Digikam/Wikimedia Commons

Export Photos to Wikimedia Commons with digiKam

Transcribed from Dmitri Popov's blog, 25th June, 2012

Sharing is caring, and there is probably no better way to share your photographic masterpieces with the world than adding them to the Wikimedia Commons pool. While the project’s website features its own tool for uploading photos, digiKam’s Wikimedia Export Kipi plugin can come in rather handy when you need to export multiple photos in one fell swoop without leaving the convenience of your favorite photo management application.

Using the Wikimedia Commons Kipi plugin

The plugin can be evoked by choosing the Tools -> Export to Wikimedia Commons command. If you don’t see the command in the menu, then you are either using an older version of digiKam (the plugin has been introduced in version 2.6) or the plugin has not been enabled. In the latter case, you can activate the plugin by choosing Settings -> Configure digiKam. Switch then to the Kipi Plugins section and enable the Wikimedia Export plugin. Before you start using the plugin, you should also create an account with Wikimedia Commons.

Using the plugin to upload photos to Wikimedia Commons couldn’t be easier. Select one or several photos in a digiKam album and choose Tools -> Export to Wikimedia Commons. This opens the export dialog window. In the Wiki field, type the URL of Wikimedia Commons API (http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/api.php). Enter then your user name and password in the appropriate fields and press Log In. In the Information section, specify the author’s name and choose a license. If you want to resize photos before uploading them to Wikimedia Commons, check the Resize photos before uploading check box, and adjust the quality and size settings. Hit the Start Upload button, and the plugin takes care of the rest.