Photo buffs who are fond of open source software would do well to look at blueMarine. Right now, the free, cross-platform application's strength is image management, but it is on its way to becoming a complete workflow tool. Its cataloging features are robust, its architecture is extensible, and it takes some intriguing new approaches.

Last week we learned how to sanely organize our vast digital photo archives with Digikam. Today we'll look at Digikam's built-in editing tools. You'll be able to do a surprising amount of your editing work without ever leaving Digikam.

Do you need a Macintosh computer for high-quality, satisfying digital photo management?

I had been using digikam for several years to manage my collection of digital photographs. With the recent purchase of a new DSLR (my first I might add), I was looking to see what else was out there in the terms of software, functionality, features, costs, etc. At the same time, while looking on the net to see what was available, I found many people looking for the same things as I.

Photo management software for Windows makes us weep. For most people, photo management consists of loading the software (and drivers) that came from the camera manufacturer. So you've got a Nikon camera, and the photo management software is really different from your significant other's Kodak software... With GNU/Linux it's different.

It’s been said that for a free software desktop to succeed it needs to address the needs of the average home user. Managing digital photographs is just one of those needs. Let’s see how one of the more popular free software photo management applications, digiKam, measures up.

Compared to powerful and feature-rich photo applications like F-Spot and digiKam, Fotox looks decidedly underpowered. But while Fotox is no match to those powerhouses featurewise, this lightweight tool can come in handy when you have to perform basic photo editing fast and with minimum fuss.

digiKam is a fantastic KDE application used to sort, arrange and manipulate digital photographs. It features: fetching pictures from a camera, cataloguing and complex editing. It also enables you to add comments to photos, tag them and rate your collection.

F-Spot is a graphical photo manager that allows you to tag your image files and search and view images based on those tags. With phpfspot, you can share the photo collection you manage with F-Spot with others through a Web interface and let them navigate through your photos using the tags you have set up.