Image viewer

I posted a link to a good image viewer - Picasa a couple of months
ago. After using the program for a while, although I liked it's
overall performance and style, it's ferretting through all of my
storage for images was a tad annoying.

Basically, what I wanted was a quick, easy viewer that would allow me
to inspect a JPG or TIFF (normally from my camera) quickly and easily.
Ideally it should also be able to easily display certain image EXIF
data quickly and easily (date/time, ISO, exposure, lens focal length,
etc.).

There are solutions to this but they all seem to nearly get there and
then have some irritating quirk that is just.... irritating.

Yesterday I thought I'd struck gold with a program called Fast Stone
Viewer. It's quick and easy to use. Doesn't interrogate your drives
like Picasa and does what it says on the tin basically. When viewing
an image on screen, there's a nice magnifier option that allows you to
specify the size being magnified and the zoom level, just by holding
down the left mouse button.

When you move your mouse to the left or right edge of a full screen
image, various options pop into view. More importantly, the
information that pops up at the right hand edge shows the EXIF data I
want to see... nearly! My heart sank when I realised that the shutter
speed wasn't displaying. 99% there and then falling at the last
fence. I sent an email to the author and amazingly, a couple of hours
and a sample image later, ta dah... it's fixed.

Here's a link to the program if you're interested...

http://www.faststonesoft.com/DN/FSViewerSetup.exe

There is no charge for non-commercial use too!

--
Pete
http://www.digitalsky.org.uk

Thanks for the tip Pete - this looks like a great little program. I've
been using ThumbsPlus, but they charge you more dosh every time they
bring out a new version. This looks just as good if not better, and its
free !

Regards,

Andrew

Pete Lawrence wrote:
I posted a link to a good image viewer - Picasa a couple of months
ago. After using the program for a while, although I liked it's
overall performance and style, it's ferretting through all of my
storage for images was a tad annoying.

Basically, what I wanted was a quick, easy viewer that would allow me
to inspect a JPG or TIFF (normally from my camera) quickly and easily.
Ideally it should also be able to easily display certain image EXIF
data quickly and easily (date/time, ISO, exposure, lens focal length,
etc.).

There are solutions to this but they all seem to nearly get there and
then have some irritating quirk that is just.... irritating.

Yesterday I thought I'd struck gold with a program called Fast Stone
Viewer. It's quick and easy to use. Doesn't interrogate your drives
like Picasa and does what it says on the tin basically. When viewing
an image on screen, there's a nice magnifier option that allows you to
specify the size being magnified and the zoom level, just by holding
down the left mouse button.

When you move your mouse to the left or right edge of a full screen
image, various options pop into view. More importantly, the
information that pops up at the right hand edge shows the EXIF data I
want to see... nearly! My heart sank when I realised that the shutter
speed wasn't displaying. 99% there and then falling at the last
fence. I sent an email to the author and amazingly, a couple of hours
and a sample image later, ta dah... it's fixed.

Here's a link to the program if you're interested...

http://www.faststonesoft.com/DN/FSViewerSetup.exe

There is no charge for non-commercial use too!

Have you not seen/tried the FREEWARE prog http://www.irfanview.com ?

It'll read just about any format of media file, and will do basic editing as
well as display all the EXIF and you can add IPTC & comments to images...

Used it for many years now, quick and very easy to use.

See my web site for some images edited with it, and a lot of the pages are
created with it too...



- And on Thu, 16 Dec 2004 11:02:22 +0000, it was spake thus in said in message Pete Lawrence :

I posted a link to a good image viewer - Picasa a couple of months
ago. After using the program for a while, although I liked it's
overall performance and style, it's ferretting through all of my
storage for images was a tad annoying.

Basically, what I wanted was a quick, easy viewer that would allow me
to inspect a JPG or TIFF (normally from my camera) quickly and easily.
Ideally it should also be able to easily display certain image EXIF
data quickly and easily (date/time, ISO, exposure, lens focal length,
etc.).

There are solutions to this but they all seem to nearly get there and
then have some irritating quirk that is just.... irritating.

Yesterday I thought I'd struck gold with a program called Fast Stone
Viewer. It's quick and easy to use. Doesn't interrogate your drives
like Picasa and does what it says on the tin basically. When viewing
an image on screen, there's a nice magnifier option that allows you to
specify the size being magnified and the zoom level, just by holding
down the left mouse button.

When you move your mouse to the left or right edge of a full screen
image, various options pop into view. More importantly, the
information that pops up at the right hand edge shows the EXIF data I
want to see... nearly! My heart sank when I realised that the shutter
speed wasn't displaying. 99% there and then falling at the last
fence. I sent an email to the author and amazingly, a couple of hours
and a sample image later, ta dah... it's fixed.

Here's a link to the program if you're interested...

http://www.faststonesoft.com/DN/FSViewerSetup.exe

There is no charge for non-commercial use too!

--
Nick in Northallerton
www.whelan.me.uk
Also nickw7coc on
Yahoo Messenger
& on MSN Messenger

- And on Thu, 16 Dec 2004 13:38:00 +0000, it was spake thus in said in message Nick :


See my web site for some images edited with it, and a lot of the pages are
created with it too...

I know, I forgot my sig...
--
Nick in Northallerton
www.whelan.me.uk
Also nickw7coc on
Yahoo Messenger
& on MSN Messenger

On Thu, 16 Dec 2004 13:38:00 +0000, Nick
wrote:

Have you not seen/tried the FREEWARE prog http://www.irfanview.com ?

It'll read just about any format of media file, and will do basic editing as
well as display all the EXIF and you can add IPTC & comments to images...

Used it for many years now, quick and very easy to use.

See my web site for some images edited with it, and a lot of the pages are
created with it too...

Yes I've tried IrfanView and gave up on it. Couldn't see a way to
make it scale an image to fit my screen when I loaded it up. I seem
to recall that there were options to do this but it seemed that each
time it opened an image it would show me a lovely corner of the fill
image. In the end I gave up on it.

This is my point, most get very close but not all the way. At the end
of the day I don't want a bloated viewer that tries to be clever at
everything (I can edit with much more expensive programs ;-) ). I
want something that will allow me to thumbnail display my files and
give me the information I want from them fast.

Ok - I have just downloaded IrfanView. Loads and loads of options for
configuration but I still cannot see where to set the size of initial
display to scale to my screen. Ok the slideshow/full screen does it
via the general options. This isn't what I want if I'm browsing
through a list of several hundred files though.

Take an example where there is an object in the centre of a 3072x2048
pixel image frame. If I'm viewing on a 1024x768 screen, what I'll get
to see is the corner of the image - which could just be black. I know
I can press ENTER to view the whole image full screen but I prefer the
thumbnail to scaled image approach. IrfanView's caught me out too many
times with a blank screen when the main image is off to the bottom
right.

IrfanView's EXIF data is very concise but requires you to click on the
'i' and then on the EXIF button. The Fast Stone Viewer simply
requires you to move the mouse cursor to the right hand edge of the
screen.

--
Pete
http://www.digitalsky.org.uk

"Pete Lawrence" wrote in message
...
SNIP
Ok - I have just downloaded IrfanView. Loads and loads of options for
configuration but I still cannot see where to set the size of initial
display to scale to my screen. Ok the slideshow/full screen does it
via the general options. This isn't what I want if I'm browsing
through a list of several hundred files though.

Take an example where there is an object in the centre of a 3072x2048
pixel image frame. If I'm viewing on a 1024x768 screen, what I'll get
to see is the corner of the image - which could just be black. I know
I can press ENTER to view the whole image full screen but I prefer the
thumbnail to scaled image approach. IrfanView's caught me out too many
times with a blank screen when the main image is off to the bottom
right.

?SNIP

Try:
View - Display Options - Fit images to window.

I still haven't found how to make IrfanView open up in a full-sized window!

hth

Tony

"Tony Rowsby" wrote in message
...

"Pete Lawrence" wrote in message
...
SNIP
Ok - I have just downloaded IrfanView. Loads and loads of options for
configuration but I still cannot see where to set the size of initial
display to scale to my screen. Ok the slideshow/full screen does it
via the general options. This isn't what I want if I'm browsing
through a list of several hundred files though.

Take an example where there is an object in the centre of a 3072x2048
pixel image frame. If I'm viewing on a 1024x768 screen, what I'll get
to see is the corner of the image - which could just be black. I know
I can press ENTER to view the whole image full screen but I prefer the
thumbnail to scaled image approach. IrfanView's caught me out too many
times with a blank screen when the main image is off to the bottom
right.

?SNIP

Try:
View - Display Options - Fit images to window.

I still haven't found how to make IrfanView open up in a full-sized
window!

hth

Tony


Tony,

Ive been using this app for years and i dont think it will do that!
It will only ever show images at 100%

R

On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 10:14:57 +0000, D.G. wrote:

Try:
View - Display Options - Fit images to window.

I still haven't found how to make IrfanView open up in a full-sized window!

Use the command line option /fs
In a short cut path\i_view32.exe /fs
or for the file type use path\i_view32.exe "%1" /fs

Doesn't sell itself well does it ;-)

--
Pete
http://www.digitalsky.org.uk

"Robert Geake" wrote:

It will only ever show images at 100%

Fit to desktop will always show it in the biggest window necessary for
each image - ie magnified so it fits the width or the height and only
for one specific aspect ratio, both. Hit enter or return to toggle for
full screen on black background.

A small snag with Faststone viewer is it doesn't animate gifs: Irfan
does.

-----------------------------
Martin Frey
http://www.hadastro.org.uk
N 51 01 52.2 E 0 47 21.1
-----------------------------

On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 12:38:02 +0000, Martin Frey
wrote:

"Robert Geake" wrote:

It will only ever show images at 100%

Fit to desktop will always show it in the biggest window necessary for
each image - ie magnified so it fits the width or the height and only
for one specific aspect ratio, both. Hit enter or return to toggle for
full screen on black background.

A small snag with Faststone viewer is it doesn't animate gifs: Irfan
does.

I don't tend to take many GIFs with my camera though Martin ;-)

Fast Stone simply lets me sort out my vast collection of camera JPGs
and TIFFs quickly and easily with minimum fuss or fiddling.
--
Pete
http://www.digitalsky.org.uk