Multiple instances

[JefDB]

The topic of multiple instances came up on this forum two years ago... so, I understand that , since FastPictureViewer is very power hungry, running two instances of the program at the same time can create problems....
Nevertheless, I would like to ask to reconsider... I would think that the average computer of today can tackle more than the average computer of two years ago.
At present, I'm working on a wedding presentation book.... I am going through tons of JPGs that were used in different photo books, and shortlisting them through FastPictureViewer... so far so good.... problem is : for this presentation book, I want to reprocess the original RAW files since I am convinced that on a lot of them, I can get nicer conversions now than a few years ago... In my ideal scenario, I would go through the 300 or so JPGs that had been selected for the customer's book on one screen, whilst the 1500 to 2000 RAW images of the same wedding would be available on the other screen. I obviously would make my selection based on the 300 JPGs, but I then could easily locate the "mother" RAW file on the other screen, and copy that to my presentation selection folder...
This would save me a lot of time, and I gladly would pay the price of having my machine running a bit slower...
Regards,
Jef

[mkanet]

I just purchased FastPictureViewer Pro. Why doesn't this software have multiple instances?

It's absolutely necessary to be able to compare images side by side for any professional. Even if it requires considerable rework in coding, it's completely worth it; as it will increase the value of this product considerably.

Keep up the great work!
MKANET

[Axel]

Why doesn't this software have multiple instances?

Essentially because it's designed to use as much resources as needed, and to play well with other memory hungry applications. Two instances would just compete for memory against each other, so this would not work well for comparing multiple images. Then there are all the users who double-click an image in a nearby Explorer window and expect it to open in the running FPV Pro instance.

[mkanet]

Thank you for explaining. Please dont get mad at me for saying this. I really love FastPictureViewer. It is very good. However, from a coding aspect, there is a very nice way to do it...

FastPictureViewer would need to have a "core" stub process. This core process would keep track of child processes in memory for displaying each image. This would take care of memory resource issue if done correctly. That's why I said it would need considerable rework in code. This would be a much better and flexible coding design in my opinion (if memory management is done well). I can't explain how much value this feature adds for people who actually need to look at before/after pictures all day professionally.

8GB's of RAM is common on 64bit OS's; and, plenty of RAM to handle 2/3 pictures in addition to other common background tasks like email, web browsing. As a default this feature can be disabled. People with enough RAM can enable this feature.

Please consider it.. I know it a lot of work, but it's really worth it for your users!!

[sergeymk]

It's absolutely necessary to be able to compare images side by side for any professional. Even if it requires considerable rework in coding, it's completely worth it; as it will increase the value of this product considerably.

Just wanted to let you know that you can use Imagine viewer (or probably any other viewer like xnview or irfanview) in conjunction with FPV for side-by-side comparison. Just set it up as an external "editor" in FPV; you can also use it for viewing animated GIFs.

I have FPV as my primary viewer, and if while browsing around in it I come across animated gifs or a need for side-by-side comparison, then use the keyboard shortcut to launch the image in a separate Imagine window.

[mkanet]

Thanks for the tip. However, that not too productive for people with large image collections. The whole point of using FastPictureViewer is for it's speed. I gave up trying to use ACDSee because it would take literally 15 seconds to scan a large directory full of images on a very fast computer/HDD. With FPV, it takes a few seconds or so. Plus, mismatched GUI interfaces, functionality, image quality settings makes it hard to actually do real work. Sadly, the best way I can think of to handle this is to use two different computers and displays running FPV side by side currently. It would be much nice to support dual monitors and mulitple instances of FPV on the same PC.