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All of above photo viewers are best and free to use as Windows Photo Viewer alternatives. Pick any of them and use reliably as all are easy and fast in use and allow you to view your images quickly. Must Read Articles: 10 Free Photo Organizers for Windows 10; How to Enable Windows Photo Viewer in Windows 10.
Every Windows 10 user knows that in this OS, Microsoft ditched the Windows Photo Viewer app and replaced it a less functional Universal app called Photos. In this article, I would like to draw your attention to three impressive alternative applications which can replace Windows Photo Viewer so you get back functionality, usability and speed. RECOMMENDED: While it is possible to, there are several reasons to look for a replacement. Windows Photo Viewer can be removed by Microsoft any day with a new update to Windows 10. Also, in Windows 10, Windows Photo Viewer requires Direct3D acceleration, which can cause performance issues on older hardware and make it unusable in a Virtual Machine like VirtualBox.
Windows Photo Viewer offers very basic functionality, isn't ultra-fast and lacks a lot of features and supported formats. Windows Photo Viewer fails to open an image from a ZIP archive when you double click it in Explorer. So, let's see which freeware and high quality alternatives we can use in Windows 10 instead of Windows Photo Viewer. IrfanView is a very old software which I got familiar with in the Windows 98 era. Over the years, the author has continued his hard work for free and improved the app. It runs well on every modern Windows version.
The best feature of IrfanView is its wide range of options and preferences which makes it very configurable. IrfanView supports a huge number of image file formats and can be extended with plugins. It provides a number of image editing tools like crop, red eye removal tool, resizing, basic filters. The toolbar buttons support skins. IrfanView also provides a multi language user interface. Besides image formats, it can also play various video and audio formats. IrfanView features a slideshow feature, which can be saved as a screensaver.
It also comes with a directory browser mode called 'Thumbnails':IrfanView opens fast and is very lightweight on system resources. It can be used to convert images from one format to another, and can also do batch conversions. You can use IrfanView to capture screenshots. There are some caveats though with IrfanView. After installing the current version of IrfanView, which is 4.40, I noticed that it is bundled with unwanted software. By default, it offers a plugin for your browser and tries to change the default search provider and the browser's home page to Amazon. The user can skip this offer but it is not acceptable to bundle other software to keep the app free.
Also, after installing, it annoyingly opens the user's default browser to show a FAQ page on its own website. This makes for a bad user experience.
If you can excuse these issues, IrfanView is a great piece of software and one of the best Windows Photo Viewer replacements. XnView is almost the same application as IrfanView. XnView is my software of choice. I switched to XnView back in 2001. XnView has a faster image browser and its image rendering quality is much better than what IranView offers.
XnView can be used as a portable application since one of its download options is just a ZIP archive without an installer. XnView also supports plugins, multi language translations and a wide range of image and media file formats. It offers a slideshow feature, a screenshot capture option and many other options which can be useful for everyone. I consider XnView as the best Photo Viewer replacement.
I use it on every operating system I have installed, in Linux too, with a special Qt version, which is also free. XnView is not bundled with any third party unwanted software. Imagine is the third app which is worth mentioning. It has the power and features of the apps reviewed above but the surprising thing is Imagine is just about 1MB in size! It is the fastest app amongst the ones reviewed. It also has plugins, screenshot capture and converter tools and many other options you definitely will find useful.
It is not bundled with other adware or malware. Imagine also has a portable version. All these features make it one of the best image viewers available for Windows. It is also free.
Imagine can be your ultimate choice if you have low end hardware since it is very lightweight. Summary All of the three mentioned apps are impressive pieces of software.
Their authors have done a remarkable job to keep them lightweight yet useful, powerful and free for personal use. Give them a try and decide for yourself which app is the most suitable for you. In the Windows world, there are hundreds of other image viewers which are good, fast and useful. Tell us in the comments what you are using to view your images and why. You are here: » » Three impressive alternatives to Photo Viewer in Windows 10.
↓. thanks thanks a lot! At last I found a viewer to replace my 10 year old ACDsee which cannot read unicode file! I need image viewer that can replicate ACDsee 8, even newer ACDsee changed how the files navigate. I need viewer that can do that and Imagine is the one I seek!:) I’ve tried Irfan, XN, Honey, and the last is Nomacs, Nomacs was promising but 1 year later it does not develop to the viewer I wanted. Luckily in my frustration I found your blog.
If only ACDSee 8 can read unicode, I’ll never switch to other viewer:).
Details Rating: 4.0/5 Price: Free Why Specifically a Photo Viewer? If you’re a photographer, either by hobby or trade, the need for a photo viewer is a necessity.
The reasons why it is necessary is simple, importing a photo from a camera to a computer and then using an image viewing software may change how the photo would look like compared to when it was actually taken. Of course, some find that they want to keep the image exactly like how they took it, so a is necessary. But why else?
Some of the reasons are as follows:. Faster access to photos from the camera, especially if there are large amounts of them. Display-based rendering of the photographs to make it look exactly like how you’d taken them. Reliable conversion of file type without changing quality. While just some of the reasons why you should choose a good photo viewer, an image viewer will not suffice for any photographer worth their salt. Photo viewers are almost as important as their computers after all, without them, they will have a much harder time showing the world the beauty that they have captured through the lenses of their treasured partners that are their cameras. Details Rating: 4.9/5 Price: Free What is the Importance of a Photo Viewer Software?
If you still haven’t understood why using a photo viewer is important to a photographer, then you’re hardly at fault. Most image viewers nowadays have been enhanced so that they can deal with all kinds of images, including photos. Yet this does not detract from the importance of a good photo viewer software as most image viewers are still not specialized to deal with the photos due to compatibility. What is the Best Photo Viewer Software for Me? Now that you’ve understood the importance of the software, what you need is to find the right software for you. Once again, what you need to look for is compatibility: compatibility with your camera and with how you work.
Some will want to use a raw photo viewer software as stated before, others would like to use a in conjunction and even more would use an image editing program such as the likes of Adobe Photoshop. Finding the best photo viewer software is up to you and how you work.