[Shotwell] The old DB vs File-system and Destructive vs Non-destructive management of photos.

[Svetoslav Trochev]

Hi Everyone,

Please forgive me if I am stepping out of line a bit and because I am
new and don't know the background. For many years I am struggling to
find a good tool to manage my photo work flow. I am still stuck using
a multiple tools and some of them are close source and I hate them.
They hold me hostage to their ecosystem without solving my problem. As
result I spend way too much time to manage my photos instead of doing
something fun like creating and editing them. I am happy that I
discover the Shotwell right at the moment when discussion about photo
management is going on. I would like to share my ideas and tap into
community wisdom in order to solve the "my photo management" problem
once and for all. So let start. My work flow is:

Phase I:
1. Get an image. (cameras, scanners, web and etc.)
2. Store them in some file-system structure.
3. Enter basic meta-data. ( Event, People, Purpose, Source, Copyright,
ratings, and etc)
4. At this point this is my 'Digital Negatives' (DNs)
5. Remove useless crap.
6. Basic non-destructive editing usually using RAW converter ( Lens
corrections: geometric distortion and chromatic aberration, tilt, and
perspective, exposure, and color correction )
7. Archive (Network share and Removable media)

Phase II:
Image processing. This is very different based on the job. It includes
things like selecting the right images, HDR, 3D and etc. Using the
right tool for the job. Most often it is destructive editing

Phase III:
Sharing the images. Again it varies a lot

As you can see I need both DB and File-system management. Because I
want to be able to remove the DNs from my local file system, but to
continue to be able to search the archive and see preview. This only
could be done by DB. At the same time I need to manage multiple
'prints' as part of Phase II. This only could be done in different
project folders and should share meta-data with other tools. And
finally to maintain multiple share options by creating galleries this
is most well done by DB/Export. That way I don't have to maintain
multiple backups of the same photo.

When it comes to editing I need both again. Non-destructive edits
organized in 'recipes' The recipes should be attached to the
RAW/original file and I would like to copy recipe from one file and
add it to one ore more files. This feature speeds my work multiple
times. That is the main reason why I still use original software from
Canon and stuck with Windows. In all other cases I really like how
Shotwell manages the edits and the use of DB. Probably would be good
idea to be able to export edit data if needed to other tools and
managing the steps like version control between different tools when
destructive editing is needed. So new feature would be needed I think.
Other tools call it stacks where you see the last result, but you can
go back and see previous steps.

I understand why proprietary tools never going to provide this unless
it cost $$$$ and needs to be updated every year for $$$ more just to
add new feature or to fix a single bug or even worst to continue to
access your photos. I strongly believe that FOSS is the right way to
fix this and I am bit surprised that we have not done this already.

Please speak up!
Svetoslav