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is there a really good image viewer? (like ACDSee for PC)

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Thomas K.

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i'm looking for a fast image viewer (image browser) for my new mac. i would like to have a thumbnail view and fast fullframe view. additionally the ability to have 100% view. something like ACDSee for windows, which i was very happy with. editing is not important since i use photoshop.

i've tried these but was unhappy for the following reasons (correct me if i've missed some features):

apple preview: nice and fast, though no 100%view and bad(no) image sharpning. always working as slideshow that i have to stop.

iPhoto: as fas as i know i MUST import my photos to iPhotos own structure. can't use my own simple directory structure. please tell me if i can skip this function.
lightroom: no fullframe view mode
adobe bridge: no fullframe view mode

have tried a handfull other applications but either they dont have thumbnail view or no fullframe view. price is not important.

what about apple aperture? does it have a fullframe viewing mode? havent tried it so far since the free trial doesnt work for some reason.

which image browser do you use?
i thank you for every little help you can give me.
regards
thomas

--
visit my homepage http://thomas.im
portrait - studio - streetlife
 
Try:
(I prefer the latter) - the default browsing interface is maybe not optimal, but dig into its Preferences and you can customise almost everything. It has the best set of tools in the "browser" class and the widest file format support.

I do not understand the remarks regarding Preview - it does have a basic sharpening tool and it does have 100% mode (just press Command+0) - if this fails, you have to uncheck the option to respect embedded dpi information when calculating the actual size.

Yes, Aperture does have a full screen mode and even dual display support - just, it is not an image browser. It is a RAW convertor and a digital asset manager. It cannot browse directories without importing images (either physically or references) and it is not designed for it.

Cheers,
Uwe
 
hello uwe,

i've tried them both too. cocoviewX has no real thumbview. my impression of the software was that its really simple and has less than the basic features you need.
as you say in graphic converter there is no good browsing function.

but thanks for the hint in preview. didn't know there is a 100% zoom. so far thats the only program i like. its just that its kept a bit too simple... a pitty there is no acdsee for mac :-(

thanks uwe
grüße nach frankfurt.
thomas

--
visit my homepage http://thomas.im
portrait - studio - streetlife
 
Thomas K. said:
Thomas K. wrote:
i'm looking for a fast image viewer (image browser) for my new mac. i
would like to have a thumbnail view and fast fullframe view.
additionally the ability to have 100% view. something like ACDSee for
windows, which i was very happy with. editing is not important since
i use photoshop.
Click to expand...
Thomas K. said:
lightroom: no fullframe view mode
Click to expand...
Lightroom does indeed have a thumbnail view, as well as a slideshow mode for fullframe view. After selecting the desired images, you can either engage the slideshow module for full control, or activate an "impromptu" slideshow from grid or loupe view.

---------------
DAJr.
http://www.dajphotography.com
 
It has already been mentioned how to display at actual size in Preview so I won't repeat that. Sharpening is well hidden under Tools/Adjust Color (at least in my version of Preview). An interesting new feature in Preview under Leopard is the ability to recognize GPS information in a photo's metadata and even display Google maps using the information (assuming you're lucky enough to have GPS capability with your camera).
 
Hello Thomas,

I would suggest you try out my app, Photon:

http://www.photon-app.com

It sounds like Photon meets several of your requirements:

1.) No import step required. Load a folder or memory card containing thousands of images and start working immediately

2.) Predictive caching and RAW processing. While you are evaluating each image for sharpness and detail, Photon makes use of all the processors on your system to perform predictive caching of your images. This means that subsequent images in your list are almost always loaded instantly and you almost never have to wait for images to load.

3.) Instant Full-resolution zoom with a single click

All this is done with a streamlined single-window application.

In addition to all of that, Photon provides an easy to use sorting mechanism that allows you to separate your raw footage into separate sub-groups, or 'stacks' of images by using keyboard shortcuts.

Hope that helps. If anyone has questions, don't hesitate to contact me.

Mike Bernardo
 
If you're ready to make a step up to what I think is the next level in image organization and adjustments, etc., then I would look at Aperture. I don't understand your comment that it won't work, unless you have an older mac that is not supported. In either Lightroom or Apertuer, or even iPhoto for that matter, you do not need to import your images into the Managed Library. You can import them "by reference", meaning you leave them where they are in a folder structure on your drive and the program just saves pointers to the data. (IMHO this is inherently a dangerous thing to do with managed files, and is prone to damage to the directory structure if you manually mess around with the files - in the internal libraries, you still have direct access to the files if you want and you can always export images also). Aperture can display an image you are looking at in full screen mode, simply by pressing the "F" key. Press it again and you are back in "browser" mode.

--
Only my opinion. It's worth what you paid for it. Your mileage may vary! ;-}
http://www.dougwigton.com/
 
Thomas K. said:
as you say in graphic converter there is no good browsing function.
Click to expand...
Hallo Thomas,

Well, actually I said "by default" it has no good browsing mode - you can really tweak the interface using Preferences and the View and Window menus to a degree where it works quite a lot like ACDSee, including good keyboard navigation and different view modes. The default settings are terrible indeed, but I would not give up on it - it is one of the best tools available for OS X, pretty fast on all hardware, and quite a bargain.

Ciao,
Uwe
 
displays anything quicktime can (so it can display RAW files, etc), browse images with the mousewheel or spacebar or PgUp/PgDn keys... very similar to ACDsee.

' I'm french and I'm rude. Surprised? '
 
Actually, there is no Mac app comparable to Acdsee. Period.

To make it clearer, Acdsee features I could not find so far all wrapped into any single Mac app are:

1) easy directory based browsing (Win Explorer structure, commands and view);
2) instant fit / 100% view modes;

3) frame lock multi image comparison at any (fixed) enlargement (unreplaceable to find best shot from a sequence stack);

4) temporay "image well" to compare photos across different directories / locations;

5) side-by-side frames comparison at any enlargement, either in locked or non locked modes
6) easy ranking / sorting
7) reasonable price

Under XP, I used to sort / rank photos by (1) composition and (2) tone / sharpness, sending keepers directly to PS when jpeg's and to Nikon Capture when nef's. With Mac, I initially installed Parallels just to run Acdsee (and other Win-only programs).

I tried most of the apps (not all...) available for Mac, and finally settled with the following:

a) Lightroom, featuring # 1 (with a caveat), 2, 5 and 6. It is not reasonably priced, but for the difference it offers solid "global" image processing functions;

b) Nikon ViewNX, featuring # 1, 2, 6 and 7 (it's free).

AFAIK, features 3 and 4 are not to be found in any Mac app - I'd like to be wrong on that. I admit to occasionally run Acdsee for fina checking and sorting since it is lightning fast, compared to Lightroom (as browser), even on Mac.

I hope the above helps,

M

--
Greets from Rome

Mauro

http://www.pbase.com/m_ben/
 
hello uwe,

thats good... i did't discover the thumbnail view before. after opening a picture i can select fullscreen. but then - is there a mode to change between pics without having to open each one on it own?
so far graphic converter looks good and could be what i'm looking for.
danke uwe
thomas
uwe_r said:
Thomas K. said:
as you say in graphic converter there is no good browsing function.
Click to expand...
Hallo Thomas,

Well, actually I said "by default" it has no good browsing mode - you
can really tweak the interface using Preferences and the View and
Window menus to a degree where it works quite a lot like ACDSee,
including good keyboard navigation and different view modes. The
default settings are terrible indeed, but I would not give up on it -
it is one of the best tools available for OS X, pretty fast on all
hardware, and quite a bargain.

Ciao,
Uwe
Click to expand...
--
visit my homepage http://thomas.im
portrait - studio - streetlife
 
ciao mauro,
thats a good list of major ACDSee features. i miss it :-(

with parallels, is it possible to use XP/ACDSee and pull it (out of XP frame) to leopard and open it in leopards photoshop CS3?

grazie per l'aiuto,
thomas
Mauro.B said:
Actually, there is no Mac app comparable to Acdsee. Period.

To make it clearer, Acdsee features I could not find so far all
wrapped into any single Mac app are:

1) easy directory based browsing (Win Explorer structure, commands
and view);
2) instant fit / 100% view modes;
3) frame lock multi image comparison at any (fixed) enlargement
(unreplaceable to find best shot from a sequence stack);
4) temporay "image well" to compare photos across different
directories / locations;
5) side-by-side frames comparison at any enlargement, either in
locked or non locked modes
6) easy ranking / sorting
7) reasonable price

Under XP, I used to sort / rank photos by (1) composition and (2)
tone / sharpness, sending keepers directly to PS when jpeg's and to
Nikon Capture when nef's. With Mac, I initially installed Parallels
just to run Acdsee (and other Win-only programs).

I tried most of the apps (not all...) available for Mac, and finally
settled with the following:

a) Lightroom, featuring # 1 (with a caveat), 2, 5 and 6. It is not
reasonably priced, but for the difference it offers solid "global"
image processing functions;

b) Nikon ViewNX, featuring # 1, 2, 6 and 7 (it's free).

AFAIK, features 3 and 4 are not to be found in any Mac app - I'd like
to be wrong on that. I admit to occasionally run Acdsee for fina
checking and sorting since it is lightning fast, compared to
Lightroom (as browser), even on Mac.

I hope the above helps,

M

--
Greets from Rome

Mauro

http://www.pbase.com/m_ben/
Click to expand...
--
visit my homepage http://thomas.im
portrait - studio - streetlife
 
Ciao Thomas,

Parallels can be set to run XP as a Mac window, with full read / write access to any file on the hard disk. (I use Tiger, do not know if that works under Leopard).

I set Acdsee to read from my "Mac" images folder and I presume it possible to "send" images to "Mac PS" for editing.

I did not try the above yet since I am mostly using Lightroom for editing photos, which show up in Acdsee without any Lightroom-based mod unless I explicitly export a "baked" jpeg. Therefore Acdsee now is the starting step in my workflow chain (pre-sort), whereas processed files are viewable through Lightroom or ViewNX (if coming from CS3).

M

(ps - liked your incredibly clean portraits)
Thomas K. said:
ciao mauro,
thats a good list of major ACDSee features. i miss it :-(
with parallels, is it possible to use XP/ACDSee and pull it (out of
XP frame) to leopard and open it in leopards photoshop CS3?

grazie per l'aiuto,
thomas
Click to expand...
--
Greets from Rome

Mauro

http://www.pbase.com/m_ben/
 
Thomas K. said:
hello uwe,
thats good... i did't discover the thumbnail view before. after
opening a picture i can select fullscreen. but then - is there a mode
to change between pics without having to open each one on it own?
Click to expand...
Yes, Command (Apple key) together with the right arrow key will move to the next image, Command + left arrow key moves backwards.

Cheers,
Uwe
 
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