Every operating system under the sun comes with an image viewer to view image formats that are stored on the computer’s hard drives, connected devices or other storage devices. The differences between one of those standard image viewers and a professional program like FastPictureViewer Professional become obvious immediately when you run the programs side by side. Speed is obviously one of the factors that plays a role. Digital cameras nowadays produce bigger images that take longer to load due to their size.
FastPictureViewer Professional has that speedy edge that makes it the faster solution on computer systems of all speeds and sizes. This may not be obvious when opening 100 Kb photos or images on the system, but definitely when you are working with RAW images or large photos that exceed the Megabyte mark.
But FastPictureviewer Professional is not just an image viewer. It has been primarily designed to aid photographers improve their workflows. Culling plays an important part in the workflow for instance, which is the initial selection of photos to keep and photos to trash or archive. Imagine having to analyse hundreds of 25 Megabyte RAW images on a computer system. A fast and optimized photo viewer can speed up the workflow tremendously.
Alex Rietschin, the developer of FastPictureViewer Professional, mentioned that his program has been designed for four main purposes:
- help quickly review many images efficiently (check overall composition, exposure, sharpness…).
- allow the user to rate and label images according to their subjective “value” (or flag them for deletion).
- copy, move or delete photos, one by one or in batch, according to the given rating or other criteria.
- quickly export web-ready small or medium size JPEG copies of some or all of the photos.
For that, the software program offers professional color managed solution with profiled monitor support, efficient computer resource usage and support of technologies like gpu acceleration or multiprocessing) and optimized interface with keyboard shortcut support for core functions.
Unlike other image viewers, FastPictureViewer displays four transparent floating windows in the picture viewer interface. They are the XMP Metadata window which shows XMP rating, label and urgency, a RGB Histogram window, an external program launcher window and the EXIF Metadata window which displays shutter speed, aperture, dates and more.
The floating windows can be hidden easily by right-clicking on their interface and selecting to hide them. The final element on the screen is the taskbar, which can be hidden as well by pressing F12 to use all of the screen space on the monitor. Another handy shortcut is the F10 key which hides or shows all floating windows at once. Window positions are automatically saved and restored between sessions. One interesting feature is the ability to move the floating windows out of the program window. This is handy for users with multi-monitor setups for instance as it is now possible to view the main interface on one monitor and the floating windows on another.
The taskbar holds access to several important features. A right-click on the taskbar displays a menu with options and their corresponding keyboard shortcuts.
Here it is possible as well to hide or show floating windows, including a View Filter window that is not displayed by default on the screen.
The options on top of the menu require additional explanation.
- Publish, allows to mark images for web publishing or ftp publishing. The module has not been fully integrated yet, but the information can already be used in batch processing the images. Images can be marked for publication by pressing P.
- Batch Delete, will process all images that have been marked for deletion. Images are marked for deletion by pressing X, and the batch delete command can be accessed from the menu or by pressing Ctrl-X.
- Quick Bookmarks offers to bookmark images to open it quickly at a later time.
- Plug-ins, the program can be extended with plugins. A powerful plugin already included is the FastPictureviewer File Utilities plugin which supports rule based processing of images. This is a very powerful plugin, interested users can find out more about it here.
As an example, let’s say we are at the end of a long review session during which we viewed and rated thousands of images. Now we want to copy all files that were given a 5 stars rating to a folder, say D:\Images\Keepers\5-Stars.
The plugin can do exactly that.
- Rename is another powerful renaming tool that supports templates. The file renaming section at the FastPictureviewer website offers a tutorial on the module.
Those are just some of the features of FastPictureViewer Professional. It offers many additional features like a tracking mode where the program monitors an image folder to always display the latest created image stored in that folder on the screen or a tethered mode which can be used to display images directly from the digital camera. Everything has been designed to improve the workflow of photographers, and it does not really matter if they are professionals or amateurs.
Another handy feature is the external editors window which can link to external applications so that images can be send to those editors easily.
The best option for new users of FastPictureViewer Professional is to take a look at the getting started guide on the official homepage. It is lengthy but covers the basics and offers lots of tips on how to work with the program.
FastPictureViewer Professional is at its core a very fast image viewer. If you look deeper you find a professional tool for photographers, editors and photo enthusiasts to manage images on the computer system. The software is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system.
FastPictureViewer Professional Video
FastPictureViewer – Part 1: Introduction from fpvpro on Vimeo.
FastPictureViewer Professional Giveaway
Axel was nice enough to provide us with 20 FastPictureViewer Professional licenses. Please let us know what you’d like to do with the program in the comments for a chance to win one of the licenses. Interested users can download a fully working trial version of the program at the developer site.
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viewing pictures ;:}}
I would like to manage and edit my personal collection of environment photo. Currently using Windows Picture and Fax Viewer on my Windows XP machine as default, I’m quite hesitate on using other third party picture viewer but the Fast Picture Viewer Professional seems very interesting based on your review. Thanks Ghacks
I will use Fastpictureviewer for viewing photos with huge size and use it to publish some photos on web.
I would use FastPictureViewer Professional to handle my growing collection of photos. The software I use at the moment is kind of slow when viewing 30 MB photos.
I am especially interested in the functions of rating and labelling a photo and the copy/delete function to make a pre-selection of the photos taken.
I am an amateur photographer and I would need a fast software like this to work with my RAW files…
Use it to view pictures, of course. :)
Currently I’m using IrfanView but this seems to integrate better into the system and it’s native 64-bit version is a plus. The GPU acceleration makes it fast indeed…
I will continue to use it to edit the thousands of photographs I take. It’s great for labeling and especially for working with RAW files.
To have the ability to work with RAW images like they were JPGs ;)
thanks for these great giveaways!
In fact I would like to eliminate some applications from my (photo) workflow. Especially Lightroom which I use only half hearted (means only the part of viewing, rating and partly file management).
I yet used the trial version but wasn’t convinced whether it could replace in a long term Lightroom. Some has to verify all aspects to be sure in the end. A good workflow is critical.
One nice aspect of Fastpicture Viewer which is not mentioned in the article is that you receive a license for both your desktop pc and your laptop. For me who is often travelling for taking photos it’s a nice add on.
I´d like to use this software to replace my bloatted Acdsee! It seems super fast!
I would like to replace my default viewer with this nice, feature rich and fast picture viewer ;)
thanks for sharing this great software.
I have used it last year and it indeed is very fast. I use it to get correct display for tif images in extremely high res or psds/tifs that have layers in them :)
I’d really like a license that will not expire (like the one before)
This great piece of software will replace my Ashampoo product – if I get to finally win it, that is…
I already use the freeware version, it has beaten all image viewers I’ve tried. It is fast, simple, fast, and fast. And does the job very well.
I’d love to get a license of this!
The interface looks clean & uncluttered. Speedy operation when opening & browsing high resolution images. This software is a win – an ideal replacement to the built-in Windows Photo Viewer for viewing all my photos and picture collections.
Looking at pictures, renaming, copy.
Hi, I have used the freewáre version for ages now, but I think it’s time to go Pro…
I have been looking for a replacement for MaxView 2.2 which was the last freeware version of FastStone’s great image viewer but it’s now a bit dated especially since I moved to a 64 bit system.
I’m a web developer and designer and in a typical week I can end up managing over 1000 images/photos.
The pro version app would go a long way towards towards streamlining my workflow and it looks like it could cut a significant amount of time off of my efforts in image management.
So please please. pick me Martin !! :)
I downloaded trial version of Fast Picture Viewer and would love to make it my default picture viewer.
Picture viewing, at least for me, is not just for the sake of seeing captured images. It is more like re-living captured moments in high-resolution, vivid images, made possible by various high-resolution HD cameras and camcorders.
What better way is there to recall experiences of the past from viewing these images than with a program designed to streamline modern user-interfaces, and keep the impression from fading into reality by providing fast, efficient, and excellent image display?
The review has introduced these possibilities in FastPictureViewer that never came to mind with my current image viewing program, which happens to be the now seemingly discontinued Faststone Image Viewer. With the wide-range of supported formats for various digital cameras and other PC-related applications, I will no longer have to worry about my image viewing program not being able to open such files.
All these for just the “viewer” part of the program, and there are so much more in store for the professionals and enthusiasts at heart. FastPictureViewer Pro will find an important place in my precious moments picture albums.
Thank you for the review.
/m
I would use this to speed up the cataloging and rating of my extensive picture collection. The speed is amazing and will save me an extrodinary amount of time.
Thanks for the opportunity to win a license for this fantastic software.
I would like to use this program to improve my workflow sorting pictures. While I like other programs editing capabilities, fastpictureviewer looks like a better option for sorting.
well, will really help in managing my vast collection of family pictures, it sound really impressive as describe, really eager to use it ‘but hoping to win one license, if i’m lucky, really great offer, thanks alot……
Viewing images.
This is a nice application for viewing pictures, I had it from giveaway but lost it after re-installation. I have many pictures and would like to view them with this application if I win a license.
Thanks
Thanks for giveaway. Please count me in. It is very good picture viewer.
Thanks for the contest, excellent to load different photos format Photoshop PSD, OpenEXR, JPEG2000, TGA, PNM, HDR or DDS , also helps to review reviewing more than 16’000 raw files easily and fast. Batch managemet wll let to delete undersired one easily. Alos also the only native 64-bit, multicore-enabled application of its kind.
I already use the freeware version and i’m ready to go pro!