Using gThumb to view, process, and present images

Seek and Ye Shall Find

If you have large collections of images in your bulk memory, it can become more difficult to maintain an overview of individual albums. gThumb offers an option for searching for duplicates and makes it easier to search through the actual folders stored on the hard drive.

By clicking on the show folders button at the upper left of the editing window, you will be able to see the folders. The software now opens a directory tree on the left side of the program window and shows lists of preview images from each active directory in a large area on the right.

If there are also video files in the directory that has been opened, the software will display the file as a gray box with an integrated video camera symbol. All it takes to open an image is a mouse click. At the same time, gThumb will switch into editing mode (Figure 3).

Figure 3: gThumb opens images directly into editing mode with one click.

When the directories are large and nested, conducting a search by flipping through individual directories can take quite a long time. gThumb therefore has an additional search function that you can start by clicking the search files button to the upper left in the program window.

The window that appears comes with options that let you conduct a targeted and selective search for individual images by entering criteria from a list, and combining these criteria if necessary. Naturally, you can also recursively search the subdirectories (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Being able to conduct a detailed search brings efficiency to the process of browsing extensive directory structures.

Metadata

Additionally, gThumb offers the possibility of editing the metadata associated with the images. You can modify the metadata as you wish with the small dialog found via the Comment button at the upper right in the program window.

Along with comments and keywords, you can save copyright and other information about the image under the other tab.

Likewise, it is possible to completely delete the extensive metadata that typically is included with images produced by a digital camera. To delete this metadata, you first activate the folder view and then highlight the appropriate image that is contained in the list that sits on the right in the window.

Next, click in the upper right on the tools button. If you now select the delete metadata option in the drop-down menu, the software will remove the metadata. If you want to remove the metadata from several images at the same time, then you should highlight all of these and again use tools | delete metadata .

Once you have completed all modifications to your liking, you can store the image in your collection via the save or save as buttons.