A good (free) RAW file viewer

[TonyGamble]

Until last week I have used BreezeBrowser to view and cull my RAW shoots. For what it is worth I then process my RAWs in Qimage Ultimate but it is not the software to take 500 shots and quickly reduce them to 100 keepers.

I cannot go on using BreezeBrowser as it is no longer being developed and cannot read Ricoh or Olympus Raws.

I dug out a copy of Irvanview but before I commit myself to it I'd be interested to learn what other Windows PC users are using. It must be fast. It must show the images with enough detail to know one is keeping the right shots. It must have an easy way of moving the iffy shots to another folder rather than the Recycle Bin.

All ideas please.

Tony

 

[Wayne Larmon]

Wayne

I emailed Chris a couple of weeks ago.

"HI Tony,

I'm sorry we have no plans for adding support for Ricoh GR raw
conversion. However, BreezeBrowser Pro should be able to display the raw
files using the JPEG preview image stored in the raw file.

Regards,

Chris Breeze"

and:-

"Hi Tony,

I'm not aware of any HTML templates using cursor keys for navigation but
I'm sure it must be possible using Javascript or DHTML. It has been
quite a while since I've worked on new HTML templates.

Regards,

Chris Breeze"

Thanks for the (rather dispiriting) information. Because Chris already uses DCRaw to support some Canon cameras that are no longer supported with the Canon SDK (Canon G and S series), I wouldn't think that it would be difficult to use DCRaw to support all RAW formats that he doesn't support using an OEM SDK. I guess Chris would rather put his efforts into his line of camera remote control programs than into the program that started it all for him.

I am learning how to use FPVP. I am sure I will find it better.

Axel has pointed me to that way of upsizing the embedded thumbnails as I said and has also pointed me to some other ways I can use FPVP more to my liking.

Until I can find a way of creating HTML folders that are tablet friendly I will continue to revert to BB for their system. And I prefer the BB alternative of thumnail or large views, but I gather that will come in the next upgrade of FPVP.

One possible hint. BB's template system lets you insert whatever HTML (or JavaScript, DHTML, etc.) you want. Have you looked at jQuery Mobile? jQuery Mobile lets you create mobile sites by just copying and pasting snippits of code that use a variation of the jQuery JavaScript library to support mobile devices. But you don't need to know any JavaScript at all to use jQuery Mobile--you just copy-and-paste snippets of code into your templates. It is easy to learn. If you already know enough HTML to use BD's templates, and spend a few hours looking at the JQuery Mobile docs, you should be able to make a mobile site.

I am working on a system that uses a template approach that was inspired by BreezeBrowser's templates. I have one set of templates for a "normal" site, and a different set of templates that have jQuery Mobile code and works for mobile devices. I use the template system to generate essentially two different sites: one for regular computers and a second with jQuery Mobile code that is optimized for mobile devices.

I haven't tried this with image galleries yet so I don't know if this would solve your particular problem.

If you want to see how my system works, contact me with DPReview's Personal Message and I'll give you a URL. I'm not ready to make the site live, so I'm not posting the URL publicly yet.

I'll take a look at FPVP. I've been using Axel's FastPictureViewer Codec Pack for years, but had never looked at his viewer. Because I used BB as my GUI front end for all my image related processing and assumed that BB was being updated and supported. I'm curious if FPVP would work for me, because I use BB's supporting files as hooks for my own processing scripts. (Custom image sort, ranking, etc.)

Wayne

 

[TonyGamble]

Wayne,

PM sent.

Tony

 

[JamesMortimer]

Until last week I have used BreezeBrowser to view and cull my RAW shoots. For what it is worth I then process my RAWs in Qimage Ultimate but it is not the software to take 500 shots and quickly reduce them to 100 keepers.

I cannot go on using BreezeBrowser as it is no longer being developed and cannot read Ricoh or Olympus Raws.

I dug out a copy of Irvanview but before I commit myself to it I'd be interested to learn what other Windows PC users are using. It must be fast. It must show the images with enough detail to know one is keeping the right shots. It must have an easy way of moving the iffy shots to another folder rather than the Recycle Bin.

All ideas please.

Tony

If you don't want dedicated raw editing features then Irfanview will do the job.

It'll view RAW and you can set prefs to copy or move to set folders, delete to recycle bin or delete permanently.

It doesn't open RAW by file type - but you can set that up by file associations. (I use send-to, then just spacebar through the folder).

 

[TonyGamble]

Thanks,

I had Irfanview but I could not see how one could rate an image from 1 to 5.

Maybe you can but I am now sold on Fast Picture Viewer Pro and the support there is brilliant.

Tony

 

[malch]

I had Irfanview but I could not see how one could rate an image from 1 to 5.

IrfanView certainly doesn't make this easy/obvious.

But here's the thing... where do you want to have that ranking stored?

As far as I know, there isn't even a de jure standard placeholder within EXIF or IPTC. So there's little guarantee that a ranking entered into one program will be respected/visible by another.

How do others deal with that?

Maybe you can but I am now sold on Fast Picture Viewer Pro and the support there is brilliant.

I agree. But you may want to keep both since they are to some extent complementary. I find IrfanView invaluable for quite a few tasks especially batch operations on a folder of images.

 

[Glen Barrington]

Thanks,

I had Irfanview but I could not see how one could rate an image from 1 to 5.

Maybe you can but I am now sold on Fast Picture Viewer Pro and the support there is brilliant.

Tony

Many file viewers and organizers have this function. I use this function, but not for any sort of permanent 'quality' or overall value purposes.

I use it to record which photos I want to work on first. 5 stars means work on it first, 4 means second, 3 means third, etc. It allows me to focus on those photos that I think have the most likelihood of being a 'Keeper'. There are some 1 star photos I may never get to because new higher rated photos keep pushing it down in the que.

For this reason, I re-evaluate my photos every 3-4 months, starting with the lowest rated first. I figure that as I develop as a photographer, my judgement and skills improve. And something I decided was too marginal to work on immediately might well have some reasons to bump up in the que.

--
I still like soup. . .
Now that you've judged the quality of my typing, take a look at my photos. . .
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7267302@N03/

 

[AxelR]

I had Irfanview but I could not see how one could rate an image from 1 to 5.

IrfanView certainly doesn't make this easy/obvious.

But here's the thing... where do you want to have that ranking stored?

As far as I know, there isn't even a de jure standard placeholder within EXIF or IPTC. So there's little guarantee that a ranking entered into one program will be respected/visible by another.

How do others deal with that?

Rating and "color labels" are usually stored in Adobe XMP metadata (embedded, or in XMP sidecars) and this data can be read by XMP-aware applications, e.g. Lightroom, but also most other DAMs like iMatch, PhotoSupreme etc.

Lightroom can also export to XMP so with a little effort the metadata can even round-trip between XMP-aware applications.

The specs are here if you want to update your homegrown DAM system:

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/xmp.html

Maybe you can but I am now sold on Fast Picture Viewer Pro and the support there is brilliant.

I agree. But you may want to keep both since they are to some extent complementary. I find IrfanView invaluable for quite a few tasks especially batch operations on a folder of images.

Try Ctrl+F in FPV Pro: if you are familiar with MS Outlook message rules you should find your way easily. I would be interested to get some feedback on what can be improved or added.

 

[malch]

Rating and "color labels" are usually stored in Adobe XMP metadata (embedded, or in XMP sidecars) and this data can be read by XMP-aware applications, e.g. Lightroom, but also most other DAMs like iMatch, PhotoSupreme etc.

Yes, I guess XMP is how most folks are handling it.

The specs are here if you want to update your homegrown DAM system:

Well, I sorta hate sidecars (even though they do have a number of things to commend them) and since I really don't need anything else in XMP, I just adopted my own convention: use IPTC-Urgency for Ranking.

I'm not proud of bastardizing the standards but it's just so simple and effective for my own use.

>Try Ctrl+F in FPV Pro: if you are familiar with MS Outlook message rules you should find your way easily. I would be interested to get some feedback on what can be improved or added.

To be honest, rule-based approaches don't work well for me with graphical interfaces. I suppose that's why I like IrfanView's batch operations. It's very easy to resize a folder of images. If I need something more powerful (complex conditions etc) I'll probably script it in Perl with ExifTool and ImageMagick. Nevertheless, I should try and spend a little time working with your Batch/File Utilities feature and maybe I'll come to love it.

 

[AxelR]

Thanks,

I had Irfanview but I could not see how one could rate an image from 1 to 5.

Maybe you can but I am now sold on Fast Picture Viewer Pro and the support there is brilliant.

Tony

Many file viewers and organizers have this function. I use this function, but not for any sort of permanent 'quality' or overall value purposes.

I use it to record which photos I want to work on first. 5 stars means work on it first, 4 means second, 3 means third, etc. It allows me to focus on those photos that I think have the most likelihood of being a 'Keeper'. There are some 1 star photos I may never get to because new higher rated photos keep pushing it down in the que.

For this reason, I re-evaluate my photos every 3-4 months, starting with the lowest rated first. I figure that as I develop as a photographer, my judgement and skills improve. And something I decided was too marginal to work on immediately might well have some reasons to bump up in the que.

Nothing is set in stone with ratings and labels. Some folks use all of the three different "ratings" availalbe in XMP: the XMP Rating itself, from 1 to 5, to grade the image's subjectique quality or importance, then the XMP Label (typically a "color convention" like red, yellow, green blue, purple, as in Lightroom by default) and the 3rd is called Photoshop Urgency and ranges from 1 to 8.

You are free to use those three independant "ratings" to suit whathever meaning making sense to you, and to revisit them and change them as files gets processed, or as your appreciation of your images evolves.

The Urgency field suits the notion of "processing priority" particularly well, and I believe this field was created for that purpose!

Good photo viewers and organizers let you filter on those fields, e.g. to show you only the Urgency 1, red-labelled and rated 4 or more photos, or whathever other combination.

 

[JamesMortimer]

Thanks,

I had Irfanview but I could not see how one could rate an image from 1 to 5.

Maybe you can but I am now sold on Fast Picture Viewer Pro and the support there is brilliant.

Tony

I think I missed that requirement.

Irfy can't rate images - it's not a collection manager, it's a viewer and editor.

 

[AxelR]

Rating and "color labels" are usually stored in Adobe XMP metadata (embedded, or in XMP sidecars) and this data can be read by XMP-aware applications, e.g. Lightroom, but also most other DAMs like iMatch, PhotoSupreme etc.

Yes, I guess XMP is how most folks are handling it.

The specs are here if you want to update your homegrown DAM system:

Well, I sorta hate sidecars (even though they do have a number of things to commend them) and since I really don't need anything else in XMP, I just adopted my own convention: use IPTC-Urgency for Ranking.

I'm not proud of bastardizing the standards but it's just so simple and effective for my own use.

Try Ctrl+F in FPV Pro: if you are familiar with MS Outlook message rules you should find your way easily. I would be interested to get some feedback on what can be improved or added.

To be honest, rule-based approaches don't work well for me with graphical interfaces. I suppose that's why I like IrfanView's batch operations. It's very easy to resize a folder of images. If I need something more powerful (complex conditions etc) I'll probably script it in Perl with ExifTool and ImageMagick. Nevertheless, I should try and spend a little time working with your Batch/File Utilities feature and maybe I'll come to love it.

Who knows ;-)

Perl scripts are certainly great for power users but I found Outlook's point-and-click approach to be valuable for the rest of us.

That said, if you insist on writing your own code, you can: there is a script condition (where you can put your own logic to decide to process a file or not) and a script action (where you can code whathever you want to act on the files being processed) and these can be combined with the built-in stuff.

The languages available are those supported in-box by Windows Scripting Host (WSH), namely JavaScript and VBScript, from both of which you could call ImageMagick through its COM interface component, or spawn ExifTool or anything else using the "WScript.Shell" object build into WSH, while the "Scripting.FileSystemObject" provided by Windows can be used for the usual file and folder manipulation stuff if you need to do something very special.

Since you mentionned Perl, there is a product called ActiveState PerlScript that should be compatible with WSH, I never looked into this more than superficially.

One incentive for the geek inside you: anything you do in this plugin will run in parallel on multiple files, on as many cores your CPU has. Now i know I got your attention ;-) You should try the Downscale and Export to JPEG action just to get a feel.

 

[Wayne Larmon]

Rating and "color labels" are usually stored in Adobe XMP metadata (embedded, or in XMP sidecars) and this data can be read by XMP-aware applications, e.g. Lightroom, but also most other DAMs like iMatch, PhotoSupreme etc.

Lightroom can also export to XMP so with a little effort the metadata can even round-trip between XMP-aware applications.

The specs are here if you want to update your homegrown DAM system:

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/xmp.html

I also am writing a homegrown sort of DAM system, but use BreezeBrowse Pro as the front end. BBP lets the user rank images on a scale of one to five. And it also lets the user manually drag thumbnails around to do a custom sort (and save different custom sorts that can later be reloaded.) My scripts access the data that BBP writes for both user rankings and for custom sorts.

Does FPVP do both of these? (User ranking and custom sorts (plural)) And if so, is the data easy to get at? (meaning XML or ASCII files.) And if so, is it editable? (So I could script transferring data from BBP to FPVP.) Interoperability is important.

Yes, I know I can download your trial and see for myself, but I don't like to install/uninstall programs any more than I have to. (I am a happy customer of your Codec pack.)

TIA.

Wayne

 

[malch]

Since you mentionned Perl, there is a product called ActiveState PerlScript that should be compatible with WSH, I never looked into this more than superficially.

Hmmm, interesting, I'll check that out. Thank you!

One incentive for the geek inside you: anything you do in this plugin will run in parallel on multiple files, on as many cores your CPU has. Now i know I got your attention ;-) You should try the Downscale and Export to JPEG action just to get a feel.

Not bad Actually, impressively fast esp. when the source and destination are on SSD!

Here's a comment for you... After selecting "Downscale and Export" I get:

"Accept any file then downscale and export it to the specified folder in JPEG format."

It's not at all obvious that clicking "specified" was the way to size/quality/sharpening options. I assumed it would allow me to specify the destination folder. But that left me wondering how to specify the size.

It all makes sense now but this put me off based on my first cursory look at the feature.

Maybe the caption can be improved? Having said that, this does highlight the problem that usually arises with GUI's and rule-based systems: stacked modal dialogs. Scripting is one way to flatten the presentation so you can see everything at once.

 

[AxelR]

Rating and "color labels" are usually stored in Adobe XMP metadata (embedded, or in XMP sidecars) and this data can be read by XMP-aware applications, e.g. Lightroom, but also most other DAMs like iMatch, PhotoSupreme etc.

Lightroom can also export to XMP so with a little effort the metadata can even round-trip between XMP-aware applications.

The specs are here if you want to update your homegrown DAM system:

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/xmp.html

I also am writing a homegrown sort of DAM system, but use BreezeBrowse Pro as the front end. BBP lets the user rank images on a scale of one to five. And it also lets the user manually drag thumbnails around to do a custom sort (and save different custom sorts that can later be reloaded.) My scripts access the data that BBP writes for both user rankings and for custom sorts.
Does FPVP do both of these?

Ranking yes (XMP rating from 1 to 5, labels, urgency, which can be written in XMP sidecars - small XML files with a well-documented schema - or embedded into TIFF and JPEGs) but custom sort no.

Basically FPV Pro is just a one-image-at-a-time viewer and there is not even a thumbnail view, so no drag and drop reorganization or any image organization features for that matter.

I believe that ranking/rating belongs to the culling/reviewing stage but that custom sorting, virtual collections and the like belong more to the organizational phase, which FPV does not cover at all.

(User ranking and custom sorts (plural)) And if so, is the data easy to get at? (meaning XML or ASCII files.) And if so, is it editable? (So I could script transferring data from BBP to FPVP.) Interoperability is important.
Yes, I know I can download your trial and see for myself, but I don't like to install/uninstall programs any more than I have to. (I am a happy customer of your Codec pack.)
TIA.
Wayne

 

[AxelR]

Since you mentionned Perl, there is a product called ActiveState PerlScript that should be compatible with WSH, I never looked into this more than superficially.

Hmmm, interesting, I'll check that out. Thank you!

One incentive for the geek inside you: anything you do in this plugin will run in parallel on multiple files, on as many cores your CPU has. Now i know I got your attention ;-) You should try the Downscale and Export to JPEG action just to get a feel.

Not bad Actually, impressively fast esp. when the source and destination are on SSD!

Here's a comment for you... After selecting "Downscale and Export" I get:

"Accept any file then downscale and export it to the specified folder in JPEG format."

It's not at all obvious that clicking "specified" was the way to size/quality/sharpening options. I assumed it would allow me to specify the destination folder. But that left me wondering how to specify the size.

It all makes sense now but this put me off based on my first cursory look at the feature.

Maybe the caption can be improved?

Thanks a lot, that's exactly the type of feedback I was hoping for. I spent so much time in front of those features that I no longer see them with a fresh eye. Yes, the wording can certainly use some improvement, I'll revisit the rule templates and see what I can do to make things clearer.

Having said that, this does highlight the problem that usually arises with GUI's and rule-based systems: stacked modal dialogs. Scripting is one way to flatten the presentation so you can see everything at once.

--
Axel
http://www.fastpictureviewer.com

 

[Wayne Larmon]

Ranking yes (XMP rating from 1 to 5, labels, urgency, which can be written in XMP sidecars - small XML files with a well-documented schema - or embedded into TIFF and JPEGs) but custom sort no.

Basically FPV Pro is just a one-image-at-a-time viewer and there is not even a thumbnail view, so no drag and drop reorganization or any image organization features for that matter.

I believe that ranking/rating belongs to the culling/reviewing stage but that custom sorting, virtual collections and the like belong more to the organizational phase, which FPV does not cover at all.

Tony (the OP) and I use BreezeBrowser, which came from a different time. When BB was created, there were no DAM programs. And there were no CMSs (Content Management Systems) for generating web site content. There were just file browsers and image editors. (And ASCII editors for creating HTML.)

BB is a grab bag that does image browsing along with misc. other functions (like generating HTML image galleries, because the only other way to create a web image gallery was to manually write all the HTML yourself.) An image browser needed to be able to custom sort thumbnails, in preparation for generating out an HTML web gallery.

In many ways BB is obsolete because there are now more powerful programs that do the different functions that BreezeBrowser does. But it still is valuable to have additional functionality in an image viewer for those of us that don't immediately import images into Lightroom (or Facebook.) Or use a prefab CMS to generate web content.

Thanks for your answer.

Wayne

p.s. Apologies if the formatting in the post is off. The DPReviewer editor stopped working for me and I had to copy my reply into a Notepad file and reboot. After the reboot and copying the ASCII text back into the DPReview editor, the formatting is acting strange. I am now on my last edit trying to fix the formatting.

 

[malch]

Thanks a lot, that's exactly the type of feedback I was hoping for. I spent so much time in front of those features that I no longer see them with a fresh eye. Yes, the wording can certainly use some improvement, I'll revisit the rule templates and see what I can do to make things clearer.

I believe the folder and options need to come together -- since they are on the same dialog. But I also wondered if the captions were getting a bit too wordy. Reducing the word count is good provided the meaning isn't lost. So, maybe:

"Resize and export as JPEG. Set Destination/Options."

I think that's fairly succinct but a relatively complete and unambiguous description of the function.

 

[System Reviews]

You may go for free raw viewer.. I use the same....

 

[AxelR]

Thanks a lot, that's exactly the type of feedback I was hoping for. I spent so much time in front of those features that I no longer see them with a fresh eye. Yes, the wording can certainly use some improvement, I'll revisit the rule templates and see what I can do to make things clearer.

I believe the folder and options need to come together -- since they are on the same dialog. But I also wondered if the captions were getting a bit too wordy. Reducing the word count is good provided the meaning isn't lost. So, maybe:

"Resize and export as JPEG. Set Destination/Options."

I think that's fairly succinct but a relatively complete and unambiguous description of the function.

Thanks, I'll try and make improvements to the labels along those lines.

Companies like Apple seems to be very good at finding the right words for their features, making it easier for most people to understand the purpose and benefits, and it's true that appropriate labels etc goes a long way to make applications easier to use: sometimes I great feature goes unnoticed because its name does not ring any bell. I plead guilty to that: coding the thing and make it work is only half of the story ;-)

I'm thinking of hiring a professional copywriter to help me with those things in the future, to tone down the tech babbling, find the right words, and catch small usability or discoverability issues like the one you spotted. The problem is that good copywriters know the value of their work and charge an arm and a leg for it, so it's a chicken and egg thing that many small outfits and one-person businesses never solve.

 

[malch]

I'm thinking of hiring a professional copywriter to help me with those things in the future, to tone down the tech babbling, find the right words, and catch small usability or discoverability issues like the one you spotted. The problem is that good copywriters know the value of their work and charge an arm and a leg for it, so it's a chicken and egg thing that many small outfits and one-person businesses never solve.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest you can handle this yourself if you simply focus on the issue. I mean invest some serious time and brainpower on this specific aspect. It'll come together nicely. And you've already taken the first step

Anyway, good luck with it!