Managing lots of different images across various albums can be a nightmare. 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 your friend, Joe, and distributed them across various albums. Now you are looking for an easy way to generate an overview of all pictures ever taken of Joe. Using digiKam's tags, proceed as follows for this scenario:

If you need to process a huge number of images, an easier way to do the tagging would be using the Comments/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 Forward, and proceed with all the other images of this album. When finished, click Apply and OK to apply your settings. Proceed similarly with all other albums and images.

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

Abbildung 17.3. Display Tagged Images Only

The Tag Filter in the rightmost 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.