FastStone Image Viewer
August 9th, 2012I’ve recently gotten back into photography a bit. I bought a Sony RX-100 (which I think of as producing results akin to a pocketable DSLR) and a Canon PIXMA iP4950 photo printer. The print quality that’s available to people at home is just amazing with these tools. One thing I was missing was a fast way to handle the workflow.
I found a program called FastStone Image Viewer. Wow! It’s fantastic. I use it for everything from importing images from the camera to printing. I’ve even started using features in this program that I used to go out to Photoshop to do. It’s so much faster to do it all in one place.
What I especially like is the cropboard feature. Say that I want a 4×6 print from a cropped image. I can select the 4×6 template and use it to crop from my source file. Copy the crop to the clipboard. CTRL-N, new image. CTRL-V, paste the crop. Then I simply print the cropped 4×6 without having to resave anything. The original file is untouched.
The program is very fast and lightweight and it’s full of great features.
Price: Free for personal/non commercial use.
I hit that donate link on their site within two hours of installing the program.
Update: Works With Camera RAW Files from Sony RX-100
I can view and make basic adjustments to RAW files from the RX-100 with this FastStone viewer. Until I build my new 64-bit rig, this will definitely keep me happy.
