Trying out F-Spot

Archiving digital photographs is something that I have always found a bit awkward. The system I’ve been using so far is starting to show the strain, and I think it’s time for a change.

The technique I’ve been using up until now has been to use Gallery (1.5, which stores data in a file rather than 2 which needs a database) and to make use of the offline mode it provides in order to build a CD. This has worked quite well, and I even wrote about it in Red Hat Magazine. I’ve got eleven of these photo CDs now, and it’s all getting a bit hard to manage. To find a specific photo, if I don’t remember exactly when it was taken, means searching several different CDs each with lots of albums on.

So I’ve taken the plunge and decided to give F-Spot a try.  I’ll back up the photos in the same way I already back up normal data, instead of having lots of CDs with photos on.

Actually I’m really impressed so far, but I’ve only put in a handful of photos.  I like the idea of being able to attach multiple tags to photos, but it’s a different way of working than I’m used to, not having used anything like Flickr.  I sort of wish there were some way to attach photo titles or captions to the pictures though.