An open source application for the digital photo workflow, the blueMarine project will provide you an all-in-one tool for managing your photos, from the shoot up to the archiving and beyond. blueMarine is an expandable, open platform and includes specific support for different photographers communities, as well as the latest technologies.

We're moving

We're moving the webserver and redesigning the website for a better user experience. The process will last a few weeks and the old contents will be incrementally moved into the new website. In the meantime, everything you can't find here is still available at http://bluemarine-old.tidalwave.it

The blueMarine project

blueMarine foundation is very similar to existing applications such as Adobe Lightroom or Apple Aperture: a photo browser, which can be explored in different ways (by folder, by calendar, by tags, by galleries). This is just a core upon which different modules can be plugged in. The aim of blueMarine is to fully support the photographic workflow, even before the photo shoot (for instance, trip planning supported by maps) and beyond print or archival. For instance, an ornithologist usually manages field notes about the bird observed and photographed: directly binding them to photos and maybe GPS positioning data is much better than keeping a separate Excel sheet.

Targeted at communities

blueMarine focus is also on communities. Different photographer communities (e.g. astrophotographers, birdwatchers) have different requirements, both in the concrete data processing and in the cataloguing. With the support of the proper plugin, blueMarine aim is to be the single application for all the user needs.

On the leading edge

blueMarine is also exploring new technological frontiers. For instance, there's ongoing work to support distributed computing, for instance small clusters at home made of a laptop and one or more desktops. Users owning more than a single computer will be able to make full use of all their computational power.

We don't want to put bounds to our imagination. Currently blueMarine supports the import of GPS trip data so you can geotag your photos and archive all your trips. We're thinking of advanced trip planning, such as taking advantage of weather forecasts, computing the sun position with respect to the target on a map, and so on. More about this in the vision document.

The open source value

Of course, being open sourced, blueMarine is open to contributions. Indeed the project aim is ambitious, and can't be reached without an active community of developers. We welcome any volunteer, even only for testing the application or writing the documentation. See the volunteering section.

RAW formats support

blueMarine, in addition to the common image formats such as JPEG and TIFF, also supports RAW formats from most manufacturers: CR2, CRW, DNG, MRW, NEF, PEF, SRF. The support is still partial, as image quality is not guaranteed at the moment (e.g. colors aren't reproduced accurately).

Editing

The current release of blueMarine has no editing features. They are being developed right now, and will include support for RAW formats.

Quality

blueMarine wasn't born with the idea of delivering a product. Originally it was just a technologic demonstrator, thus lacking quality assurance. Only in 2006 it got a critical mass of feaures and the author definitely decided to retarget it. At the moment the QA is insufficient and the product is not yet suitable for production use. Don't download it if you think to use it - blueMarine at the moment can be only evaluated. Of course, you can also contribute to it. If you decide not to download it yet, but would like to be informed about future releases, please subscribe the news feed.

Tutorials and videos

We're still writing some introductory documentation about blueMarine. A draft tutorial is available, as well as a video describing some of the main features of the application.

License

blueMarine is available under the Apache License 2.0.

Download

Get the latest bits at the download page.

Contact us

Users can discuss features and request for help at the user's forum. If you are a developer or need more information, please refer to the Contacts page. People willing to contribute for testing should have a look at the blueCAT program.