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Almost every user needs image viewers. Some of them uses default viewers of their os. What do you use?

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irfan view is pretty much one of the top ones to go for – geocoin Jul 17 '09 at 10:51
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go with IrfanView, do not need anything more – Drake Jul 17 '09 at 11:14
Some users are posting answers in comments. In case of product recommendations, that smells of abuse -- a roundabout way to increase visibility. – dbkk101 Sep 23 '09 at 18:38
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15 Answers

up vote 41 down vote accepted

Irfanview

Lightweight, tried and trusted.

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I use this all the time; far, far better than any Windows offering, IMHO. – Steve Melnikoff Jul 17 '09 at 12:19
My choice is also IrfanView – spinodal Jul 18 '09 at 9:53
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It's a decent program, but a decade later, GUI is still too ugly to look at. The Win 3.1 look just sucks for an image viewer, had it been in a program with a different goal, I'd put up with it. Being customizable is nice, but it should look non-hideous out of the box. – dbkk101 Jul 25 '09 at 4:12
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@dbkk101: I agree, it's got to be one of the ugliest apps on Windows. – Charles Roper Jul 26 '09 at 15:47
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just downloaded 4.24 for a new machine and it's easy on the eye out of the box. no longer one of the uglient apps on windows! – geocoin Aug 28 '09 at 8:19
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up vote 19 down vote

Picasa comes with a basic image viewer that can be used separately (when opening images files from Windows Explorer). It is fast and easy to use but I don't think it can be installed separately. I used it in Windows XP since the built in image viewer was so slow for zooming and panning but the one with Windows 7 does me fine now.

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picasa is by far the easiest to run too. and now with the latest release, you can use as the default pic viewer and web albums is also great – quest49 Jul 26 '09 at 17:56
Transparency, animated zooming, etc etc... terrible on remote desktop. – Joe Koberg Feb 19 '10 at 18:18
Best looking image viewer by far. I love it. – miloshadzic Jul 22 '10 at 1:37
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up vote 16 down vote

Windows Photo Gallery / Windows Live Photo Gallery I mean, I'm just viewing images.

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Although is from Microsoft, but I ought to say it looks very good and feels interoperable (allows looking at any folder, writes metadata to files etc.) Picasa feels like an enclosed box that's hard to escape from. – dbkk101 Sep 23 '09 at 18:40
I like that WLPG writes metadata to the files as well. Makes it easier to move around. – Svish Dec 7 '09 at 14:15
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up vote 13 down vote

Faststone image viewer is amazing it even handles RAW beautifully. it's what ACDSee used to be before it became bloatware

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+1: I really like FastStone. I like that it comes in a portable version as well. – Fredrik Mörk Jul 17 '09 at 10:58
Oooh i didn't know about porta-faststone... – geocoin Jul 17 '09 at 11:04
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I used it for a while, but it has pretty bad keyboard menu navigation... it just doesn't work :-( – Peter Štibraný Jul 17 '09 at 13:01
You can edit some of the keyboard navigation settings IIRC – AnonJr Aug 27 '09 at 19:11
it took me a while to work out what Peter was on about, but it doesn't let you get to the menu via the keyboard the usual way... alt etc. can't find a way to do it either. I assume it's to do with the skinning engine it's used. – geocoin Aug 28 '09 at 8:08
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up vote 8 down vote

I use ACDSee, its pretty good and has a good picture explorer, and i really like Adobe Bridge.

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AcdSee Classic it still the best out there... – dbkk101 Jul 25 '09 at 4:12
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I keep using some really old version of ACDSee - it has just the right set of features and is very light – Jonik Jul 27 '09 at 10:12
@Jonik - heheh. Me too, something about 2.4. (AcdSee32). – ldigas Dec 7 '09 at 14:58
Used to use this (a long time ago) but it got big and slow and started to feel too... bothersome for simple image viewing. Looking at their website now, it's clear that they were aiming to compete with Adobe (with requisite pricing). I think this is why i originally switched to IrfanView; it's nimble and i already have Adobe apps, and some several free alternatives. – bill weaver Feb 19 '10 at 19:22
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up vote 8 down vote

I use XnView but quite fancy the look of geocoin's suggestion.

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give it a whirl. if you shoot RAW it's a godsend – geocoin Jul 17 '09 at 10:53
I love the batch conversion options for XnView - very sweet. – scunliffe Jul 17 '09 at 11:58
I've been using XnView for years, with a few quick changes to the settings it becomes a wonderfully minimalistic image viewer. There is, however, no way to hide the menu bar. – James McMahon Dec 7 '09 at 13:32
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up vote 4 down vote

The built-in viewer is pretty good for just viewing. Editing and organising is a whole other question of course...

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up vote 3 down vote

Picasa Photo Viewer

I like this one ..

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That's the worst BBQ ever! Where's the steak? – Joe Taylor Mar 8 '11 at 17:30
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up vote 2 down vote

On Vista and Windows 7, I'm just using the stock image viewer that comes with windows, I don't need advanced editing tool, I just want to view the picture as fast as possible, which is what windows image viewer does.

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up vote 1 down vote

The Windows 7 built-in is very good actually.

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up vote 1 down vote

I love Microsoft Office Picture Manager. Works fast and has good editing tools right there. I used to Windows Photo Gallery but had some errors with it, no idea why.

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up vote 1 down vote

Viewer2

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+1 This one is free, not restricted for commercial use. – hlovdal Sep 8 '09 at 7:41
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up vote 1 down vote

Any of you have ever tried a Hamana - graphic viewer? It is Japenese, but English is available. I bet it is a very first image viewer uses DirectX features.

I am now using both Picasa Photo Viewer and Hamana,

Compare to Picasa Photo Viewer, it can

  • It can read images in archive(compressed) files
  • Folder navigation
  • 3d effects
  • It is a greenware
  • Nice up-scaling of images
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up vote 0 down vote

If you use Total Commander, you should try the imagine plugin. It's so great, very fast and lightweight :)

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up vote -1 down vote

My favored combination currently is: Windows 7's built-in previewer (pretty quick) for actually viewing pictures and Adobe Bridge for picture management. Once loaded viewing thumbnails (even for folders with lots of pictures) and managing pictures is faster than anything other image manager I've used.

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