Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Other Raw Converters => Topic started by: bernie west on June 04, 2017, 04:57:30 am
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Any recommendations? I've just got a MacBook and am finding the built-in Preview program to be very slow. I just want a fast (and free) viewer that I can quickly cull through the RAFs before converting them to DNG with Iridient-xtransform and then cataloguing in Lightroom. The world of Apple is freaking me out a bit... :-\
edit: meant to add, I'd love something that handles raw and jpg together. So if I delete the raw it will delete the corresponding jpg.
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https://www.fastrawviewer.com
find $14.99
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Yeah, that's what I will have to fall back on if I can't find a decent enough free program. This laptop isn't my primary workflow, so I'm not keen to fork out money if it can be avoided. I'm quickly discovering that there doesn't seem to be the same open source and free culture with Apple as with windows and linux. I shouldn't be surprised really given the cost and wank factor of Apple products.
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Yeah, that's what I will have to fall back on if I can't find a decent enough free program. This laptop isn't my primary workflow, so I'm not keen to fork out money if it can be avoided. I'm quickly discovering that there doesn't seem to be the same open source and free culture with Apple as with windows and linux. I shouldn't be surprised really given the cost and wank factor of Apple products.
so - what is the free and fast raw viewer on Windows and Linux... just curious ?
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Why not just view them in the finder? Select large icons in the Finder preferences and then the 4 box view under Views. No programme needed.
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Why not just view them in the finder? Select large icons in the Finder preferences and then the 4 box view under Views. No programme needed.
Cheers, I'll try that later (when I'm on the mac). I hadn't thought to use that.
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I want to point out (if you're not aware) that pretty much all of the viewers simply pull out the *embedded* jpeg that lives inside the raw file. So, if you really want to see the raw image, you need to go the extra step ala fastrawviewer.
Also note that the licensing is OS independent so 1 $15 purchase covers your Mac and PC.
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The purchased License is OS-independent, and can be used to have FastRawViewer activated on up to two computers simultaneously, as long as each computer is owned by you and you are the only one with access to FastRawViewer
You may transfer the license from one computer to another, provided the terms of ownership are followed, by de-activating FastRawViewer on one of the computers that have it active and activating it on another one.
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Cheers Howard. That's a tick for it.
Regarding using Finder, it doesn't seem possible to view the file at 1:1 (assuming the embedded jpg is big enough). I really need that ability so as to check if things are in focus.
I found a free program called xnViewMP which I guess does the job. As far as I can tell it doesn't treat the jpg and raw as one, though, so I can't delete both with one action. It's also a bit of a messy interface, although it's possible that as I dig into the preferences it might be possible to customise it a bit.
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Regarding using Finder, it doesn't seem possible to view the file at 1:1 (assuming the embedded jpg is big enough). I really need that ability so as to check if things are in focus.
No, certainly not for that. It is great for just finding and deleting the write offs though.
Note that you can select all of the images and open together in Preview also. You can even change the name of the file while it is open in Preview and it just carries on. Phocus from Hasselblad will also view raw files for free.
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Yes, xnViewMP is a nice program (I also use it).
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I found a free program called xnViewMP which I guess does the job.
it does (you can set it to view raw data), but it is nowhere as fast as FastRawViewer (as least on Windows platform where I am using it as an image browser along with FRV and Bridge) and nowhere near functionality in terms of how you want to view raw data (including clipping indication, etc, etc)
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I've customised xnViewMP a bit and it's working pretty good now. It can demosaic and view the raws, but it's very slow (on my macbook air). So I've got it using the embedded jpg preview. So far those have been big enough resolution for my sorting/deleting purposes. I might give the fastrawviewer free trial a go and if it's significantly better will stump up the license. It's good that I can then use it on both my Mac and Windows.
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It just occurred to me that I can use Adobe Bridge. I've never used it before, but it seems to do the job well. It's free with my CC subscription. Not sure if it uses raw or jpg previews, but going by the size of the preview it looks as though it's using the raws. Anyone have any experience and tips with it?
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If you need it for Nikon NEFs you can use View-NX - a Nikon Program.
It uses the embedded jpeg for previews and is very fast.
The embedded jPeg is a low quality fullsize jpeg.
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You can view 1:1 while Viewing JPEGs in the Finder.... (or RAW but they're slower, file size, all you're doing is pulling out embeds, may as well check the JPEGs for focus).
Click on the icon, hit Space bar, get a preview (called Quicklook on the Mac)
Tap ALT (or Option on older Macs) and zoom to 1:1.
You can scroll around and check the whole image.
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If you are Fuji (RAF), don't try to be cheap, get Iridient Raw Developer. Fast, lens correction and perspective correction, all kinds adjustments. About fifty bucks I think. I've had it for years and swear by it. Don't use anything else for Fuji. BTW, thanks for starting this thread, I discovered I didm't have RAW Photo Processor 64 downloaded into my Apps to use as an external editor for FRV.
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Why not just view them in the finder? Select large icons in the Finder preferences and then the 4 box view under Views. No programme needed.
I don't know if others are affected by this, but when I upload large numbers of photos after an outing, Finder begins to grind incredibly slowly. This has persisted across O/S upgrades. I have to delete some Cloud-related cache files and stop the background program "cloudd" using Activity Monitor, then logout and log back in. It's very annoying because I don't use the Cloud to be begin with.
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I want to point out (if you're not aware) that pretty much all of the viewers simply pull out the *embedded* jpeg that lives inside the raw file.
Hi howardm,
not so the Apple Preview app. In thumbnail mode shows the embeded jpeg, on open raw file shows the raw content.
Test: take a picture with B&W option set on, the thumbnail will display a BW preview, the opened file will be in colour.
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I've customised xnViewMP a bit and it's working pretty good now. It can demosaic and view the raws, but it's very slow (on my macbook air). So I've got it using the embedded jpg preview. So far those have been big enough resolution for my sorting/deleting purposes. I might give the fastrawviewer free trial a go and if it's significantly better will stump up the license. It's good that I can then use it on both my Mac and Windows.
You cannot accurately cull photos based on embedded jpeg as you know it's not showing you a file that will allow you to guesstimate the Dynamic Range. By being and deleting the embedded jpeg preview you most certainly thru away the better exposure.
https://www.fastrawviewer.com/culling-raw-vs-jpegs
A three part series
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HQWEbtMtBQQ
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Yeah, that's what I will have to fall back on if I can't find a decent enough free program. This laptop isn't my primary workflow, so I'm not keen to fork out money if it can be avoided. I'm quickly discovering that there doesn't seem to be the same open source and free culture with Apple as with windows and linux. I shouldn't be surprised really given the cost and wank factor of Apple products.
If you need a raw viewer, there are no alternatives to our FastRawViewer, free or otherwise.