14 DAY TRIAL // gThumb is an image viewer and organizer available in the GNOME stack and it has been around for quite a long time. Let us now take a closer look at this really interesting application that deserves more attention than it currently receives.
There are numerous applications on the Linux platform that can do similar things, but the truth is very few people actually use organizers nowadays. These cool applications have faded out of fashion, without a serious reason. For example, there was a time when we had apps for organizing CD collections, but they are no longer needed.
gThumb has been around for more than a decade, and it's part of the GNOME stack. That would mean that users should find it implemented by default in various Linux distros featuring the GNOME desktop, but that's not the case here. It's hard to find an OS with it on by default, but the good news is that it's present in most of the repositories.
Installation
There is a small caveat I need to mention. The latest version of gThumb is 3.4.1, which was released a few months ago, but I'm running Ubuntu 15.10 right now; yet that iteration is not in the repos. I can run 3.4.1 in Ubuntu 15.10, but it has a problem with header bars, so I chose the latest version present in the official repos, which is 3.2.8. There are some differences, especially in terms of design, but the features are pretty much the same on both.
If you run Ubuntu, then all you need to do is open the Ubuntu Software Center and install gThumb from there. If you happen to run something using the GNOME stack, like Fedora or Ubuntu GNOME, you're going to be able to access the newer release.
Usage
The version used in Ubuntu has some differences in layout, but that main functions of the application are the same, and it should be enough for users who want to get an idea about how it works.
gThumb is not complicated, and the main interface is pretty straightforward. The left side of the app shows some of the default folders that are in Home, and if there are any images already present, they are immediately shown.
Users can also create their own collections and import folders from elsewhere, which can be done with ease. Also, the lower left half of the main window shows the properties for that particular image, including the EXIF data, if present.
Users can also perform a number of useful functions from the right-click menu, but they are basic stuff, like move or copy. It's even possible to use tags that make it easier to find images later, especially if there is a large collection.
gThumb provides users with some simple editing functions such as convert or resize, but if you want a little bit more, then in the top corner you'll find a few more advanced options such as grayscale, enhance focus, color adjustment, negative, and a couple others. It's not meant for advanced editing, so even these options should be more than enough.
gThumb also comes with the possibility to upload the images straight to various online sources like Flickr, for example.
It's also worth pointing out that the application is using extensions for pretty much all the functions, but unfortunately, there aren't any out there, or at least, none is provided on the official website.
