10 Best Picture Viewer Software

If you are looking for an image viewer software solely for the purpose of a quick-image-glance-through, look no further; you've come to the perfect page.

Did You Know?
Image viewers consist of fewer functions than 'image editors', and hence require lesser loading time. Therefore, it is advisable to install an image viewer when images are only to be viewed, and not edited.

Windows Operating Systems have the 'Windows Image Viewer' that comes preloaded. It displays images in a photo gallery window. The file formats it supports are BMP, PNG, GIF, JPEG, JPEG, XR, ICO, and TIFF. Developed by Microsoft, this freeware application was known as 'Windows Picture and Fax Viewer' for older versions such as Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Its functions include displaying pictures, slideshow (pictures in a folder), online or direct printing, and reconstructing the images in 90-degree increments.

Nevertheless, besides this inbuilt viewer, there are quite a few other picture viewer software that are available for download and use. We'll list the ten best (in no particular order), so that you can choose the one that suits your needs the best.

FastPictureViewer

Supported Formats: Supports most file formats, few of which are: JPEG 2000, HDR, Photoshop PSD, OpenEXR, TGA, DDS, Maya IFF, SGI RGB, Camera RAW, etc.

Compatible Operating Systems: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003

Features: This freeware is developed by Axel Rietschin Software, and features a dark interface, such that the entire focus is on the image itself. It is a straightforward image viewer, which allows to quick-scan the contents of a picture folder in an easy way. This editor consists of very limited tools and supports very few image formats, compared to most other viewers. However, it is ideal for basic image viewing.

Get the Software: FastPictureViewer

Picasa

Supported Formats: WebP image format by Google, JPEG, RAW

Compatible Operating Systems: Windows, OS X

Features: This freeware application has been created by a company called Lifescape, which was later acquired by Google . It provides the functionality of a picture organizer , photo viewer, as well as photo sharing. Its features include importing of images, tagging faces, facial recognition, besides other editing functions such as cropping, color enrichment, and red-eye removal.

Get the Software: Picasa

Adobe Image Viewer

Supported Formats: Supports most file formats, few of which are: TIFF, PSD, JPEG, etc.

Compatible Operating Systems: Windows, Mac, Android

Features: This trial-based software has been developed by Adobe systems. The Adobe Image Viewer is compatible to work with full version of Adobe Acrobat 5.0 and higher, and Adobe Reader 5.0 and higher. It is used mainly for the purpose of viewing slideshows created by Adobe Photoshop. The slideshow can contain video and audio files, along with image files.

Get the Software: Adobe Image Viewer

IrfanView

Supported Formats: BMP, GIF, JPG, PPM, TGA, CX, ICO, PDF, PGM, PBM, JPM, Webp, MPEG, Camera RAW, ECW, PNG, JP2, JPM, TIFF, EMF, PPM

Compatible Operating Systems: Windows

Features: This is a non-commercial freeware application designed by Mr. Irfan Skiljan. The main functions of this software are viewing images, editing, and converting image files. This application can also play audio/video files. It is quite famous for its wide compatibility, from Windows 95 to Windows 8, Mac OS X using winebottler, and Linux under Wine. Media files of extensions Flash, MP3, MIDI, MP3, Ogg vorbis, and text files can also be viewed. This is a multilingual software, which provides various image scaling options. Editing images can be manual or automatic, which involves functions such as rotate, crop, or resize.

Get the Software: IrfanView

FastStone Image Viewer

Supported Formats: JPEG, JPEG 2000, TGA, PCX, PNG, WMF, TIFF, BMP, and Raw Digital camera files such as NEF, MRW, ORF, ARW, SRF, SR2, DNG, RW2, CRW, CR2, PEF, RAF

Compatible Operating Systems: Windows 98, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8

Features: This image viewer was designed by FastStone Soft. It is a speedy and easy-to-use image browser. Other features include an image editor and converter as well. It provides scanner support, image annotation, red-eye removal, cropping, resizing, retouching, color set-ups, emailing, and image comparison.

Get the Software: FastStone Image Viewer

XnView

Supported Formats: It supports over 500 file formats few of which include: ARF,AWD, BMF, CGM, CSV, DPX, DNG, JPEG/JFIF, JPEG XR, JPEG-LS, BMP

Compatible Operating Systems: Windows, Pocket PCs, Windows Mobile, Windows ME, OS X, Linux

Features: This viewer was developed by Pierre-Emmanuel Gougelet of XnSoft. It is a freeware for educational institutions and non-profit organizations, and commercial for other uses. Its main features include full-screen view, thumbnail view, filmstrip view, image comparison, besides resizing, cropping, rotation, contrast and brightness adjustments, and filtering and color modifications.

Get the Software: XnView

Vallen JPegger

Supported Formats: This software supports 40 different image formats, including JPG, PNG, TIFF, BMP

Compatible Operating Systems: Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows Vista (32-bit platform)

Features: This is a freeware developed by Vallen Systeme GmBH. This has been purely designed for the purpose of browsing through large folders for viewing pictures. Resizing images, print support, screenshot tool, slideshow mode, image rotation, and MP3 player function are additional features present in this application.

Get the Software: Vallen JPegger

PicViewer

Supported Formats: GIF, JPEG ,BMP, TGA, PNG, TIFF, PCD, PSD

Compatible Operating Systems: Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows ME, Windows NT

Features: This freeware has been developed by Anix Software. Its interface is easy-to-use, and similar to Windows Explorer. The features that are provided are slideshow, drag and drop, content menu, print support, built-in image converter, and image names can be given as command line.

Get the Software: PicViewer

InViewer

Supported Formats: TIF, BMP, PNG , GIF, JPG, ICO

Compatible Operating Systems: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8

Features: Formerly known as GIF Viewer, this freeware merely serves the main purpose of image viewing. It is a small size application that speeds up image viewing. It consists of built-in buttons for easy navigation (left and right), slideshow, restart, rotation or flipping. This can be considered as one of the best photo viewer software for Windows 8.

Get the Software: InViewer

Fullscreen Photo Viewer

Supported Formats: JPG, BMP, PNG, MBM, TGA, TIFF, GIF

Compatible Operating Systems: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8

Features: This viewer was designed by 4Neutrons, and is a freeware. Its features include deletion button, touchscreen computer compatibility, quick image display, color management, and 3D support. The main property of Fullscreen Photo Viewer is that it provides the ability to open image files from directories and sub-directories.

Get the Software: Fullscreen Photo Viewer

The wider the range of image formats supported and system compatibility, the more useful the software would be. Hence, these two features need to be considered while installing an image viewer on your system. But then, these are freeware, so you could uninstall such software if you aren't satisfied with the performance, and install another one.