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I’ve switched to Linux, and one of the hardest things was to find photo organization software. Adobe Lightroom was good this. I’m still sorting it out on Linux.

I’ve switched to Linux, and one of the hardest things was to find photo organization software. Adobe Lightroom was good this. I’m still sorting it out on Linux. I tried Darktable and found it really useful for editing raw files. Once you figure out the filters they’re powerful and professional. Darktable really opionated about how it stores files/ libraries however. It really wants you to have one library for all your photos, where I used separate libraries for various events I’ve photographed. Also going through and ranking photos wasn’t as straight forward (is it applying the rank to the image on the strip on the bottom vs the image in the main window?) So I’m sorting with digikam, though it’s editing features don’t seem as powerful. It’s a process.

kataklasm 2y ago
I'm using Collections in darktable to achieve this. Have you tried it? Although I don't distinguish on an event basis I sort everything into folders by month. -2024 --jan --feb ... --nov --dec -2025 --jan
- acomjean 2y ago
  I did. Part of my mindset is when I’m done with an event I don’t want to have to deal with those folders, but know where to find them. I have a large set of “everything else” photos that works well with darktable. It’s partially the burden of how I used to do it… maybe I’m being stubborn but it did work well for me.
giancarlostoro 2y ago
I had the same problem. Lots of solutions out there I think PhotoPrism was the last one I tried but it involved docker. I really just want the Photos app from Mac on Linux. I was debating forking an existing project.
- kccqzy 2y ago
  I am a happy user of PhotoPrism. I use it with Podman. I initially hated the fact that it requires containers but then I realized this makes it much easier to work with multiple libraries simultaneously which was mentioned by OP. The Photos app on the Mac does not allow using multiple libraries simultaneously; I believe it needs to be restarted to switch libraries.
- ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
  If you really don't want to use containers, then it's possible (with sufficient OS knowledge) to install the software natively by looking at the Dockerfile and manually running the commands.
- FollowingTheDao 2y ago
  > I really just want the Photos app from Mac on Linux. I was debating forking an existing project. If you want design help let me know. Bu yes, this. There is no "in between" on linux. Photo apps either do everything confusingly, or it does nothing but show you the photo. If Darktable had "simple" and "professional" settings it would be awesome. Sometimes you just want a quick edit and other times it needs to be more complex. But I have to wade through endless tiny crowded options in Darktable just to crop and change some basic levels. Digikam gets a bit closer, but it still starts as complicated. It would be great if the application gave you a simple interface at first, and then you can add on complexity if you need it. You want detailed curve manipulations? Great! Select "Add feature" and choose "Curves". This would help a lot with linux growth IMHO since it is the one thing I hear that frustrates just about everyone who does not want to use google photos. The Photos App from Apple is only getting worse as well and Adobe is a horric mess of subscriptions and AI BS.
  - giancarlostoro 2y ago
    I think my issue is a lot of them slow down to a crawl and Digikam fell under this problem for me. Importing thousands of images and videos isnt easy. I did like that Photoprism had a WebUI made it easy to access the photos across my network.
    - buildbot 2y ago
      Yep, the only photo library tool I’ve used that can handle 40K raws is Lightroom and Photomechanic. Everything else can’t handle ~2TB of photos.
      - giancarlostoro 2y ago
        I am genuinely curious of what a good solution would be to this problem, because I love Photos on Mac but its not perfect either, one key thing Photos does insanely well is face grouping.
      - fidelramos 2y ago
        I use Digikam on a 3 TiB collection and it works great.
- holografix 2y ago
  Look at Immich
ezst 2y ago
Pretty much the same, here, with digikam used to aggregate collections of images taken and edited by other, specialized, software. I don't hate that set-up: IMO, the requirements for processing RAWs and managing a collection are different enough to warrant separate tools, and I find digikam really pleasant to work with. What would you like to see improved?
- inferiorhuman 2y ago
  What would you like to see improved? Last time I tried digikam it crashed on startup (macos). This was back in September. I'm sure it's not a hugely popular opinion in open source circles, but IMO neither digikam nor darktable are good enough to warrant the hassle of dealing with separate applications. Lightroom is a bit of jack of all trades, but it's good enough as a DAM that I'm not wanting for a separate app.
  - ezst 2y ago
    I don't have stability issues with digikam while using it on fedora. It's well maintained and sees frequent releases so if I were you and had some spare time, I wouldn't shy away from opening issues and reaching out to developers. And yeah, sure, if the "do it all" approach works for you, and the tool you desire already exists, I'm not there to turn you away from it! Since digikam can open any lot of images in a side application for edition, I'm not sure what kind of improvements a "kitchen sink" application would do to my workflows and I was curious about that :-)
    - inferiorhuman 2y ago
      I don't have stability issues with digikam while using it on fedora Right, I'm not switching to Linux just for digikam. Since digikam can open any lot of images in a side application for edition If I'm going to open a photo in Lightroom anyways, why not use it for asset management? I'm not wedded to an all-in-one solution, but neither digikam nor darktable/rawtherapee offer enough of an improvement over the respective modules within Lightroom to warrant usage.
dheera 2y ago
I absolutely detest this whole "library" business. Why can't just I open a file? Or just browse a folder, click some files and edit them? WTF is a "library"? A "film roll"? Keep it real. I also wish they had a better color calibration workflow. Everything looks like trash with the new color calibration and filmic RGB nonsense. Especially DJI-shot raw files. Lightroom opens them fine.
- 10729287 2y ago
  Same here. It all began with itunes and having duplicates of my mp3s. I always been more of a winamp user myself ! On my mac I use Photomator and appreciate how it allows me to browse my ssd and use my very own file tree
- dvdkon 2y ago
  The main problem I see with "just files in folders" is thumbnails. You need some thumbnail cache, ideally pregenerated, for speedy browsing. And once you've got that, you've lost the simplicity of "just files" anyhow. And you might not want them, but things like facial recognition, search by metadata, and object detection really only work with a central database/index of all the photos you have.
  - dheera 2y ago
    Just store the thumbnails in a cache or in a dotfile subdirectory. This can be transparent to the user. If the user is going linearly down or up the list you can also use a Kalman filter to predict what files and directories the user might browse next and preroad thumbnails for those directories in advance. Don't wait till the user actually scrolls to something to start working on thumbnail generation. UI Design 101. Also, many consumer cameras embed thumbnails in metadata that can be extracted almost instantaneously. For those there is no image resizing work to do. But you can still load the thumbnails into memory in advance to make it even snappier. Just don't make me add the folder to a "roll" or "library" just to browse it for 5 seconds.
    - inferiorhuman 2y ago
Derbasti 2y ago
I edit with Darktable, but organize with DigiKam. Not that Darktable is bad, but I prefer to organize my rendered JPEGs, not my RAWs.
poulpy123 2y ago
You may want to have a look to a software called tonphotos if you just want to sort and filter pictures. If I remember well it doesn't allow image edition though. For the moment pay for lightroom just for my needs but the bills are starting to sting... To stay on windows, the best alternatives I found are zoner photo studio X and Mylio photo but the first one doesn't do face recognition and the second one doesn't handle a camera I used several years ago. Digikam would be good I guess but I can't stand the UI.
- qingcharles 2y ago
  Start the cancel plan wizard on Adobe's site. I have to go on there once a year or so and talk to an agent from the cancel page and they usually cut my rate in half for another year.
  - poulpy123 2y ago
    wow thanks for the info !
DidYaWipe 2y ago
The problem is the seemingly endless parade of photo software that forces you to add everything to a "database," instead of simply a directory structure. It's tedious as hell, and must be manually kept up to date all the time instead of simply picking up any files added to the structure.
- kouru225 2y ago
  And then you open the app and it says I gotta delete the database cause it’s corrupted

kataklasm 2y ago

I'm using Collections in darktable to achieve this. Have you tried it? Although I don't distinguish on an event basis I sort everything into folders by month. -2024 --jan --feb ... --nov --dec -2025 --jan

acomjean 2y ago
I did. Part of my mindset is when I’m done with an event I don’t want to have to deal with those folders, but know where to find them. I have a large set of “everything else” photos that works well with darktable. It’s partially the burden of how I used to do it… maybe I’m being stubborn but it did work well for me.

giancarlostoro 2y ago

I had the same problem. Lots of solutions out there I think PhotoPrism was the last one I tried but it involved docker. I really just want the Photos app from Mac on Linux. I was debating forking an existing project.

kccqzy 2y ago
I am a happy user of PhotoPrism. I use it with Podman. I initially hated the fact that it requires containers but then I realized this makes it much easier to work with multiple libraries simultaneously which was mentioned by OP. The Photos app on the Mac does not allow using multiple libraries simultaneously; I believe it needs to be restarted to switch libraries.
ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
If you really don't want to use containers, then it's possible (with sufficient OS knowledge) to install the software natively by looking at the Dockerfile and manually running the commands.
FollowingTheDao 2y ago
> I really just want the Photos app from Mac on Linux. I was debating forking an existing project. If you want design help let me know. Bu yes, this. There is no "in between" on linux. Photo apps either do everything confusingly, or it does nothing but show you the photo. If Darktable had "simple" and "professional" settings it would be awesome. Sometimes you just want a quick edit and other times it needs to be more complex. But I have to wade through endless tiny crowded options in Darktable just to crop and change some basic levels. Digikam gets a bit closer, but it still starts as complicated. It would be great if the application gave you a simple interface at first, and then you can add on complexity if you need it. You want detailed curve manipulations? Great! Select "Add feature" and choose "Curves". This would help a lot with linux growth IMHO since it is the one thing I hear that frustrates just about everyone who does not want to use google photos. The Photos App from Apple is only getting worse as well and Adobe is a horric mess of subscriptions and AI BS.
- giancarlostoro 2y ago
  I think my issue is a lot of them slow down to a crawl and Digikam fell under this problem for me. Importing thousands of images and videos isnt easy. I did like that Photoprism had a WebUI made it easy to access the photos across my network.
  - buildbot 2y ago
    Yep, the only photo library tool I’ve used that can handle 40K raws is Lightroom and Photomechanic. Everything else can’t handle ~2TB of photos.
    - giancarlostoro 2y ago
      I am genuinely curious of what a good solution would be to this problem, because I love Photos on Mac but its not perfect either, one key thing Photos does insanely well is face grouping.
    - fidelramos 2y ago
      I use Digikam on a 3 TiB collection and it works great.
holografix 2y ago
Look at Immich

ezst 2y ago

Pretty much the same, here, with digikam used to aggregate collections of images taken and edited by other, specialized, software. I don't hate that set-up: IMO, the requirements for processing RAWs and managing a collection are different enough to warrant separate tools, and I find digikam really pleasant to work with. What would you like to see improved?

inferiorhuman 2y ago
What would you like to see improved? Last time I tried digikam it crashed on startup (macos). This was back in September. I'm sure it's not a hugely popular opinion in open source circles, but IMO neither digikam nor darktable are good enough to warrant the hassle of dealing with separate applications. Lightroom is a bit of jack of all trades, but it's good enough as a DAM that I'm not wanting for a separate app.
- ezst 2y ago
  I don't have stability issues with digikam while using it on fedora. It's well maintained and sees frequent releases so if I were you and had some spare time, I wouldn't shy away from opening issues and reaching out to developers. And yeah, sure, if the "do it all" approach works for you, and the tool you desire already exists, I'm not there to turn you away from it! Since digikam can open any lot of images in a side application for edition, I'm not sure what kind of improvements a "kitchen sink" application would do to my workflows and I was curious about that :-)
  - inferiorhuman 2y ago
    I don't have stability issues with digikam while using it on fedora Right, I'm not switching to Linux just for digikam. Since digikam can open any lot of images in a side application for edition If I'm going to open a photo in Lightroom anyways, why not use it for asset management? I'm not wedded to an all-in-one solution, but neither digikam nor darktable/rawtherapee offer enough of an improvement over the respective modules within Lightroom to warrant usage.

dheera 2y ago

I absolutely detest this whole "library" business. Why can't just I open a file? Or just browse a folder, click some files and edit them? WTF is a "library"? A "film roll"? Keep it real. I also wish they had a better color calibration workflow. Everything looks like trash with the new color calibration and filmic RGB nonsense. Especially DJI-shot raw files. Lightroom opens them fine.

10729287 2y ago
Same here. It all began with itunes and having duplicates of my mp3s. I always been more of a winamp user myself ! On my mac I use Photomator and appreciate how it allows me to browse my ssd and use my very own file tree
dvdkon 2y ago
The main problem I see with "just files in folders" is thumbnails. You need some thumbnail cache, ideally pregenerated, for speedy browsing. And once you've got that, you've lost the simplicity of "just files" anyhow. And you might not want them, but things like facial recognition, search by metadata, and object detection really only work with a central database/index of all the photos you have.
- dheera 2y ago
  Just store the thumbnails in a cache or in a dotfile subdirectory. This can be transparent to the user. If the user is going linearly down or up the list you can also use a Kalman filter to predict what files and directories the user might browse next and preroad thumbnails for those directories in advance. Don't wait till the user actually scrolls to something to start working on thumbnail generation. UI Design 101. Also, many consumer cameras embed thumbnails in metadata that can be extracted almost instantaneously. For those there is no image resizing work to do. But you can still load the thumbnails into memory in advance to make it even snappier. Just don't make me add the folder to a "roll" or "library" just to browse it for 5 seconds.
  - inferiorhuman 2y ago

Derbasti 2y ago

I edit with Darktable, but organize with DigiKam. Not that Darktable is bad, but I prefer to organize my rendered JPEGs, not my RAWs.

poulpy123 2y ago

You may want to have a look to a software called tonphotos if you just want to sort and filter pictures. If I remember well it doesn't allow image edition though. For the moment pay for lightroom just for my needs but the bills are starting to sting... To stay on windows, the best alternatives I found are zoner photo studio X and Mylio photo but the first one doesn't do face recognition and the second one doesn't handle a camera I used several years ago. Digikam would be good I guess but I can't stand the UI.

qingcharles 2y ago
Start the cancel plan wizard on Adobe's site. I have to go on there once a year or so and talk to an agent from the cancel page and they usually cut my rate in half for another year.
- poulpy123 2y ago
  wow thanks for the info !

DidYaWipe 2y ago

The problem is the seemingly endless parade of photo software that forces you to add everything to a "database," instead of simply a directory structure. It's tedious as hell, and must be manually kept up to date all the time instead of simply picking up any files added to the structure.

kouru225 2y ago
And then you open the app and it says I gotta delete the database cause it’s corrupted