WildBit Viewer is a freeware image viewer that comes with an editor, batch renamer, slideshow tool and more

While Windows default image viewer provides a decent way to view pictures, it barely has any useful options.  If you're looking for something different, give WildBit Viewer a whirl. There are plenty of alternatives though such as FastStone Image Viewer, IrfanView, or XnView.

WildBit Viewer is a freeware image viewer for Windows with quite a few features.

The application has a three pane interface: the two panels on the left work together as a file tree, select a folder in the top pane and its contents are displayed on the bottom.

Click on an image in this pane and you will see its preview on the right side. Switch to the "Thumbview" tab in the preview window, and the interface changes to a 2-pane view. The left pane becomes the file tree, while the other displays the thumbnails of images in a selected folder.

The preview pane has a toolbar at the top that can be used to navigate between images, rotate the view, zoom in or out, set the picture as your desktop wallpaper, view the image's properties.

The toolbar above the directory pane can be used for moving images. The filter button allows you to switch between Images, Images and Videos, and Custom Filters (wildcards).For more options, click on the Tools menu. This can be used for adding/removing pictures to your favorites. The "Set Image Info" option can be used to edit Exif, IPTC attributes. The Rename option in this menu is actually a batch renaming tool and that's always useful.

Use the Generate File Listing to save a HTML file that contains the details of the selected folder's contents. An option to save the list in a CSV document is available too.

If there's one particular tool that I'd say was impressive, it is the "Compare Images" option. You can also use the hotkey Shift + Control + C to open it. This lets you view 2 images side by side, compare them, see if they are a match. There is a histogram setting available that you can switch to as well.

WildBit Viewer comes with a total of six tools: The image Viewer is of course the primary component. The other tools are the Editor, Multi Screen Viewer, Search, Slideshow and Profile Switcher. You can access the other five programs from the tools menu.

WildBit Viewer supports the following image formats: PNG, GIF, JPG, JPEG, BMP, JPE, JIF, TIF, TIFF, FAX, G3N, G3F, XIF, PCX, DCX, DIB, RLE, ICO, CUR, WMF, EMF, PSD, TGA, TARGA, VDA, ICB, VST, PIX, PXM, PPM, PGM, PBM, WBMP, JP2, J2K, JPC, J2C, DCM, DIC, DICOM, CRW, CR2, DNG, NEF, RAW, RAF, X3F, ORF, SRF, MRW, DCR, BAY, PEF, SR2, ARW, KDC, MEF, 3FR, K25, ERF, CAM, CS1, DC2, DCS, FFF, MDC, MOS, NRW, PTX, PXN, RDC, RW2, RWL, IIQ, SRW.  The video player supports AVI, MPG, MPEG and WMV formats.

The Editor can be used as a standalone application. It has various editing tools like lasso, ellipse, polygon selectors, magic wand, freehand, shapes, and line based annotations, resize, crop, effects among other options. In addition to the basic editing tools, it can be used to remove redye, merge images, optimize GIFs, compare images and more. There is even a built-in screenshot tool in the editor.

The Multi Screen Viewer only works with multi-monitors, if you happen to have such a setup, you can view multiple images, rotate them, zoom, or view the pictures in full screen mode. The Search utility is handy for finding files based on file name, date, size, properties.

The Slideshow viewer is more than your average slideshow software. It can be set to automatically change the image, or you can click to change it. The order can be randomized, shuffled, reversed. You may define the time the image should change. Rotation, image layout, transition, are some key features of this tool. Right-clicking on a slide allows you to choose from many options. The Profile Switcher is used for saving your customized settings for each of the tools.

There are many versions of WildBit Viewer available on the download page. These consist of 32-bit and 64-bit versions and portable versions, with or without the help file. There is also a development build of the program available on the same page.

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