selection |
| Spacebar | Select or unselect the focused photo |
| Shift+Arrow key | Add/Remove all photos in the row, in the direction pressed, to the selection |
| Ctrl+Shift+Left arrow or Right arrow | Displays information about the photo |
| V | Pops up a larger preview of the picture pointed by the mouse |
| Ctrl + V | Zoom-out |
| Ctrl + N | Pops up a larger preview and a color histogram of the picture pointed by the mouse |
Tag Shortcuts
| Key | Action |
| F2 | Rename selected tag |
| Ctrl+T | Add tags to selected photos |
Edit Mode Shortcuts
| Key | Action |
| Page Up, Backspace, B | Go to Previous Photo |
| Page Down, Spacebar, N | Go to Next Photo |
| Arrow keys or H, J, K, L | Go to Previous/Next photo or move around a zoomed photo |
| R | Go to a random photo |
| f | Full screen view |
| 0 | Fit the image to the screen |
| 1 | Zoom Factor to 1.0 (1 screen pixel per image pixel) |
| 2 | Zoom Factor to 2.0 (4 screen pixels per image pixel) |
| Escape | Returns to Browser mode |
| V/td> | Examine photo with magnifying glass (Loupe). Doubleclick on the Loupe, or type v again to close it. |
| Shift-Mousewheel | Faster filmstrip scrolling |
| i | Toggle infobox visibility ''(only when in full screen)'' |
0 comments: