Comparison of image viewers
This article presents a comparison of image viewers and image organizers which can be used for image viewing.
Functionality overview and licensing
| Name | View functions | Other functions | License |
| ACDSee | Thumbnails, fullscreen, slideshow, zoom, fit, view Exif info, view inside ZIP archives,... | Resize, crop, rotate, flip, JPEG lossless rotate/mirror, face recognition, adjust exposure and colors etc., filters, red eye removal, batch rename, edit Exif info | |
| Adobe Bridge | Thumbnails, slideshow, filmstrip, preview, versions with alternates | Stand Alone: rotate, rename, delete, move, copy, batch rename, add/Edit metadata, camera raw image adjustments: crop, resize, exposure, contrast, white balance, curves Via Photoshop: contact sheet, merge to HDR, PDF presentation, photomerge, Web picture gallery | |
| Adobe Lightroom | Library organization, RAW and JPEG editing, slideshow tools, print layout and preferences, web gallery creation and uploading | ||
| Aperture | |||
| CDisplay | Fit to window, zoom, print, full-screen, slideshow, image collection, image information... | Rotate, flip, save as, used for reading comics and manga. | |
| Darktable | Lighttable, darkroom, map, tethering | Non-destructive RAW photo editing as well as common image formats | |
| digiKam | Fit to window, zoom, pan, light table, slideshow with effects, OpenGL viewer | Rotate, crop, vertical/horizontal flip, lossless JPEG operations, color management, 16bit color depth, Light Table, Exif, IPTC, XMP, GPS metadata, adjust colors/brightness/levels, elaborate Black and White conversion, automatic lens correction, anti-vignetting, sharpening tools, vibrance, many filters, face recognition, Batch operations, export to archive, HTML, flickr, gallery2, picasaweb, smugmug, iPod, Facebook, 23hq, flash. | |
| Eye of GNOME | Fit to window, zoom, flip, rotate, full-screen, slideshow, image collection, image information | Delete, print, save, rename, set wallpaper | |
| F-Spot | Full-screen, slideshow, zoom, multiple sizes of thumbnails. Export: HTML, Flickr, Gallery Project, Picasa, Facebook and O.r.i.g.i.n.a.l | Tags, rotate in single degree increments, hue, contrast, white balance, colour, sharpen, soft focus, crop, auto red-eye reduction. Files stored at /user/Pictures/Photos/// | |
| FastPictureViewer | Borderless full-screen kiosk mode, Fit-to-window, 1:1, 50% to 6400% magnifier, multicore-enabled, GPU-based panning/zooming, black & white preview and lost shadows/highlights view. | File renaming, single-click background copy/move to preset location, single-click rating/labeling, Windows rating, color management including custom target profile selection, Unicode support, Exif shooting data and real-time, seamless R,G,B histogram in translucent floating window. IPTC metadata editor in the registered version. | |
| FastStone Image Viewer | All major formats, thumbnail view, full screen, magnifier, slideshow. Uses second monitor for fullscreen preview. Popups image gallery, detailed image informations, editing options at the image border in fullscreen modus. | Many editing features: rotate, move, rename, 150+ transitional effects, crop, resize, clone, heal, convert format, color adjust, sharpen, drop shadow effects, scanner support, histogram. JPEG lossless rotate/flip/crop. | |
| Geeqie | Full-screen, slideshow, zoom, color spectrum, 14 sizes of thumbnails | Rotate, move, rename, hue, contrast, find/remove duplicates | |
| Gonvisor | Fit to window, zoom, print, full-screen, slideshow, image collection, image information, view images in compressed ZIP, RAR, or 7z files. | Rotate, flip, save as, used for reading comics and manga | |
| GraphicConverter | Full-screen, slideshow | Rotate, move, rename | |
| gThumb | Full-screen, slideshow, zoom, color spectrum, three sizes of thumbnails | Rotate, move, rename, hue, contrast | |
| Gwenview | Fullscreen, slideshow, zoom, rotate, adjust gamma/contrast/brightness, disk navigator, file tree, thumbnails, extended thumbnails, bookmarks... | Add border, filter, effects, resize, rename, raw image converter, recompress, edit color. Share using 23, Dropbox, Facebook, Flickr, Google drive, Google photos/Picasaweb, Imageshack, Imgur, Piwigo, Rajce.net, remote storage, SmugMug, Yandex.Fotki, Zooomr | |
| ImageGlass | |||
| iPhoto | Thumbnails, fullscreen, slideshow, camera information, search, tags, organize by event or album, auto organize by date during first import | Lossless JPEG rotate, cropping, brightness/contrast adjustment, red-eye reduction, retouch, color enhancement, B&W and sepia conversion, export to multiple formats & sizes | |
| IrfanView | Thumbnails, fullscreen, slideshow, zoom, fit, view IPTC and Exif info, hex view, histogram ; Format detection with offer to rename, set wallpaper, EXE/SCR creation, Burn slideshow to CD; directory tree 32 languages | Add Text, crop, cut/copy selected area, paste-Into selected area, paste from print screen, resize/resample, rotate, flip vertically/horizontally, JPEG lossless transformations, color adjustments, change color depth, greyscale, red-eye reduction, sharpen, effects/filters, own and 8bf plugins compatibility, edit IPTC info, move, copy, delete, rename, convert, batch conversion, batch renaming/resizing/cropping, panorama creation, send email, also via IrfanView Thumbnails/Plugins: contact sheet creation, thumbnail creation, web gallery creation, face detection | |
| KPhotoAlbum | Zoom, rotate, metadata, Exif, thumbnails, slideshow, categories | As Available per KIPI plugins | |
| Loupe | Fullscreen, zoom, rotate, metadata | Print, delete, sandboxed decoding, support for touchpad and touchscreen gestures | |
| Phase One Media Pro | Thumbnails, slideshow, zoom, print, light table, library organization, best practice DAM | Rotate, rename, delete, batch rename, add/edit metadata, free reader app to distribute catalogs | |
| Photos (Apple) | |||
| Photos (Windows) | fullscreen, slideshow, fit, zoom, print | ||
| Picasa | Zoom, lossless rotate, histogram, camera information, Thumbnails, Slide Show, Magnifier, Search, Search for faces | Crop, straighten, redeye, color tweaking, retouch, tuning, add text, numerous effects, batch edit, batch rename, video rendering, HTML gallery creation, photo browser application creator, screensaver, face recognition, keyword tagging, geo-tagging, photo collage, original file preservation, reorganize storage | |
| Preview | Zoom, rotate, metadata | Crop, straighten, color tweaking, profile assignment | |
| Shotwell | Thumbnails, fullscreen, slideshow, zoom, print, camera information, events | Auto enhance, rotate, mirror, flip, red eye reduction, crop, exposure, saturation, tint, temperature, shadows, revert to original, rename, straighten, change time/date, publish to Facebook, Picasa Web Albums, Flickr | |
| STDU Viewer | Fullscreen, fit to window, zoom, print | rotate, brightness, contrast, gamma setting | |
| Windows Photo Gallery | Fullscreen, slideshow, fit, zoom, print | Panorama stitching, adjust brightness, contrast, color saturation/hue, filters, stitching, rotate, straightening and skew, face recognition | |
| Windows Photo Viewer | Fullscreen, slideshow, fit, zoom, print | Rotate, lossy JPEG rotate, annotate TIFF images | |
| XnView and XnViewMP | Thumbnails, fullscreen, slideshow, zoom, fit, view IPTC and Exif info | Resize, crop, rotate, flip, JPEG lossless rotate/flip/crop, adjust exposure and colors etc., filters, batch convert, batch rename, edit IPTC info | |
| Xv | View as ASCII or hex, magnify, determine pixel values | Crop, pad, resize, rotate, flip, brightness, contrast, gamma, saturation, hue, colormap, reduce colors, dither, convert, and more | |
| Zoner Photo Studio | Thumbnails, fullscreen, histogram, slideshow with transition effects, auto rotation, JPEG lossless rotate, pan, zoom, fit, IPTC and Exif info, GPS support, full Unicode support, free version does not support color profiles | Resize, crop, rotate, flip, JPEG lossless rotate/mirror, adjust exposure, colors, contrast, saturation, hue, white balance, levels, curves, gamma correction, filters,.8bf plugins compatibility, color management, batch operations, image conversions with reduced/dithered colors, batch rename, red eye removal, edit ITPC, XMP and Exif info, time creation offset, merge to HDR, PDF presentation, panorama creation, lens correction, anti-vignetting, web picture gallery, DNG/RAW image converter, TWAIN scanners support, send pictures via e-mail, 3D pictures, dynamic calendar generation, support for WIC codecs | |
| Name | View functions | Other functions | License |