Organising Images With Nautilus

Setting Up Image Previews

Viewing images in Nautilus is as simple as opening the file manager and browsing to the appropriate directory. From the top panel, select "Places". You will then be able to choose a location on your computer to visit (if in doubt, choose "Home Folder" to go to your home directory).

By default, Nautilus shows items as icons. To switch on image previews, select Edit ⇒ Preferences. You will then see a box labelled "File Management Preferences". Select the "Preview" tab.

Under the subsection "Other Previewable Files", you can tell Ubuntu which images you would like previewed. It is safest to stick with previews of local files only. What size file you preview depends on the speed of your computer. If you have a newer computer, you can go as high as 100 MB (1 GB is not recommended except for very powerful computers). If you have a slower computer or require lightning-fast responses from your computer, select a lower size limit. Select "Close" to return to Nautilus.

Now that previewing is enabled, you can see the images you want to sort and edit. If the preview is too small, click on the magnifying glass symbol in the upper right of the screen. You can set the default zoom size in the "Preferences" dialogue.

To move an image, simply click and drag the image's icon. To delete it, simply highlight it and press delete (or drag it to the wastebasket).

Viewing Images

To view an image, simply double-click on it. This launches another program called Eye of Gnome. Eye of Gnome is a very powerful image viewer that allows you to rotate and zoom as well as simply scroll through a directory of images.

To scroll through your images, simply click either the right or left arrow in the upper left of the window. When the first or last image is found, Eye of Gnome will loop to the other end of the directory.

That is all there is to viewing images with Nautilus. If you prefer to edit the images rather than view your photos, see "Editing Images With the GIMP".