Reviewer's verdict: I think digiKam is the best open source photo management tool out there. It's robust, powerful and best of all, it has API interface (which I have yet to try!). There also exists a more user-friendly interface, Showfoto - which most users will find very attractive.

All desktop environments support camera import, image management and editing applications. But the desktop defaults are really geared towards casual users. Don’t be fooled by that, though; open source can and does offer the tools to support professional photographers and high-end enthusiasts.

Giving your photos meaningful names makes it significantly easier to keep tabs on them. Of course, renaming each and every photo by hand is not particularly practical, especially if you take dozens or even hundreds of photos each day. This is when digiKam’s Rename feature can come in rather handy.

digiKam is a powerful and complete photo management tool from KDE. Among its many features is the ability to run batch processes, thanks to the Kipi plugin set. With a few simple clicks, users can manipulate multiple photos simultaneously, without having to remember long command line strings or taking countless hours to edit each file.

It's big. It's ugly. It's made from recycled parts, and uses a Linux operating system.

GIMP 2.6 is an important release from a development point of view. It features changes to the user interface addressing some often received complaints, and a tentative integration of GEGL, the graph based image processing library that will eventually bring high bit-depth and non-destructive editing to GIMP.

Shooting in RAW format is great for the photography buff. However, when it is time to share with others, post on your photo gallery, or print at the local photo printing shop, you want something more portable. Here we'll look at converting RAW photos (specifically Canon's CRW format) into JPEGs using a batch command-line approach in BASH.