I really like the way Shotwell imports images (copy to YYYY/MM/DD folder structure), but I really don't like Shotwell as a program (endless lib scanning) and don't use it to manage my pictures.
Is there a (stand alone) program that does this import (and no more) in similar way in Ubuntu?
I use gThumb, which is an image viewer and browser for the GNOME Desktop. It also includes an importer tool for transferring photos from cameras.
It's available for all currently supported version of Ubuntu although you may need to enable the Universe repository if you're not immediately able to install normally via the Software Center or via the command line with sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install gthumb
