Tag: EXIF

Honeyview Is An Useful Image Viewer

Honeyview is an image viewer made by the developers of the Bandizip archiver. Therefore it is not surprising that it is possible to view images inside zip, rar, tar, alz, lzh or 7z archive formats without extracting them.

Honeyview requires the user to load a folder via a right click anywhere in the program window or the left most button on the bottom controls. Then it lets the user view the images in several way, like fit in window and fit to width but also “Smart double page” which made no difference or didn’t work in testing png and jpg files. These are probably set up to work with tiff or other formats. It is also possible to view files in a slideshow with many delay choices and limited set of transition effects. Folder bookmarks make using the program more efficient. Honeyview is also an image editor with rotate, crop, resize and change format settings via the menu and others like gamma adjustment, flip or sharpen via right click on an image. The user can choose to launch an image in an external editor as well. It is also possible to move and copy images around “Photo folders”. The folders can be defined in the program’s settings.

The program settings (F5) add a whole set of tweaks like turning off the screensaver, changing the program language, more control over navigating with the mouse and keyboard, associating the program with different image formats, caching images, using different image profile data and better using the exif data to view and manage images,

The program’s only skin is the Windows 8 looking one. Honeyview is available in both portable and exe downloads and also supports grabbing GPS data with locations looked up using Google maps.

August 18, 2014
Freeware multi-platform image viewer: nomacs

nomacs image lounge (all lowercase? ) (Version: 0.3.2.5828 beta tested) is an open source image viewer for Windows, Linux, and Mac machines. It supports the most common image formats from jpg to gif (no animations however) and xmp to pgm and others including the raw format. It is capable of reading and displaying exif metadata. It offers faster than most thumbnail view of images in a folder and a player to view a folder ala a slideshow.

The program can also be viewed in full screen or various levels of transparency and in frameless mode where the image only is shown, floating over the background. The toggle between frameless and normal view is not exactly obvious but a quick search revealed it to be F10.

On the image editing side there is crop, resize and a ‘pseudo color function’ where one can play with hue, saturation and RGB color values using a slider.

nomacs also features a synchronization feature that will work on computers on the same network or LAN.

nomacs does indeed seem faster than most. It can be found in various Linux repositories and there is a Mac port as well. Its Windows version runs on Windows 2000, XP, Vista and 7 and is available in both portable and installer versions.

May 25, 2012
My ViewPad Is A Simple Graphics Viewer

My ViewPad (Version: 4.1.0 build 16212 tested) is a freeware image or graphics viewer that is also available for Mac and Linux. It supports over 100 formats, many of them both read and write. These include the common .jpg, .psd, .tiff, .raw, .ico and .gif formats to less common ones like .tga (Targa), .wmf (Windows Metafile), .pict, .psp (Paint Shop Pro) and others.

The interface is simple and straightforward. The image area includes right click support for Copy, Rename, Delete, Properties, and somehow oddly Open With and Preview. The latter two are for opening the images using another image viewer and Windows’ own picture viewer.

The menus on the right hand side of the program window are as follows:

File menu features Open, Reopen, Open Recent, Open Image Folder, Next Image, Previous Image, Save, Save As, Save As Wallpaper (centered, tiled, stretched, fit and clear desktop), Print, Acquire and Delete Image.

Info presents basic info like path, size, dpi, (jpg) mode, color space, compression and similar info depending on the image format.

Edit features Undo, Redo, Flip, Rotate, Scale, Crop, Color Corrections (Gamma, Brightness, Contrast, Auto levels and Auto contrast), Copy, Copy Full Path, Paste, Clear and Change Checksum.

View features Zoom in, Zoom out, Actual size, Best fit, Full screen and EXIF or Page options relevant to the various formats.

Tools includes settings and associations. The former features Rendering quality and Raw interpolation, among others. My ViewPad should run on all Windows versions.

February 20, 2012
Freeware Shorts: WildBit Viewer (Image Viewer)

WildBit Viewer (Version: 5.9 as of this post) is an image viewer complete with support for many image formats. Its interface is divided into a explorer type tree, a file list and the thumbnail or single image view.

WildBit Viewer supports EXIF data and formats like the usual JPG, PNG, GIF, RAW and others but also Photoshop formats like PSD. The thumbnail viewer can be configured to show different sized thumbnails, sorted by name, size and date and any image meta data such as the aforementioned EXIF. There is also the image histogram and zoom via scrolling and geo information for viewing images using Google maps. Not forgetting animated GIF support and the ability to export image info to CSV files.

Via the Add Button button or by dragging folders to the ‘shell toolbar’ at the bottom of the interface favorite folders can be saved for future use. WildBit Viewer also has image compare – two images side by side – and slideshows with many transition effects. Images can be set as wallpaper and edited (Tools —> Editor) as well. The editing features include most of the usual in rotate, flip, adjust, transform, remove red eye, annotate (add text or shape), acquire (from scanner), filter (lens, morph, etc.) and some more.

Search is another noteworthy feature (see image below). Files within folders and optionally its subfolders can be searched by type (when Enable Filters is checked), name, location, date, size, attribute, EXIF, IPTC or XMP data. Note that the Filename text box must not be empty so use “*.*” (without the quotes) at least to start a search.

WildBit Viewer works on Windows 2000 and newer and is available in both portable and installer downloads. It is free for personal use. A pro version with multimedia support and a profile switcher is available as well.

December 6, 2011
Freeware Shorts: Imagine (Image Viewer)

Imagine (Version: 1.0.8 as of this post) is a full featured image viewer and thumbnail browser. It features rotate, flip, negative and other common effects and filters. Support for plugins and command line parameters as well. It also supports animation creation, a feature less common in image viewers.

Via Tools —> Animation Factory one can create animations. It supports setting delays between frames, setting transparency, resizing the animation, fliping frames horizontally or vertically and even manipulating the colors of the images. It is also possible to extract frames from an existing animation.

Another feature often missing or incomplete in many image viewers is to not only be able to open archive files but to be able to get proper thumbnail views of the images inside. Imagine supports this in ZIP, RAR, 7Z, ALZ, HV3, CBZ, CBR and CB7 formats and in my tests supports them well.

Imagine supports EXIF data and their retention when re-saving images. Shell extension support is here too. Via Options —> Shell Extension the preview of an image will be available when right clicking it.

Imagine can create multiple page images, do batch conversions, show slideshows and take screenshots. The latter was a bit different as it somehow proceeded to take many screenshots, not just one, when the trigger method was set to ‘automatically after X seconds’, it thus behaved as ‘automatically after every X seconds’.

Unicode and 64-bit versions are also available, it should run on all Windows versions and doesn’t write to the registry.

Imagine is highly recommended.

October 19, 2011
kuView: The Lightweight Image Viewer

kuView is a free and opensource lightweight image viewer which tries to aid the user in collecting and managing photo and image collections. The version tested for this review, admittedly a ‘pre’ (1.7pre [178]) release, is not bug free and not the fastest. For example the thumbnail panel (available via the Panel menu) is not always populated with the images of a highlighted or chosen directory.

kuView supports copying, moving, renaming and printing images. Re-sampling algorithms such as Lanczos and reading metadata and EXIF information associated with a photo. It can also rotate and set an image as wallpaper. One can also view directories as a slideshow, favorite a directory and move between directories, not only levels up and levels down but in ‘history’ mode as well, all using the Traverse menu.

Two additional features less common to image viewers is the ability to manage a Picasa Web album or gallery from within kuView and also to view, complete with thumbnails, images inside an archive (*.zip, *.tar, *.gz). It also supports reading RAW images.

kuView is unicode capable, has a set of command line interface options and is availabe either as an executable or a full blown installer. It should run on all recent Windows versions.

November 18, 2010
Freeware TSR Watermark Image Protects Your Images

TSR Watermark Image is a freeware tool for adding text, images or watermarks to your images. TSR Watermark Image makes it easy to watermark a series of images because it works with a source folder – where the images may reside. The user can then configure the destination folder keeping the originals untouched.

The output format, quality, transparency and – the preservation of – EXIF data can then be configured. The position of the watermark itself can also be configured from nine placement options like center, lower left and others. After placing it in one of the nine locations TSR Watermark Image also offers additional control over that location via the ‘relative offset’ settings.

Finally one can choose to do watermarks by using or overlaying another image or to simply add a text watermark. One useful additional feature is that a user can change the size of the watermark relative to the original images’ sizes so that one can choose to watermark a smaller or larger portion of the images. When adding a text watermark the font, color and style of the text is configurable as well. Note that by default TSR Watermark Image adds the watermark at a 270 degrees angle (see image), this may or may not be the best angle but as with everything else this is also configurable.

TSR Watermark Image is free for personal use and also available in a portable version.

October 17, 2010
Simple Freeware: Screenshoter And Easy Image Modifier

Screenshoter is a basic, no-install utility to take or capture screenshots quickly and easily. Double click the program executable, choose full screen or area – to capture an area click on the area button, after choosing the area radio button, then click and hold the left mouse button and drag to choose a rectangular area – and then simply click the screenshot button. The image’s format can be changed from the default *.jpg to either *.png or *.bmp and the destination directory can be chosen too. Screenshoter’s options include controlling the name of the captured image and the quality of the *.jpg.

Easy Image Modifier from the same author is also no-install and works by either dragging images into the program window or by using the load option from the File menu. Images can be realigned, that is they can be rotated 90 and 180 degrees or flipped horizontally and vertically and resized by pixels or by percentage. The out put format can be one of *.jpg, *.png or *.bmp. Output file name can be configured to include any combination of a numbered sequence, it’s original name or size. The destination or output directory is configurable as well. The settings menu includes options to exit the program after processing images or to load or launch the output images. There is also an ‘Additional’ option where one can choose to sort images by such criteria as date and file size. Plus other options to maintain aspect ratio when resizing, to remove meta information (such as EXIF) and to reduce or increase the output image quality.

September 7, 2010
Freeware Modi Is Easy Image Processing

Modi is described by it’s author as

Modi is a powerful and flexible batch image processor freeware with an easy to use interface…

Modi has a simple interface. Any number of images can be added via the ‘Add Files’ button or dragged and dropped into the program window. A preview of each image can be seen either on the top right hand side or by hovering over the file name (if the quick view box is checked). Then any number of ‘modifiers’ can be added. These include add frame, resize, crop, reduce noise, auto level, sharpen, convert to black and white and others. In addition to these print EXIF, add image or text watermark and print file name are available watermark options via the same Add Image Modifier window (see image), with each being very configurable in position and format. The output path and format can be configured in the bottom of the program and a preview is also available before proceeding with the modifications.

It is possible to save multiple operations as a preset for quicker future (batch) image processing. Modi requires the .NET Framework, does not require installation and should run on all Windows versions.

July 20, 2010