FastPictureViewer Professional

1. Browsing, Sorting, and Stacking

FastPictureViewer Professional offers many ways to browse images found in an image folder you open. You can move back and forth, image-by-image, ten-by-ten, or subfolder-by-subfolder. The application lets you quickly jump to any subfolder in the current image folder using the Subfolder Picker.

You can also jump to any image using the Quick Navigation Slider, set bookmarks on important images, and quickly jump back to them. Alternatively, FastPictureViewer lets you jump one, two, tree, four, five or more images forward or backward using the Thumbnail Strip. You can change the sort order between name, file creation date, file modification date, EXIF date & time and GPS timestamp, or sort in reverse sequence.

When sorting by time, images from multiple subfolders are merged together and listed in perfect chronological order down to the split-second. This is useful when reviewing an event where you used multiple cameras. Simply create a folder for the event and a subfolder for each photographer or camera used. Then browse the event's folder in FastPictureViewer - sorting by time - and see everyone's photos together at their respective place in time.

FastPictureViewer also lets you take advantage of your camera's RAW+JPEG feature. If you use that mode, you'll be thrilled to learn that FastPictureViewer detects when you used it and stacks the RAW and corresponding JPEG together. The result is that you only see each picture once, not twice as with most general-purpose viewers. Moreover, the "stacks" created in this manner are treated like a single image for all functions, including renaming, deleting, copying, moving, publishing, exporting, etc.

The program is also aware of any WAV audio annotation. Nikon D-series cameras, for instance, can write an audio file you record by pressing a button immediately after a take. Not only will the audio file "follow" the image to which it's attached- as in RAW+JPEG mode - but the application can also play the associated audio file with a single keystroke.

What's more, FastPictureViewer understands Adobe XMP sidecar files. These are small XML documents that contain additional information about an image. With the application, you can stack them with the images to which they refer. Even in the extreme case of RAW+JPEG+WAV+XMP, for instance, the application treats all four files as a single "image" for all operations. Renaming the image, therefore, will automatically rename all the underlying files, too.

One side effect of this feature is that if you save a file in another format within your image editor - for instance, a TIFF file - next to the JPEG or RAW file that it came from, FastPictureViewer will stack the TIFF together as well and handle this additional file with the other files in that particular image's stack.

This may or may not be the desired behavior, but if you want to "escape" from the stacking mechanism, you can rename the newly created version by adding a suffix.

For example, when we have a file named DSC_0001.jpg and we want to save a TIFF version of it in the same folder, we use DSC_0001a.tif for "Version A" and DSC_0001b.tif for "Version B," etc. This way, the three image files are still "close" to each other (and will be viewed in that order: original followed by Version A, Version B, etc. when sorting by name). But since the base file names are different, FastPictureViewer will not stack those files together.

The additional benefit of this scheme is that you can create several versions of the edited files, each with a different suffix. After all, you may ultimately end up with different edited versions of the same image. Naming the file DSC_0001.tif only allows for one version, and will trigger the automatic stacking feature of FastPictureViewer. In a given stack, when several formats of the image are available, the program favors the JPEG version for display over any RAW or TIFF that is present in the stack.

The RAW+JPEG stacking feature alone sets FastPictureViewer Professional apart from most general-purpose graphics viewers, making it best suited to the needs of photographers.

2. Zooming

In FastPictureViewer, we've reduced zooming to the absolute essential so that you enjoy exceptional speed and efficiency.

The application features two pre-set zoom levels: one fixed (100%) and one user-adjustable from 10% (which is actually a reduction) to 25'600%, a huge magnification. Pixel smoothing when zoomed above 100% (magnifying) is normally disabled, but you can activate it in the program options. The default shows "blocky" magnified pixels to avoid hiding any sharpness issue. You can also lock the zoom mode at 100%, which is useful when reviewing documents other than photos.

Understanding the importance of viewing each image at least one time at 100% for sharpness assessment, FastPictureViewer's zooming delivers instant access to that level - and back - in the most efficient manner possible.

3. Slideshows and Folder Tracking

The application also features a simple slideshow function that we call "Auto-Advance." This function offers configurable speed and, optionally, can randomly pick the next image to display.

Since the program constantly monitors the image folder that you opened, it will pick up any image added to this folder and include it in its image list as well as in the slideshow. You can start a slideshow in an empty folder and fill up that folder - by dropping files into it, for example, or by sharing the folder on your local network and filling it up from another computer - and the program will "pick up" new files automatically.

The background folder monitoring feature works in real-time and can monitor an arbitrary number of sub-folders - even an entire drive at once. The application will pick up any file the instant one is added, without ever skipping a beat.

Constant image folder monitoring is an invaluable feature in several scenarios. For example, a magazine's picture editor can review, cull, and rate freshly shot images in almost real-time during an event. All new images are automatically added to the event's folder on the editor's computer as they are shot. They might be copied from memory cards, read from other computers across a local network, or transferred wirelessly using camera-attached radio transmitters like the Nikon WT-series and Canon WTF-series wireless transmitters or Wi-Fi-enabled cameras.

All new images seamlessly appear in their place in the current sort order while browsing pictures in FastPictureViewer. The real-time pick up makes it unnecessary to reload or reopen a folder just because files were added to it. Doing so, after all, could make you lose context.

There is also a special mode called "Folder Tracking Mode," in which the application automatically displays the last image added and which you can use, for instance, to broadcast images on a big screen as they are shot. It's a surefire way to impress a customer during a studio shooting or to entertain crowds during public events, shows, or photo seminars.

You can also use Folder Tracking Mode in conjunction with tethering software like Canon's EOS Utility or Nikon's Camera Control Pro. FastPictureViewer even has its own USB tethering function, which works with PTP-enabled cameras like most Nikon DSLRs since the D200.

4. Tethering

The built-in USB-PTP tethering function leaves images on the camera's memory card and transfers a copy of the files - RAW, JPEG or both - to the computer, so no image is ever lost if someone trips on the USB cable or your laptop battery dies.

The application can also rename tethered files on-the-fly using a user-defined prefix. This is especially useful when shooting a photo series - sports teams, students, or a company's board members. Simply set the subject's name as a prefix, take a few shots, set the next subject's name, and continue. Learn more about tethering in our "How To" section below.

1. Navigation & Panning

Access the most basic navigation commands with the mouse. There are "Previous" and "Next" buttons on the FastPictureViewer taskbar. If you press and hold those buttons for about one second, the application automatically moves forward or backward at a rate of about two images per second. You can also use the mouse wheel to quickly scroll back and forth as well as perform the keyboard shortcuts listed in the section to follow.

When viewing an image, clicking with the left mouse button will instantly zoom to 100% mode (1:1) around the mouse cursor location. If you move the mouse while holding the button down, the program pans the image.

The panning speed adjusts automatically as a function of the image size and the application's window size. Depending on the amount of overflow, the panning speed will adjust upward or downward, so panning a relatively small image requires approximately the same amount of mouse movement as panning a relatively large one.

We call this "Smart Mouse Acceleration," and you can control this behavior via program options. It's sensitive to the speed at which the mouse is moved, so move slowly for precise panning or quickly to move a big chunk. It may take awhile to get a feel of the amount and speed of mouse motion needed to pan images in FastPictureViewer, but it will soon become second nature.

Right-clicking the image will zoom to a user-defined ratio, configurable in the options. You can adjust the right-hand zoom ratio directly with the mouse wheel. Just hold the right-click button as well as the Ctrl key on the keyboard, and scroll the mouse wheel to adjust zooming.

Most users set the right-click auxiliary zoom to something like 300 or 400% with pixel smoothing turned off. This helps them critically assess the sharpness of an image. Pan images by simply dragging the mouse while holding one of the buttons.

Note that all navigation functions also work when zooming. It is possible to click on a part of an image to zoom then move to the previous or next image while holding the zoom. You'll find this ability invaluable when reviewing and comparing images taken in bursts because it will help you locate the sharpest one out of a 10 frames-per-second sequence.

2. Subfolders & Thumbnails

If you move the mouse cursor near the left edge of the application's window and pause for an instant, the subfolder picker will slide into view. This pane displays a list of subfolders within the current image folder. Clicking any folder in the displayed list will cause the program to jump to the first image in that folder.

Moving the mouse cursor away from the pane, back to the image area, and pausing for a short instant will hide the subfolder picker's pane automatically. It may take a little while to get used to where to move the mouse cursor and how long to pause (about a fraction of a second) before the pane slides into view. It may also take some time to learn how long to pause outside of the pane when you want to hide it, but you will get the hang of it.

We designed the width of the "active area" near the left edge of the window and the timing necessary for the pane to appear and hide so that it is quick and easy to access the subfolder picker's pane when needed. Thankfully, this design helps minimize involuntary actions. For example, the pane will not instantly hide itself if the mouse is inadvertently moved out of the pane area for a short moment. Nor will the pane show up involuntarily if the mouse hovers quickly over the active zone - or even touches the left side of the screen - without stopping the time necessary for the program to understand your intention to show the pane.

Similarly, moving then stopping the mouse near the top of the application's window will cause the thumbnail strip to slide down. The thumbnail strip is a "near field" navigation device that shows the current image in the center and the few previous and next images on the left and right. Hovering and briefly stopping on any of the displayed thumbnails will display a large thumbnail in a popup window that follows the mouse cursor. This "jumbo" thumbnail will automatically hide itself after a while. Clicking on a thumbnail, however, will cause the application to jump to the depicted image.

For example, clicking the thumbnail immediately to the left of the center thumbnail will advance one image forward and cause the thumbnail in question to move to the center of the strip. Clicking on the second thumbnail to the left will advance two images forward and so on, so the thumbnail strip makes it easy to advance one, two, three, etc. images with one click of the mouse. Clicking the leftmost thumbnail will advance a "page" at a time, where the size of the page depends on the number of displayed thumbnails. This, in turn, depends on the thumbnail size and the size of the application's window with respect to your screen.

Right-clicking the thumbnail strip delivers a contextual menu where you'll find a choice of three sizes for the thumbnails as well as a choice of three rescaling methods. Shrinking a large image to a tiny thumbnail requires some compromises, which is why FastPictureViewer offers a choice:

• Fast: May result in grainy thumbnails.
• Good: Better result at a slight performance expense.
• Best: Sharpest and smoothest thumbnails at the expense of speed.

Note that the thumbnail strip depends on the operating system's thumbnail caching mechanism introduced in Windows Vista and is thus not available on XP. For those still using XP, we recommend updating to Windows 7 or 8; use the 64-bit edition if your computer supports it.

The first time you view new images in the thumbnail strip, or in "Extra Large" icons mode in Explorer, the operating system needs to extract a large thumbnail from the files, which takes a little time. After being viewed once, FastPictureViewer retrieves thumbnails from the system's thumbnail cache and performance improves. FastPictureViewer's thumbnail strip and Windows Explorer use the same underlying system - a provided thumbnail extraction and caching mechanism with a common thumbnail cache.

The application can sort images according to their subfolder and file name (this is the default mode), by a file's creation or modification time as stored on the file system, or by EXIF date written or GPS Timestamp present in the images.

If recorded by the camera, FastPictureViewer attempts to sort images using split-second information. You can set the sort order in program options or via the dialog window that appears upon pressing the F3 key. Since the program does not maintain its own database with an index of all files, the folder must be reloaded when the sort order is changed. This reloading is very quick and the current image is preserved during operation, so your flow is not disrupted.

3. Tethering

To tether a digital camera with FastPictureViewer, the camera must feature a full PTP implementation (Picture Transfer Protocol, aka ISO15740 standard).

All Nikon DSLRs since the D200 support this protocol, some by default (like the D7000/D8000) and others through a menu option (e.g. the D2/D3/D4) where you can switch the camera to MTP/PTP in the USB settings instead of the default Mass Storage (MSC) mode.

Pressing Ctrl+T in FastPictureViewer initiates the tethering mode, and the program starts looking for one or more cameras to connect to. If you have several PTP-enabled cameras and enough free USB ports, you can connect them all at once and FastPictureViewer will tether them simultaneously.

If direct tethering is not possible (because the camera only has a partial PTP implementation - Canon, for instance - or no PTP mode at all), you can always use the manufacturer's tethering software and configure it to dump the files to a folder on your computer. Simply open this folder in FastPictureViewer and use the Folder Tracking mode (T) to monitor it for incoming files and automatically display the last one added.

The end-result is very similar to built-in tethering except for the ability to auto-rename/prefix the files (Alt+T). That being said, the manufacturer's tethering software may feature a renaming mechanism of its own.

The built-in PTP tethering feature takes advantage of recent operating system enhancements and performs better on Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8.x that it does on Windows XP. FastPictureViewer's tethering function is extremely dependable and works equally well on 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows.

• Left, Right arrows keys move to the previous and next image.
• Space, Shift+Space moves to the previous and next image.
• PgUp, PgDn moves to the previous and next image.
• NumPad+, NumPad- (on desktop keyboards) moves to the previous and next image.
• Scrolling the mouse wheel moves to the previous and next image.
• Ctrl+PgUp, Ctrl+PgDn moves back and forth 10 images at a time.
• Home, End keys move to the first and last image in current folder when sorting by name.
• Ctrl+Home, Ctrl+End keys move to the first and last image in entire image list.
• Up, Down arrow keys move to the previous and next subfolder.
• Backspace and Shift+Backspace move backwards and forward in the browsing history.
• Press F3 to quickly change the sort order.
• The Enter key locks the zoom ratio to 100%. Press Enter again to exit this mode.
• Press A to start the slideshow, or Shift+A to start the random slideshow.
• Alt+W plays any associated audio comment.
• F2 renames the current image or image stack.
• Del deletes the current image or image stack.
• O opens the program's options window.
• The T key activates the Folder Tracking mode (automatically displays the last image added)
• Ctrl+T activates the USB tethering function (for PTP-enabled cameras like Nikon DSLRs)
• Alt+T activates the tethering auto-renaming/prefixing function.

Look for a full keyboard shortcut summary in the included "Cheat Sheet."

• Left-click on the image the to zoom to 100% instantly about the mouse cursor.
• Right-click to zoom to a user-defined ratio instantly about the mouse cursor.
• Click and drag to pan the image.
• Right-click the program's taskbar to pop up the Taskbar Context Menu.
• Stop the mouse near the left edge of the window to open the Subfolder Picker.
• Stop the mouse near the top edge of the window to open the Thumbnail Strip.
• Click the button to the far right of the application's taskbar to make the Quick Navigation Slider appear.

If enabled in the program options:

• Draw an M shape to move to the previous subfolder.
• Draw a W shape to move to the next subfolder.