FastPictureViewer Codec Pack 2.2R3
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64-bit and-32 bit image
decoders for Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP SP3.
Enables support for 38 additional image formats in
Windows Explorer, Windows Photo Gallery, Windows Photo
Viewer, Windows Live™ Photo Gallery and, on Windows 7,
also within Windows Media Center, with full 64-bit
support.
Supports raw formats from more than 320 digital camera
models, including CR2, NEF, DNG and more, plus
specialists image formats like EXR, TGA...
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Looking for raw formats support in Windows Explorer,
Windows Photo Viewer or Windows Photo
Gallery? Read on...
Nearly four years ago,
Windows Vista introduced a modern and extensible imaging framework called Windows
Imaging Component (WIC). The new Microsoft operating system
came with built-in support for most
standard image formats including JPEG, BMP,
PNG, GIF, TIFF and HD Photo.
WIC made
it possible for 3rd parties to add first-class support
for additional image formats to the operating system
(through small plugin components known as
codecs), complete with thumbnail views in Explorer, previews and slideshow in Windows Photo Gallery
/ Photo Viewer and, on Window 7, also within
Windows Media Center (so users can broadcast
photos and slideshows to their living room's TV,
provided they own the appropriate Media
Center Extender hardware, an Xbox 360, or
suitable output on their video card).
The FastPictureViewer Codec Pack provides such
"platform support" for
many additional
image formats beyond what's supported by
Windows out-of-the-box, including most popular "camera raw"
image formats, covering the latest top
digital cameras on the market, and
turns Windows
7 and Windows Vista's Explorer into a raw
image viewer. The codecs also works on
Windows XP SP3
with some limitations: thumbnail views are
enabled in XP Explorer but separate
applications, such as our own
FastPictureViewer Professional or
Microsoft's Window Live Photo Gallery, are required to open
files for previewing and full-size viewing
on XP.
The FastPictureViewer Codec Pack contains 22 different image
decoders, or "codecs", each
in 32-bit and 64-bit flavor,
supporting 38 image file extensions such as
DNG, CR2, NEF, PEF, ORF, SR2, SRW and more,
including specialists formats such as
OpenEXR, TGA, PNM, DDS and JPEG2000. For
example our CR2 codec and
NEF codec supports the
latest top cameras from Canon and Nikon, and ship as
part the codec pack in 32-bit and 64-bit
form, along with a 64-bit DNG codec
and 19 others, currently covering more than
320 camera models.
For digital cameras owners wanting to
venture into "raw shooting" to get the most
of their equipment, the FastPictureViewer
Codec Pack is a must have tool,
as it makes raw file handling in Windows
Explorer as simple and easy as it is with
the JPEG format: easy identification of
images straight in Windows Explorer (and
standard "Open File" dialogs in most Windows
applications) means faster workflow, and since time is
money this product pays for itself
within minutes.
In addition to Windows Explorer,
a growing number of codec-enabled
applications such as our own
FastPictureViewer Professional
image viewer, Windows Live™ Photo Gallery from Microsoft, Sony Vegas Professional from
Sony Creative Software, among others, "automagically" gain
the ability to open and work with new image formats once the decoders are installed.
When possible, the full metadata is exposed
by the codecs so Windows Search can pick
up and index your files, gathering
information about date taken, camera model used, tags etc,
enabling Windows built-in search to locate your
pictures by date, camera model, tags etc.
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We are a
Microsoft Registered Partner, and Microsoft refers their customers to this page
directly from their own
website as we are listed as one of the
approved suppliers of Windows-compatible image codecs
in the Microsoft Photography Resource Downloads section of the
microsoft.com website (link: Microsoft Pro Photo Resources),
alongside camera manufacturer
like Canon, Nikon, Olympus,
Panasonic, Pentax and Sony (our
product goes beyond what camera
manufacturer offers in terms of
image formats support, 64-bit platform
and operating systems compatibility, and overall
performances). |
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The FastPictureViewer Codec Pack is
listed as Compatible with
Windows 7 (64-bit and
32-bit) in the
Windows 7 Compatibility Center: you can rest assured that our
product is stable, well tested, and
performs as advertized. |
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FastPictureViewer Codec Pack 2.2R3,
now only $9.99, seriously.
(This is a limited time, special introductory offer, regular price will be $29.99, hurry as it won't last
forever...)
(Prices
shown in USD, international prices varies due to currency exchange rates)
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FastPictureViewer Codec
Pack licenses are sold directly, at an
incredibly low introductory price. For simplicity
and to cut down administrative and support costs, which in turn
helps keep the price reasonable, we do not offer
trial versions of this product (expired trial codecs are
troublesome, as applications that use them stop
functionning for no apparent reason when the trial
period has expired).
Our codecs
works as described on this page, there is no catch
or fine prints, just see the description and
illustrations shows on this web page, including the
list of supported camera models and image formats:
what you see is exactly what you get.
Download instructions are automatically sent shortly after
checkout from our own 7/24 software delivery system.
Depending on various conditions, email messages,
once sent, can take anywhere between a few minutes
and a few hours to get delivered.
It is important to make sure the email address you use is
current and valid, as no one can contact
you if the supplied email is incorrect. Some people
prefer to use a separate email for online
transactions, that's perfectly fine, but be sure to
check the right account.
You should receive two messages: your PayPal receipt
sent by PayPal and the download instructions sent by
our delivery system.
If the message(s) does not arrive after a couple of
hours,
please check your "spam filter" and your "junk email
folder" first (look for a message titled
"FastPictureViewer Codec Pack Delivery Information"):
90% of the "non delivery" issues are caused by spam
filters on the receiving side, the rest being caused
by typos in email addresses or "mailbox full"
type of errors.
If you don't find the message, please write
to support {at}
fastpictureviewer {dot}
com to let us know: you can submit an alternate
email address if you like, and we'll forward the message
or send it again (during business hours of
course, as this requires manual intervention).
As a side note, we
never share, rent or lease email addresses
to anyone and we don't
send advertisements or SPAM, ever. PayPal has its
own privacy
policy that can be read
here. PayPal registration is optional: there is
no obligation to open a PayPal account and one-off
transactions are fine. Finally, your payment details
are handed by PayPal and are never sent to us.
Businesses my want to consider our site licenses for great savings:
discounts start at 10% for 3 users, all the way up to 50% for a 100 users
site
license. Please contact us for larger
deployments.
Installation:
Installation of the FastPictureViewer Codec Pack is simple and easy:
download the 11 MB universal installer to your computer,
for example to your "Documents" folder, from the
download link provided by email.
Double-click the file to
launch the installer, then restart the computer at the
end of the straightforward installation procedure.
There is no web-registration, activation or license keys to
type for the FastPictureViewer Codec Pack: you could be up and running
just a few minutes from now!
The installer let users customize their
setup on the Custom Setup page pictured below: it is possible to unselect some of the
codecs if desired, but most people should find easier to
accept the default options, which are to install
everything, and simply click the Next button.
Codecs are silent "system components" and there is
no "executable program" in the package, so there is
no shortuct or icon added to your desktop.
After restarting, Windows will begin displaying high
quality miniature images instead of white, generic
"document" icons, as pictured below on
this web page. Additionally, Windows Vista and
Windows 7 users will see their image's metadata
displayed in Explorer's lower pane (which can be
resized), and will be able
to open images for larger viewing in Window's
built-in photo viewers, as illustrated.
System requirements:
Disk space:
Approximately 24MB
required for a full 64-bit installation, or 12MB on
32-bit systems. Other system requirements such as
RAM, processor etc. are as per Windows requirements.
Some of the codecs are multi-core enabled and take
advantage of current computer's multi-processing
abilities to improve performances during full-size
raw decoding and embedded preview JPEG
decompression.
Operating systems:
Windows 7, Windows Vista, or Windows XP with Service Pack 3 (SP3).
All 32-bit and 64-bit editions
are supported: the universal installer
detects the OS details and automatically installs
the appropriate versions and components.
On 64-bit
systems, both 64-bit and 32-bit versions of the
codecs are deployed, as required by Microsoft in
their codec developer's guidelines. Our codecs
are read-only and follow
Microsoft recommendations for codec developement.
They conform to the the latest Windows 7 requirements.
Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 are also
supported.
Users of
Windows XP-64 SP2, Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server
2003 SP2 needs to install a small separate component
before installing the FastPictureViewer Codec
Pack,
downloadable directly from the Microsoft web site:
64-bit, or
32-bit (however, installing SP3, if possible, is warmly
recommended as SP2 is now
officially unsupported by Microsoft since July
13, 2010, meaning than no more security fixes will
be issued for it.
On Windows XP, thumbnail views are enabled in
Windows Explorer for all supported image formats
through our own 64-bit and 32-bits "thumbnail
providers" (which also enable JPEG-XR / HD
Photo thumbnails), but users need to install separate
applications for large-size viewing, as the
built-in Windows Picture and Fax Viewer (and Windows XP Explorer's
thumbnail strip preview pane) were never designed to
be extensible by the way of installable codecs.
Windows Explorer Settings (Windows Vista and
Windows 7):
After restarting the computer, you may have to
enable "Large icons" or "Extra large icons" views
using Explorer's context-menu (right-click in an
unused area within an Explorer file pane to display
the menu):
If thumbnails are not showing, make sure that the
icons option is
not checked in Explorer's Folder Options:
The height of the bottom pane displaying file
information and metadata on Windows 7 and Vista can
be adjusted to show more or less metadata items.
Windows Explorer Settings (Windows XP SP3):
On
Windows XP, one may need to set the current viewing
mode to "Thumbnail views" from Explorer's toolbar
(or View menu) to enable thumbnails in Explorer
views:
Control Panel:
The
FastPictureViewer Codec Pack ships with a Control
Panel applet that let advanced users configure some
aspects of the codec's operations. The tool allows
to configure certain codecs to force them to always
use the embedded JPEG preview image, and never decode
the raw data from scratch.
Using the JPEG preview is appropriate in most cases
for Explorer thumbnails and quick previews in
Windows Photo Viewer, moreover the preview image
typically reflects all camera settings such as white
balance, sharpening, contrast, picture controls and
usually looks better than the "as shot" basic raw
conversion performed otherwise. Our raw codecs also
operate much quicker for large size viewing
in Windows Photo Viewer or Photo Gallery when using
the JPEG data instead of the raw data as a basis to
create the images.
Some of our codecs (DNG, NEF, CR2...) ship with the
JPEG option enabled by default, but you can use the
supplied control panel configuration applet to
change this behavior in a few clicks.
Support:
In case you run into any issue while downloading or installing the FastPictureViewer Codec Pack, please let us know by writing to support
{at} fastpictureviewer {dot} com. We'll do our best to help you ASAP.
Licensing:
The FastPictureViewer Codec Pack is licensed on a
per-user basis and the license terms allows for
installation of the software on multiple computers
belonging and used by the same user.
Site licenses, with
substantial quantity discounts starting from 3 users, are available directly from this
page for up to 100 users.
Please contact us for server licensing (for
example to use the codecs in an ASP.NET 3.x / 4.x server
application), redistribution (if you are an
application developper), or for large corporate
deployments beyond 100 users per site, we have
quotes ready for up to 1000-users licenses.
NEW LICENSING:
(From April 24, 2010) |
FastPictureViewer Codec Pack licenses
now covers
maintenance releases and all future
2.x versions: we are now in a position to
offer free updates to our customers,
through our own software delivery system.
All customers
having purchased a FastPictureViewer Codec
Pack license from our former reseller were sent new download instructions. |
What happened to the
free version?
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Before you forget: follow us
on Twitter, bookmark this page on your favorite
social bookmarking service and share your experience
on your blog or website, and within online
communities you participate with. A little
word-of-mouth can go a long way to help us keep
our price so incredibly low.
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What users say about The FastPictureViewer Codec
Pack? (short version: "we love it!")
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"[...] makes browsing folders of raw and dng files in Windows Explorer a hell of a lot easier" - pixelform.com
"[...] everything works [...] Life is Good" - Adobe forum member
"Works great" - members of the Nikon Capture NX group on Flickr
"A really nice solution" - digitalmediaphile.com
"Works great with Vista 64bit" - DPReview.com forum member
"Full support inside Windows 7 RTM" - WindowsLive.com blogger
"Raw Thumbnail support for Windows (32/64-bit)" - NikonRumors.com (weekly related news and links)
"No problems so far" - SevenForums.com
"The first time I've been able to get the thumbnails to actually show up in Explorer" - Flickr user
"The initial impression is very good indeed" - James O'Neil's blog
(Microsoft Technical Evangelist)
"RAW preview codec that actually works!" - PentaxForums.com
"Finally a free solution for viewing NEF thumbs in Win 7 x64" - Asrtechnica forum user
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The RAW Codec Pack in action on Windows 7 64-bit (Explorer
set to "Extra large icons" mode):
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Windows 7's built-in Photo
Viewer learns new tricks (38 formats
supported in total):
Fast previewing of NEF files from
embedded JPEG previews, reflecting all camera and
CaptureNX settings. Nikon D3, AF-S VR 200mm f/2G IF-ED. Photo credit:
Axel Rietschin
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Windows 7 Explorer Metadata Search Integration: find images by
Tags, Date Taken, Author...
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Thumbnails, Large size viewing and Slideshows in Windows 7 Media Center. Works with MC extenders too!
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CG and Gaming formats: OpenEXR, DDS, TGA, PNM, J2K
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Indicative list of image file formats supported by the FastPictureViewer Codec Pack
2.2:
Raster Image Formats
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Extension(s)
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Name
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Auto rotate
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Metadata
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Remarks
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*.dds
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DirectX DDS
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n/a
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n/a
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The DDS codec supports uncompressed textures and
several compression variants and pixel
formats, including DXT1/3/5, YUV422 and
R16G16B16A16 HALF. The codec reads all
sample images supplied with the DirectX SDK. |
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*.jp2, *.j2k
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JPEG 2000
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n/a
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n/a
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Supports baseline 8bpc JPEG 2000 (8bpp
Grayscale, 24bpp RGB) and S444 YCbCr. |
*.tga, *.tpic,
*.vda,*.icb,*.vst
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Truevision Targa (TGA)
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n/a
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n/a
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Supports uncompressed and RLE-encoded grayscale 8 and 16-bit,
true color 15, 16, 24 and 32-bit (with alpha) and 8-bit indexed with 15, 16, 24
and 32-bit color maps.
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*.pnm, *.ppm,
*.pgm,*.pbm
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Netpbm Portable Network Map
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n/a
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n/a
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Supports 1, 8 and 24bpp binary encoded files
(P4/P5/P6)
and 1 to 32 bit text encoded files
(P1/P2/P3). Update: (Jul-13-2010) The PNM
codec supports 16bpp big-endian binary
grayscale and 48bpp big-endian binary RGB
formats, along with 32bit/channel IEEE float
extensions (32bit grayscale and 128bit
ARGB). |
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*.exr
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Industrial Light & Magic OpenEXR
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n/a
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n/a
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The OpenEXR codec produces highest quality 64bpp RGBA floating point
data (16 bits per components, with Alpha) and support many variants of the
EXR format, including tiled images and
several compression schemes. The codec reads
all sample images supplied by ILM with the
OpenEXR SDK. |
Raw Image Formats
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Extension(s)
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Name
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Auto rotate
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Metadata
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Remarks
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*.dng
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Adobe Digital Negative, with fast thumbnailextraction from most DNG files,
with, intelligent black borders removal.
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Y
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Y
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Can be configured to skip raw
conversion and always use embedded previews
instead, using the provided Control Panel
applet. Note that preview images can be of lower resolution than the real
image. The DNG codec supports files created
natively by DNG-enabled digital cameras, as
well as files created with the Adobe DNG
converter, with or without embedded raw
original. |
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*.cr2, *.crw
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Canon Raw Image, with fast thumbnail extraction from most CR2, CRW files and intelligent black borders removal.
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Y
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Y
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Can be configured to skip raw
conversion and always use embedded previews
instead, using the provided Control Panel
applet. Note that Canon JPEG previews are
usually of lower resolution than the real
image, except on very latest cameras like
the EOS 1D MkIV whose files contains a full
1:1 preview. |
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*.erf
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Epson Raw Image
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Y
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Y
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*.raf
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Fuji Raw Image, with fast thumbnail
extraction from most RAF files and intelligent "black borders" removal.
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Y
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Y
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*.3pr, *.fff
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Hasselblad Raw Image
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Y
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Y
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*.dcr, *.kdc
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Kodak Raw Image
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Y
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Y
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*.raw, *.rwl
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Leica Raw Image
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Y
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Y
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*.mef
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Mamiya Raw Image
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n/a
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Y
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Full (and relatively slow) raw decoding only.
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*.mrw
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Minolta Raw Image
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Y
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Y
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*.nef, *.nrw
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Nikon Raw Image, with fast thumbnail extraction from most NEF and NRW files.
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Y
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Y
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Can be configured to skip raw conversion and always use
full-size embedded previews instead
(shows Capture NX edits), using the provided
Control Panel applet. Now supports
previewing JPEG and TIFF files re-saved as
NEFs from Nikon Capture NX software. |
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*.orf
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Olympus Raw Image, wit fast thumbnail extraction from most ORF files, with intelligent "black borders" removal.
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Y
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Y
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*.rw2
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Panasonic Raw Image
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Y
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Y
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*.pef
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Pentax Raw Image, with fast thumbnail extraction from most PEF files, with intelligent "black borders" removal.
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Y
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Y
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*.x3f
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Sigma Raw Image
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Y
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Y
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JPEG Preview only
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*.srw
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Samsung Raw Image
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Y
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Y
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*.cs1
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Sinar Raw Image
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n/a
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N
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Full (and relatively slow) raw decoding only.
Sinar CaptureShop 1 raw images. |
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*.arw, *.sr2, *.srf
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Sony Raw Image
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Y
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Y
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Additional Features and Extras
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Extension(s)
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Name
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Remarks
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Rawzor (*.rwz)
for CR2, NEF,
NRW, PEF, ORF |
Rawzor Compressed Format
Previewer (*.rwz)
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Provides previewing support for some of the
Rawzor compressed RAW formats. Rawzor is a
special-purpose compression utility that
compresses raw files from many cameras into
its own, smaller format. The Rawzor
previewer included in this pack allows RWZ
file previewing and metadata extraction
without prior decompression. |
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All formats
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Thumbnail Provider for XP
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Provides support for thumbnail views in
Windows XP Explorer (SP3), for all the above
formats, plus HD Photo / JPEG XR files. Also
works with Windows XP 64 SP2 and Windows
Server 2003 x64, provided that WIC 64 is
installed on the computer. Fast thumbnail extraction from most CR2, CRW, NEF, NRW, PEF, RAF, ORF
and DNG files, with intelligent black borders removal. |
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All formats
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32/64-bit
WIC Import Plug-In
for Adobe Photoshop CS3/CS4/CS5 |
Allows Adobe Photoshop CS3/CS4 to directly import images from any installed WIC codec,
bypassing ACR entirely. This experimental plug-in is available as a
small
separate download (click to get the file)
and comes as a couple of naked .8ba file
that mist be installed manually at the
appropriate locations. This 90KB package
contains both 32 and 64-bit versions of the
plug-in, along with succinct installation
instructions. Once installed, the plug-in
appears in Photoshop's File->Import menu and
let you import any supported file types directly,
in 24bpp RGB. This optional ALPHA-level
add-on is available 'as-is' and is not part
of the FastPictureViewer Codec Pack. |
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All formats
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Windows 7 SlideShow Gadget
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Windows SlideShow gadget, modified to support
RAW formats. The gadget is available as a
separate download. Unzip the file to "C:\Program Files\Windows Sidebar\Shared Gadgets\".
This optional add-on is available 'as-is'
and is not part of the FastPictureViewer
Codec Pack. |
Links to
related 3rd Party Add-Ins and Utilities
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Extension(s)
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Name
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Remarks
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Some, see author's
site.
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Paint.NET Plug-in (aka "RAWLOAD") |
Let Paint.NET users import raw images through
some of the codecs from this pack. Currently
in testing, see
this post
in Paint.NET's user forum for more information. |
Some WIC Codec enabled applications
(will benefit from the FastPictureViewer
Codec Pack):
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Name
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Remarks
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FastPictureViewer Professional
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Our own photographer-oriented image viewer,
designed for photographers (try
it!).
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Windows Explorer
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Native codec support starting from Windows Vista, or Windows XP SP3 with the help of our own thumbnail provider.
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Windows Photo Viewer
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Default image viewer on Windows 7.
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Windows Media Center
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Media and entertainment center on Windows 7 Home Premium,
Professional and Ultimate.
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Windows Photo Gallery
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Default image viewer on Windows Vista.
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Windows Live™ Photo Gallery
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Excellent image organizer, part of Windows
Live™.
Available for download from the Microsoft website.
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Sony Vegas Pro
9 |
Sony's top-of-the-line professional
nonlinear video editing suite: drop EXR (and
other) files straight to Vegas tracks. |
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VSO Photo Gallery
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An upcoming photo organizer from VSO Software.
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IMatch
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An image management suite from Mario M. Westphal
(support for WIC Codecs must be enabled in
the options). |
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RSpec
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Real-time spectroscopy software from
RSpec-Astro.com
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Paint.NET
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A nice and free image editor (codecs supported through the Paint.NET add-in described above).
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The Panorama Factory
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Image stitcher/panorama maker with WIC codec and 64-bit support, from panoramafactory.com/
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Adobe Photoshop CS3, CS4, CS5
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The most complete image editor from Adobe
Inc. (codecs supported through our experimental Photoshop import plug-in described in the above section: Adobe Photoshop does not support Windows-compatible image decoders on its own).
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What happened to the free version?
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The FastPictureViewer Codec Pack was initially released
for 6 full months as "donationware" with free downloads,
meaning that users electing to keep the codecs on their
computer(s) were supposed to make a donation, of an
amount left to their appreciation, in order to support
the development of
possible future versions. We had a killer product that
everyone would want so web traffic would surge, everyone
would love to finally see pictures instead of just blank icons,
and most would give a few bucks (or more) to support the
effort! At least, that was The Plan...
To make a long story short, it did not work. Web traffic did surge and people did love the
codecs, but after 106,661 downloads from our server
(and 117,738 hits on the post-install web page), only
about 0.2% of the downloaders actually donated anything:
one fifth of a percent of all users is a disappointing figure at
best.
Pragmatically, we'd have been happy with 90 or even 95%
free riders, but 99.8% was a bit too much (that's two
donations every 1,000 installs!) so we decided to pull
out the free version and to move to another model, with an
extra-extra-low introductory price to ease the transition
(but not before putting several more weeks of effort to introduce five entirely new codecs
for version 2.0).
It was an interesting experiment and we learned a few
things along the way, but it was not economically viable
considering the time and effort that we put behind this
product (for example we were first on the planet to
support the Canon EOS 1D MkIV, and Canon's own 32-bit only
codec STILL don't support it as we write this, we also
are the *only* supplier of 64-bit codecs for a number of
formats: a similar codec pack is simply not available
elsewhere, at any price.
A
big THANK YOU to those who donated, though, it was very
much appreciated! We'll gladly send the 2.0 version to
those who contributed an amount equivalent or higher than
the current selling price, just write and we'll take
care of it. |
Possible future formats
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Without making any kind of commitment, we are investigating a few image formats
for possible future inclusion in the FastPictureViewer Codec Pack. Formats currently
under consideration includes Radiance's HDR, which together
with OpenEXR (for which we already released a codec with
version 2.0 of the codec pack) are popular formats in the
Computer Graphics industry. |
FastPictureViewer Codec Pack 2.2 vs. Manufacturer's
Codecs
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For many formats enabled by the FastPictureViewer Codec
Pack there is no alternative as we are the only provider of working, stable and supported Windows-compatible codecs, in
both 64-bit and 32-bit flavors. For a few formats,
however, there is an official offering,
although only in 32-bit form:
- Adobe DNG codec: after years of
waiting, the Adobe DNG
codec R1 05/12/08 finally came out and is a small disaster:
it's slow,
known to cause system instabilities and crashes, and
to cause the Windows Indexing System
to spin at
100% CPU usage for hours when encountering any image
remotely resembling TIFF (which includes DNG,
but also other
raw files like for example Pentax PEF
files). The Adobe codec only comes in 32-bit edition, does not support
installation on XP, does not support fast JPEG preview extraction and is still
in preliminary form, since two full years, without
the slightest update in sight. Make sure you uninstall it
completely: as ironic and surprising as it sounds, Adobe seemingly can't write a DNG codec
for their own proprietary DNG format,
as evidenced by
frustrated
user
complaints
in
their
forums.
As a matter of fact, our own frustration about this very codec and its
inability to support fast DNG previewing, a feature
needed by our own photo viewer, actually
sparkled the FastPictureViewer Codec Pack project!
The FastPictureViewer DNG codec does not depends on Adobe software in
any way. It addresses the problems of the current
Adobe offering with fast thumbnail and JPEG preview image
extraction, and rock solid stability with support
for raw and linear DNGs. The FastPictureViewer DNG codec
comes in native 64-bit edition, as well as in 32-bit
form, for maximum compatibility across all
supported operating system platforms, from XP SP3 all the way to
Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7.
- Canon CR2 codec: the Canon CR2
1.7.0 codec is only available in 32-bit edition (Windows 7
64-bit, Vista 64 and XP 64 users are simply left out in the cold), and is unbearably slow to open files in full-size
- about half a minute per photo! - making it essentially useless for image viewing in
Windows Photo Viewer or Photo Gallery.
Finally, it does not support Canon's own CRW format. The
current Canon codec gets
poor ratings on
Canon's own website due to its compatibility
issues. The FastPictureViewer CR2
codec does not depend on
Canon software in any way and comes in both 64-bit
and 32-bit flavors. Our codec provides much improved
performances for full-size decoding and supports the
CR2 format as well as the older CRW format, for
maximum compatibility across the entire range of
raw-enabled Canon digital cameras, including those
with firmware modifications known as CHKD, and works on all
current Windows desktop and server platforms.
- Nikon NEF and NRW codecs: the Nikon NEF
1.9.0 and NRW 1.0.0 codec are only available in 32-bit form (just like
with Canon and Adobe, users running 64-bit versions
of Windows 7, Vista and XP are ignored).
The codecs are also slow when opening files in full-size,
greatly reducing
their usefulness for full-screen viewing in Windows Photo
Viewer and Photo Gallery.
For some combinations of camera and system, for
example Nikon D3/D3S and Windows XP, the Nikon NEF codec fails to
auto-rotate thumbnails taken in portrait orientation
and display them horizontally, with black stripes at
the top and bottom.
The
FastPictureViewer NEF
codec
does not depend on Nikon software or SDK in any way and
addresses the aforementioned shortcomings. Our codec comes
in both 64-bit and 32-bit editions for full
compatibility with Windows XP SP3, Vista, Windows
7 and server editions.
FastPictureViewer Codec Pack 2.x
enables high-quality thumbnail views in Windows XP SP3 Explorer
(and Windows XP 64) too:
The FastPictureViewer Codec Pack
2.1R2 in action on Windows XP SP3, demonstrating great handling of
Canon CR2 and Nikon NEF files, with auto-rotation of
portrait-oriented pictures (based on embedded EXIF
orientation information written by cameras)
and automatic black-stripes removal (actual
screenshot).
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Will this mess up my images?
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| No. The image codecs in the FastPictureViewer Codec Pack are strictly read-only and never alter the file's content for any reason. |
Will this wreak havoc with my computer?
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No. The image codecs are passive components that gets loaded only when required,
and we don't overwrite or replace anything on your
system. Our codecs passed
all Vista and Windows 7 conformance tests with flying colors (Microsoft has published
a set of tools for WIC image codecs validation for
Windows 7 and Vista) and we got zero horror story reports
either during the beta or since the public launch, with
more than 120,000 installations so far. The codecs also uninstall themselves cleanly
and use very little disk space (the installer weights
about 5 MB), it's not an invasive technology
taking over your computer.
Supported raw formats are associated with the
default photo viewer (Photo Gallery on Vista and Photo Viewer on Windows 7), as required by the
Microsoft's WIC codec
development guidelines. On Windows XP SP3 the standard
Explorer will display thumbnails, but users need to
download and install
Windows
Live Photo Gallery or
FastPictureViewer Professional for full-size image viewing,
as this now old operating system was never designed to
display raw files on its own. |
Any bundled adware, spyware, malware, toolbarware, whatever-ware?
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No, really.
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Can I use raw files as desktop background or in slideshows?
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Yes, we have enabled the "Set as desktop background" right-click context menu option
for all the file formats we support, in Windows 7 and
Vista. You can also watch raw slideshows directly from
Photo Gallery / Photo Viewer and, on Windows 7, also
with Windows Media Center (that means you can
watch raw image's slideshows on your living room TV, with the appropriate
Media Center Extender hardware or an Xbox 360). The "print" and
"email" functions of Photo Gallery
are also enabled.
What you cannot do, on the other hand, is add a folder containing raw files as a
picture location for the automatic screen background image changer
in Windows 7: only JPEGs and BMPs are
compatible with this new Windows 7 features (perhaps
this will change in the future as Windows 7 Service
Packs gets released).
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Custom codec development
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We have the skills and minute attention to details required to design and develop
highest-quality custom WIC codec solutions for your image formats, including strong
Windows platform knowledge, augmented with intimate image file format and metadata
knowledge and a LONG experience writing imaging
software. We
are also experts in the lost art of native 32-bit and 64-bit C/C++ and COM development.
Contact us with your project idea, or if you'd like us to develop customized
or read/write versions of some of the codecs included in the FastPictureViewer Codec Pack. We can make your own 32/64-bit WIC codec a reality.
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Developer's corner
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From time to time we get inquiries from software developers wanting to use our codecs with their application. Here are the answers to the most common questions:
yes, you can develop applications that relies on our codecs for image access, but your end users need to
obtain and install the codec pack themselves (meaning
that you must refer them to this site). In particular, bundling the codec pack or
any part of its content,
in any form whatsoever, is
expressly forbidden. The
codecs are Copyrighted work and we retain all rights
relative to the Codec Pack and all its content.
There is no "OCX" or "DLL" that can be used to access
the codecs from older development environments (but
nothing prevents someone from writing one and wrap WIC
to make it callable from almost any environments). Any application developer can use the WIC imaging
framework, which is part of Windows since 2006 and
documented on MSDN, to access images through our codecs
or any others. Application using WIC automatically
benefits from installed codec(s) and gains instant
access to new image formats without any modification or
recompilation, once new codecs are installed on the
end-user machine.
WIC is available to native application developers as
well as .NET application developers using the .NET
Framework 3.0 or higher. The FastPictureVIewer Codec
Pack codecs are compliant WIC decoders and can be used
from any WIC host, past, present and future.
(Geek Note: WIC is COM based and can be programmed
from many languages and development environments able to
instantiate COM classes and use COM custom interfaces,
moreover, .NET and ASP.NET 3.x, 4.0 (or later) and WPF
3/4 developers using
the System.Windows.Media.Imaging namespace for image
access automatically benefits from installed codecs, as
.NET 3 and WPF secretly uses WIC under the hood (so does
GDI+ apps on Windows 7, but for some reason Microsoft
did not enable external codec support in this scenario).
That means that all existing .NET 3.x and WPF-based
applications, as well as WIC-enabled native
applications, benefit from the
FastPictureViewer Codec Pack
and gain the ability to open new image formats: the codecs provide much broader benefits
than usual raw-enabled viewers. On a more
technical note, all our codecs are
free-threaded (which is a requirement for
Windows 7) and many of them are also
multi-core aware: they provide speed
benefits beyond what's offered in most other
raw viewing products on the market for full
image decoding on modern computers, including
competing codec offerings and
manufacturer-provided codecs, when they
exists.... Finally, unlike most camera
manufacturer's codecs, they can also be used from
within Windows Services or in server
applications as they never, ever pop up
modal dialogs (or any UI whatsoever) like some
manufacturer's codecs do. The easiest route to
raw-enable and EXIF-enable your ASP.NET 3.x
or 4.0 server app
is by the way of System.Windows.Media.Imaging and our
codecs - contact us for server licensing details!).
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Axel Rietschin Software Developments is a
Microsoft BizSpark Startup company.
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Axel Rietschin Software Developments is a
Microsoft Registered Partner.
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Axel Rietschin Software Developments is a Software Industry Professionals member.
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