DigiKam as Lightroom Replacement?

[LostMahbles]

I'm not sure whether this belongs here or in the gear section, but since it directly applies to post-processing, I hope it's alright.

I've recently blown a lot of cash on a new PC to do my photo-editing from. As such, I don't have a lot of cash left over to go out and get Lightroom and Photoshop.

I've become fairly comfortable using GIMP, so that's going to serve as my PS replacement for now, but I was wondering if anyone has any experience with digiKam, particularly anyone that has experience with both digiKam and Lightroom.

Is it capable of replacing Lightroom? Also, is there a lot of configuration (such as adding lots of plugins) required to make it useful?

Thanks to everyone. As always, your advice helps so much!

[DBeck]

Hi Bryan,

I use Lightroom and have looked at the features of DigiKam. Lightroom appears to be a little more robust as far as editing raw images. When editing RAW in Lightroom, you are able to isolate certain areas of an image and adjust contrast, exposure,brightness etc. It also has great printing features.

I guess you really need to ask what what you will use it for. DigiKam would definitely serve the purpose of organizing and tagging your files just like Lightroom, but if you want more powerful editing options, then Lightroom is your best bet.

If you ever decide to get Photoshop CS4, it comes with Bridge which is a photo organizer as well.

Hope this helps.

[LostMahbles]

Thanks for the response. My goal is to be able to do about 80% of my post-processing in digiKam/Lightroom, and then take the image into GIMP or Photoshop if I need to do detailed retouching, layer adjustments, etc.

I've used Lightroom for a little while and find that it's very easy to use, but if I can get the same level of editing/organization functionality (even if it takes a little bit of usability heartache) for free, then I'm willing to do it (at least for now).

One thing I've heard is that digiKam actually saves over the actual image so that once you've saved an edited image, you can never really get the original image back. That might end up being the dealbreaker :-/ Anyone know if that's true? Some quick Google searching didn't really turn up anything.

Again thanks!

[AgBeard]

Check out Bibble - I've not heard any reports of this software - but you might like to try the trial at

Bibble Labs - Professional Photo Workflow Software