Image browsing

Hi All,

I'm looking for a nice easy and fast way to browse pictures uploaded from my camera to my macbook pro, but none of the methods so far seem to do just what I want..... I'm probably just spoilt though, since the rest of my experience with OSX is great!

Anyway, here are the draw backs of each of the methods I've tried so far:

Quicklook - I can select a batch of images, and move between them nice and easily, but the zoom function seems to just magnify the pixels that are currently on screen. I'd like to be able to zoom in properly, to the actual pixel level in the image.

Preview - It looks like I have to open all of the images I want to browse in Preview before using the next / previous image options. This is a bit of a pain - especially if you have 100 or 200 images in folder.

iPhoto - the only real use I have for iPhoto would be image browsing, since I'm using Canon DPP for importing RAW images, and doing any image manipulation in GIMP. So, I don't really want to have to import images to iPhoto just to be able to browse and view them. Having said that, the browsing experience is just about exactly what I'm looking for. If it's possible just to use iPhoto as an image browser, then that would be perfect!

Xee - I had a go with this free image browser and it seems quite good. However, the thing I *really* like with my macbook are the gestures on the trackpad, and Xee doesn't support this unfortunately.

Coverflow - would be nice to use coverflow in fullscreen mode in finder and then use Preview on images I want to zoom in on. However, on my 13" screen, coverflow is pretty small - can be resized, but every time I switch between coverflow and column view I have to increase the size of the coverflow area.

So, does anyone have any suggestions? None of the above are really detracting that much from my enjoyment of my mac, it would just be nice to be rid of one of the niggles above!

Thanks for any ideas!

Are you looking for free suggestions? You could try Picassa 3 - scans where you ask it to and does a good job browsing.

Paid - I use Adobe bridge for my media browsing and import. I think Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 now comes with Bridges so you don't have to buy full blown Adobe to get bridge.

I also like Pathfinder(paid). It is a filebrowser but has a bunch of missing stuff like cut and paste. It also allows you to look at coverflow with icons below - instead of just list - so you can increase the size of the icons and preview with cover flow.
Path Finder 5 by Cocoatech

im in the same boat as the OP and find the 'image browsing' experience for photography on the mac to be extremely disappointing and certainly lacking...the ' preview' is hopeless and I gave up trying to zoom into images on iphoto whose only real use seems to be for making photo books etc.

FWIW I use DPP to preview and decide my keepers, import to lightroom and then photoshop if it needs more creative processing...or use adobe bridge to determine your keepers, but i should really do all this in lightroom.

thanks for the suggestions - will have a play with Picassa and see how I get on.

Would be perfect if I could simply zoom properly in quickview, or navigate forwards and backwards in preview though!

mrsausages said:

Preview - It looks like I have to open all of the images I want to browse in Preview before using the next / previous image options. This is a bit of a pain - especially if you have 100 or 200 images in folder.

Click to expand...

Not such a pain if you press 'Command A' first to select all files.

thanks - yup - the selection of the images for Preview is ok with cmd a - you just need to wait while it loads each file fully before you can start browsing though.

In the meantime, I noticed someone recommending Phoenix Slides in one of the other forums here - will give this a go tonight!

hi,

OK, phoenix slides seems quite good, but again no gesture support.

So, did a bit more googling, and have been trying xnviewmp - missing a few things at the moment, but seems pretty good, and plenty of ongoing development happening.

I got the latest beta from:

XnView • View topic - XnViewMP beta 0.26

Cheers

Even though its only in beta, you might find an option in my signature as well.

Hi Chas,

Thanks - I'll take a look. Out of interest: does it support the trackpad gestures on Macbook pro's (i.e. two finger zoom and pan in full screen)?

Cheers

thanks @ sawday above - have been playing a bit more with preview, and it's actually ok!

I should have done a bit more playing around before posting!!!!

so... quite happy with preview, now thinking about my workflow, will post a new message in the images forum around this...