Configuring FS Image Viewer

The installation of Faststone Image Viewer was a piece of cake. I just hit Next all the way through.

Now that it’s installed, we’ll take a look at the configuration settings in Image Viewer.

Click Settings from the Settings menu or hit F12 to continue.

Wow... there is a lot here.

As you can see, there are a lot of settings for us to play with. We won’t be covering everything here but I’ll try to hit all the highlights.

On the viewer tab, we have a number of options to play with. All of the settings here pertain to using the viewer to actually view an image.

These settings are all a matter of personal taste. I didn’t change any of them.

JPEG

The JPEG tab allows you to set the quality of the JPEG images Image Viewer creates. This means you can change the level of compression.

I recommend setting this to the maximum setting. Each time you resave a JPG, this setting will be applied. The higher the setting, the less quality you will lose with each save.

RAW

The unprocessed data from the image sensor in your camera is called RAW data. Most quality point-and-shoot and all digital SLR cameras have the ability to save in RAW format.

The advantage to using RAW images is that certain settings such as white balance and some exposure compensation can be applied as though they were applied at the moment of exposure.

The RAW tab has settings that configure how RAW images are previewed.

CMS

Most users will never care about this and depending on what you use Image Viewer for, it is probably not of any value. This setting tells Image Viewer to look at the color space that an image contains and preview it accordingly.

Download from Memory Card

Selecting Download from Memory Card from the File menu will bring you to this screen.You can quickly unload a batch of images from a memory card by selecting a source, a destination and clicking Download.This feature isn’t very flexible and wouldn’t work for me because of my already established organization system, but new users will find it handy.

Screen Capture

The Screen Capture feature of Image Viewer seems like a bolt on. It seems to work ok however its not terribly intuitive and there are better products available for free out there.

Edit Menu

The Edit menu, while lengthy, has what you would typically expect any photo-related software to have.

The Edit with External Program menu option points to the programs you configured in the settings screen.

You also see options for setting brightness, saturation, RGB and sharpness. While Image Viewer can do these things, I recommend find a piece of software that is focused on image editing and use Image Viewer for the task at which it really shines.

View Menu

The View Menu is pretty boring, but it allows you to change how you view images in Image Viewer.

Tag

Image Tagging is a nice feature within Image Viewer. It allows you to go through separate folders tagging images, so that you can later pull up and manipulate only the tagged images.

This is very handy when working with a large number of images.

Thumbnail Database Manager

While the storage capabilities of today are far beyond that of yesteryear, it’s still not smart to waste space.

The settings here allow you to manage the amount of space that the thumbnails generated by Image Viewer will take.

Batch Image Convert/Rename

This is a feature that I find very useful. As a photographer, I often have a large number of RAW images that I would like to browse quickly. Windows doesn’t handle RAW images like it does JPEG images, so this task can be difficult if not impossible without additional software.

What I usually do is simply convert the entire batch into proof size and quality so that I can quickly sift through them. When I find an image I want to work with I go back to the negative for that image.

To convert a batch of images, you simply need to select the images in the source explorer window and click Add. You can add entire folders using this same method.

Now set the Output format and folder. You should also adjust the settings to resize or rename your pics. Click Use advanced options to adjust the quality or size of the images.

Once you have got everything set up for you batch process, click Start. This will likely take a while, depending on how many images you chose and what type of images. RAW images will take a very long time.

Skin

It seems like every program these days has a skin feature. This simply changes the look and feel of the application.

I thought it looked fine the way it was, so I chose to leave this alone.

Context Menu

Right-clicking on an image brings up a large menu that allows you to do most anything without messing with the File menus.

Faststone Image Viewer: The Right Tool for the Job?

The guys at Faststone seem to know what they are doing for the most part. This application is one of many good products produced by them.

While there is a certain amount of fluff built in, I think that Faststone Image Viewer delivers on its core purpose.

My favorite thing about Image Viewer is that I didn’t have a single crash or error throughout my use of the software. Well, that and the fact that it’s FREE!

If you are looking for an image editor, look elsewhere. If you are looking for a powerful and function Image Manager then Faststone Image Viewer is definitely the Right Tool for the Job.