Managing Tags

Managing a high number of different images across various albums can be very difficult. To manage your images by custom categories and across albums, digiKam provides the My Tags system. Tags categorize images, and more than one tag can be assigned to an image.

For example, assume that you took several pictures of animals and distributed them across various albums. Now you are looking for an easy way to generate an overview of all pictures ever taken of animals. Using digiKam's tags, proceed as follows for this scenario:

  1. Select Tag+New Tag in the upper menu bar and enter a name for the new tag, in this case animals.

    The dialog box allows you to create hierarchical tags, too. For example, to have a bear tag which is underneath a animals tag, insert animals/bear into the text field. Provide an optional icon and leave this dialog with OK.

  2. Go to each album and tag all images showing some animals by right-clicking the image and selecting Assign Tag+animals+Assign this Tag. To tag more then one picture at once, use the Ctrl key.

If you need to process a huge number of images, an easier way to do the tagging would be using the Captions/Tags tab from the tab bar at the right edge of the main window. This interface allows you to assign tags to this image, enter an optional descriptive comment, and rate this image. When you are done with the first image, stay in this dialog, click the right arrow button, and click Apply when finished to apply your settings. Do it with all your images of this album. Proceed similarly with all other albums and images.

To retrieve all images in your entire collection that carry a certain tag (in this case animals), proceed as follows:

  1. Open the Tags tab in the left tab bar.

  2. Unfold the My Tag item.

  3. Select the animals tag.

    As a result, all images in your entire collection carrying this tag are displayed.

Figure 17.3. Display Tagged Images Only

Display Tagged Images Only

The Tag Filter in the far right edge of the main window limits the number of images displayed for the current album to those marked by the tag or tags selected here.