14 DAY TRIAL // Lately, I reviewed several applications that are appropriate for managing the photos stored in the computer. Hoping that you'll not be bored by this type of applications, today I'm going to do the same thing and this time it will be F-Spot in the spotlight.
F-Spot was designed for GNOME and its purpose is to allow an easier management of your photos. Probably, now you want to know what it does and maybe what's special about it.
I think that F-Spot is special because of its interface and not because of its features. The interface is very nice, and in the same time it is very functional. It has few buttons and this is just about what you need in a day to day situation. F-Spot supports 16 file formats for your images, so I guess you'll be able to open all the pictures which a digital camera can take, or a web browser can display.
F-Spot supports importing from the hard drive, from a digital camera or from an iPod photo. I guess the iPod community must be proud because this MP3 gets supported by more and more programs. Even by ones that have nothing to do with music.
Now let's concentrate a little on the F-Spot's interface. It is split in two panes. One is for displaying the tags, and the other one is for browsing the pictures. This software puts all the photos that you import in only one view. Physically, they are stored in a folder on the hard drive and there are grouped in folders depending on the year in which the pictures where last modified. Months are automatically stored in years, and then days are stored in months. You can see all this in your home directory. As I said before, the program shows all the pictures in a thumbnail format in a pane.
You can easily go to a certain date using the timeline that is displayed above the pane used for browsing. Even though this is not a new thing, the approach used by this software is a little different. However, it has the disadvantage - importing pictures in it takes a little longer and a lot of space is consumed, but on the other hand it can be helpful for organizing them in folders.
The way thumbnails get displayed is one of the coolest things about this software. Their size can be changed using a small slider that is located in the bottom right part of the window. As you drag the slider from left to right, you'll see that the thumbs will zoom in smoothly.
Double clicking a picture gets you in edit mode. This edit mode will be mostly used for viewing the picture. The editing features include rotation and crop tools and also some filters for playing with colors. Some of the filters like the one for removing red eyes are useless, because you can't select a round area, so the eye can't be precisely selected. The filter for adjusting the colors is great, and can really make something out of a messed picture. This software supports versioning, so you can have several edited versions of the same picture.
Last, but not least, you should know that pictures can be also viewed in fullscreen mode or in a slideshow. In the slideshow mode, a nice fade effect is supported.
The Good
Things like the way pictures are managed and the way thumbnails are generated are strong points for this software. The fact that the interface is so easy to use is part of the main advantages of F-Spot.
The Bad
I don't like the fact that I can't prevent it to copy all my photos in its own folder. If it just used a data base or some other method, a lot of hard drive space could be saved. Creating this folder with pictures, should be a separate option. An undo feature should be available in edit mode.
The Truth
Because of its simplicity, I recommend it to users who don't want to get confused with something more advanced. Don't forget that, if you have a large collection of pictures, F-Spot will copy them in a different location and the space on your hard drive will have to suffer. I think that you'll have to figure out on your own if F-Spot is the best software for you.
Check out some screenshots:
