Windows 7 - Image Viewer suggestions!

Hey all!

Lately I've been working with some very large (ex: 12000x18000px) images. Most of my work is done in Photoshop and The GIMP with no issues, however, when I am looking through them and use "Preview" with the Windows Photo Viewer, I'm quickly learning its limitations....many crashes and freezes which have even lead me to restart numerous times as a result of Windows Photo Viewer trying to load them....not pleasant. Also, it's MASSIVELY laggy when they DO load and slow when I am just scrolling around and zooming into/out of the images in Photo Viewer.

In Photoshop and GIMP there are no issues whatsoever....the images load fine, zoom fine, no lag, no slowdowns when editing, etc. Thing is, I use GIMP and Photoshop for the EDITING part - I don't want to have to use them just to have to LOOK at the images if I need to glance at them. My comp is fast enough for what I need it for, but even so, Photoshop and GIMP still take more than a few seconds to open so I was looking for an alternative photo viewer that is less bloated and has less errors than Windows Photo Viewer.

I've been told IrfanView is good, but I have used it at university and it does work well, however I am not as much a fan and find it a bit too much for what I need. I've also read that Picasais nice too, but still a little too fancy for my tastes. I don't really want "photo management software" lke Picasa and IrfanView have, I would just like a nice Viewer. Basically I would like something with the same feature set as Windows Photo Viewer - fairly basic - that I could integrate into my right-click menu the same way and work much the same way....except that it would actually WORK. I know some people may say "oh, Windows Photo Viewer was never designed to work well with that large an image" but when there are free alternatives out there that handle them 100% fine and Windows Photo Viewer doesn't...well....you get my point.

Thanks for any suggestions!

you could give faststone image viewer a try.

i've never tried it with very large images like yours, and it's more than an image viewer, but it's worth a try - it's free!

IrfanView is a great image viewer. And although I've never used it, I hear that FastStone Viewer (as mentioned above) is pretty good.

Seeing as you're using XP, you've got one of two GREAT photo viewers/editors right on your system: either Microsoft's 'Photo Editor' or 'Microsoft Office Picture Manager.'

Photo Editor actually has more editing features than Picture Manager, and if you upgraded from Office XP, you can re-install Photo Editor from your Microsoft Office XP CD-ROM.


Re-install Photo Editor from your Microsoft Office XP CD-ROM

1. Insert the Microsoft Office XP CD-ROM into your computer's CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive.

If the Office XP Setup program does not start automatically, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. In the Open box, type drive:\Setup.exe, where drive is the letter of your CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive.

1. Start to step through the setup process, and then select Customize for the type of setup to perform.
2. When you reach the Selecting Features step, set each node of the setup tree to Not Available.
3. Under Features to install, expand Office Tools.
4. Click Microsoft Photo Editor, and then click Run from My Computer.
5. Click Install Now.
6. Click OK when Office XP Setup has completed successfully.

PS If you no longer have your XP CD, just Google 'Photo Manager' and you can download it from several sources on-line.

Faststone is quite nice! I like especially the features that you get several useful menus if you move the cursor to the screen edges in fullscreen mode.
I use Zoner (was a GOTD a while ago) but the TS asked for something simple so Zoner might be a bit "over the top"

-DG

Actually Imperfect1, I have Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

However, you do have me intrigued....does the XP Photo Manager work on Windows 7? See, the thing is I don't really need an editor per se, I just wanted a nice snappy viewer

Also, from what I've read on Wikipedia, Microsoft Photo Editor has issues with opening large images and supposedly the ax file size it can handle is 2mb for JPGs when the images I am using would unfortunately be far larger

SledgeDG, JaidynM, and Mickey: You all seem to think Faststone is a pretty decent viewer, I think I may give it a try! Can anybody tell me if it has a right-click listing for image files a la the "Preview" function you get when right-clicking on images for Windows Photo Viewer? If it doesn't I know there is a tedious way to add one through the Windows Registry but I would rather not have to go through that

Here are a couple of basic viewers which may suit your workflow (depending on which formats you need)...

VJPEG

"Version 2: Now default for JPG, BMP, and GIF, can open PSD but I don't like stepping on Photoshop's turf"
-developer

Osiva

This Wikipedia comparison chart of free and commercial image viewers may also come in useful.

Let us know if you find anything outstanding?

Microsoft Answers say Photo Editor can't be transferred to Win 7, but I found some very creative Googlers who apparently have found a way to do it. But if you have Microsoft Office Picture Manager on your system, it too is a fabulous photo/image viewer in it's own right. You might be very pleasantly surprised.

I can't speak to the photo size issue --- but you can try it and see if it can handle your image sizes.

To answer your question:
Not on pic to pic bases (unless you either do the registry tweak, or you make faststone the default viewer then you can open pics through double-click or via right click/open with...

Faststone does have a context entry with folders tho:

OakenG: Yup, have already been glancing through the list on Wikipedia, some decent-looking ones there...VJPEG looks like an option I'll have to try.

Imperfect1: Hmmm, well, I didn't even notice I had the picture viewer installed. Works quite well actually, but it's still a bit more "fancy" than I'd like, haha , although I will definitely leave it installed for now and give it a go for a few days to see if I like it more than I currently think.

SledgeDG: Ok, an "Open with..." option would probably work for me. Don't want to change the double-click option as I'm used to that opening Paint when I have to do really basic edits...faster than opening all of Photoshop or GIMP.

I'll probably download FastStone tonight and take a peek...it's been a massively busy last 2 days so I haven't really had the chance to sit down, install, and/or take a close look at any software yet!