f-spot is a management tool for your collection of digital images tailored for the GNOME desktop. It allows you to assign different tags to your images in order to categorize them and offers various neat image editing options.

The first time you run f-spot, tell it where to find the images to import to your f-spot collection. If you already have a collection of images stored on your hard drive, enter the path to the respective directory and optionally include subfolders. f-spot imports these images into its database.

	Tip
If all the images you are importing belong to the same category, you can attach the appropriate tag on import. Select Attach Tag and choose the matching tag from the drop down menu.

Figure 8.1. Importing Images to f-spot

f-spot's main window is divided into three main areas. Categories, tags, and detailed information for the selected images are displayed in a sidebar to the left and a thumbnails of all images bearing the selected tag or category or, if none is selected, the entire collection is displayed in the right part of the window.

Figure 8.2. f-spot Main Window

A menu bar right at the top of the window allows you to access the main menus. A toolbar below offers several different functions depicted by a matching icon:

8.1. Downloading Pictures from Your Camera

Import new images from your digital camera connected to the USB port of your computer using FileImport from Camera. The type of camera is detected automatically.

Figure 8.3. Import from Camera

f-spot launches a preview window displaying all the images that are available for download from camera. The files are copied to the target directory specified via Copy Files to. If Import files after copy is selected, all images copied from camera are automatically imported to f-spot's database. Tagging can be done on import, if you select the appropriate tag with Select Tags. If you do not want to import all images on your camera to your database, just deselect the unwanted one in the preview window.