digiKam 8.8.0 released
A new version of the popular open-source digital photo management tool, digiKam 8.8.0, has been released after four months of active development, bug triage, and feature integration. This latest release brings significant improvements in performance, stability, and user experience, particularly focusing on image processing, color management, and workflow efficiency.
The core codebase has been fully ported to Qt 6.10.0, ensuring improved performance and compatibility with modern operating systems. The English strings have been thoroughly reviewed using the codespell static analyzer for enhanced accuracy and consistency. Additionally, users can now benefit from support for long file paths when enabled on Windows 10 version 1607 or later.
One of the notable new features is the ability to import or export tag hierarchies to and from text files in the Controlled Vocabulary Keyword Catalogue format. This simplifies the management and sharing of complex tag structures across different platforms, programs, and workflows.
The Preview module has been enhanced with support for focus point visualization for Fujifilm and Olympus/OM Systems cameras. This feature provides precise information about focus accuracy and composition directly within the digiKam interface. To visualize focus points properly, users need to use the ExifTool metadata backend.
digiKam 8.8.0 now automatically uses the monitor color profile set under Windows, macOS, and Wayland, ensuring consistent and accurate color representation across all supported platforms. The Image Editor includes a new enhancement tool that can progressively blur the background of a subject in a photo, enabling creative depth-of-field effects.
The G’MIC-Qt plugin has been updated to version 3.6.0, offering expanded image processing capabilities through more than 600 open-source filters. Several key components have also been updated, including Qt versions, KDE versions, OpenCV versions, FFmpeg versions, HEIF versions, ExifTool versions, and Exiv2 versions.
The release includes notable bug fixes related to face recognition, DLNA server, and database operations. The application’s internationalization has been updated, with digiKam now supporting 61 languages for the graphical interface. Users can change the language via the Settings/Configure Languages dialog.
Looking forward, the next maintenance release is planned for early 2026, focusing on Qt 6.10 bundle migration for better support of Windows 11 and macOS Tahoe, further bug fixes, performance improvements, and the introduction of new AI-powered tools for image enhancement and management.
The digiKam team expresses its heartfelt thanks to all users for their support, feedback, and donations, as well as to all contributors, testers, and translators who made this release possible. digiKam 8.8.0 is available for download from the repository in various formats, including source code tarballs, Linux 64-bit AppImage bundles, Windows 10 (or later) 64-bit installers or bundle archives, and macOS Silicon and Intel packages.
digiKam 8.8.0 is released
Dear digiKam fans and users, we are proud to announce the stable release of digiKam 8.8.0.
