Best macOS Alternative for IrfanView Graphic Viewer/Image Editor

[jmac0408]

Would very much appreciate any and all recommendations/suggestions for which Image Editing or Graphic Viewer software/application is best suited for macOS Catalina. And if at all possible, FREE !!

I have used IrfanView for years on my Windows laptop and find it a truly excellent programme! Would certainly like to find the same quality for my MBA.




MBA (early 2015)
Catalina 10.15.2
Safari
(Intermittently FireFox !)

 

[chscag]

You already have an excellent Graphic Viewer and editor built into macOS.

It's called "Preview". Start using it and experiment a bit. You'll see that it's a powerful app. And yes, I have used IrfanView for years during my days with Windows. It's a great app but I think you'll agree that Preview is just as good. Give it a try.

 

[jmac0408]

Hi chscag !!

OK !! Will do. As always, very much appreciate your responses and instruction/recommendations !!

Have a good one today !!

 

[RadDave]

You already have an excellent Graphic Viewer and editor built into macOS.

It's called "Preview". Start using it and experiment a bit. You'll see that it's a powerful app. And yes, I have used IrfanView for years during my days with Windows. It's a great app but I think you'll agree that Preview is just as good. Give it a try.

@jmac0408 - I was on PCs for decades (until retirement - switch to Apple in 2010-2013) and used IrfanView for years and loved it - since my Apple switch, Preview has served my needs and is a powerful app (even has a book shown below, which is on my iPad); SO, agree w/ Charlie and no longer a need to 'long for' IrfanView - Dave

 

[jmac0408]

Hi RadDave !!

Appreciate the insight !! Guess I’m going to explore and learn Preview !!

 

[Slydude]

What editing/viewing functions are you looking for in a program? I'll second the recommendation of Preview. Ive even used it in some situations where I could not seem to get the right effect in Photoshop. Photos (already on your Mac) s also pretty good.

 

[jmac0408]

Hi Slydude:

Appreciate the further endorsement of Preview. Will have to learn how to use to best advantage. Thanks again.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

For graphic editing, take a look at Seashore. It’s based on Gimp, a cross-platform and very powerful alternative to Photoshop. Seashore is more limited in what it can do but is considerably leaner and faster to load up as a consequence. It’s free, open-source, and now on the App Store.

For simply viewing, I like Xee. It’s not free, but most like ACDSee, a graphics viewer I used to use on Windows.
Xee | Image Viewer for macOS

 

[jmac0408]

Thank you, Lifeisabeach. I will review and assess both that you have included. Appreciate the input.

 

[JohnMJump]

You already have an excellent Graphic Viewer and editor built into macOS.

It's called "Preview". Start using it and experiment a bit. You'll see that it's a powerful app. And yes, I have used IrfanView for years during my days with Windows. It's a great app but I think you'll agree that Preview is just as good. Give it a try.

I will try that first. Thanks.

 

[KnocksX]

I must admit I am totally dumbfounded by the suggestions to use Preview as a replacement for IrfanView. Preview does not allow you to do to things that are essential for quickly reviewing and sorting a collection of photo files, which Windows users take for granted:

1. Using the left and right arrows on the keyboard to go to the previous/next photo.
2. Using the Delete/Backspace key (or at least the Del key) to quickly send blurry, duplicate or otherwise unwanted photos to Trash.

Of course, if Preview does have those functions, then I am obviously not using this app correctly. But I am still in week 1 of my transition from Windows to Mac, and this is definitely one of the pain points.

 

[chscag]

Welcome to our forums.

Preview does not allow you to do to things that are essential for quickly reviewing and sorting a collection of photo files, which Windows users take for granted:

Have you tried the "Photos.app"? There are other apps for macOS which are more powerful than Preview and IrfanView. Depends on what you need to do.

Do not be quick to judge until you become more familiar with macOS and the way of doing things with your Mac. Many of us have used Windows for years and many of us still do at work or school.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

Would very much appreciate any and all recommendations/suggestions for which Image Editing or Graphic Viewer software/application is best suited for macOS Catalina. And if at all possible, FREE !!

I have a Web page that lists high quality FREE software for the Macintosh. There are several graphics applications, from basic to professional level, on the page. Have a look at:

Free Macintosh Software!

 

[NSMacGuru]

1. Using the left and right arrows on the keyboard to go to the previous/next photo.
2. Using the Delete/Backspace key (or at least the Del key) to quickly send blurry, duplicate or otherwise unwanted photos to Trash.

Preview is a *powerhouse* that folks tend to overlook. I use it most often for merging PDFs (get used to using the thumbnail view in the sidebar, and drag-and-drop simplicity). Many years ago I taught digital video editing classes (AVID and Final Cut Pro). I had to schedule an extra day just to "deprogramme" Windows users who always seemed to find the most difficult, time-consuming ways to do simple things (no insult intended).

As to your specific needs mentioned above - I do all of that in the Finder:

Open a folder of images

• Command-1 puts everything in "thumbnail" view
  (use the slider at the bottom-right of the window to increase or decrease size; you may also want to do VIEW-->Clean up by name to make them all fit in the window size you prefer)
• Select all (Command-A)
• Spacebar (brings up a large-scale preview of the image)
• Right-Left-Down-Up arrows to navigate
• Command-Delete to send the current image to the trash

 

[Lifeisabeach]

NSMacGuru's trick to activate the QuickView feature with the spacebar is a nice one that I only recently stumbled into myself (it had never occurred to me to use it to page through multiple files, not just use it for the one in focus). The only downside to it is that if you have a lot of larger images, it's very slow to move through them.

I previously mentioned Xee, but the developer has largely abandoned it. MacPaw bought it out from the original developer several years ago, but I guess they are too busy hawking CleanMyMac to pay it any attention. It has had some weird issues since at least Big Sur, maybe Catalina, that have gone unaddressed. And they have yet to go Universal.

What I have found most comparable to my liking is EdgeView 2, on the App Store. My only beef with it is that there's a lag between deleting an image and when the app reflects that. I'm used to something more instantaneous. EdgeView 3 may well be better in this regard, but no free trial or other indication that it's improved makes me hesitant to get that. (EDIT: I decided to pull the trigger on EdgeView 3. It is indeed much better! It looks like the developer recommends sticking to EV2 for Catalina and earlier, EV 3 for Big Sur and beyond. I'm guessing some OS changes are behind the experience differences.)

 

[Lifeisabeach]

I have a Web page that lists high quality FREE software for the Macintosh. There are several graphics applications, from basic to professional level, on the page. Have a look at:

Free Macintosh Software!

Say Randy, I don't see any basic graphics viewing apps listed in your site. I've tried a whole bunch over the past few months to replace Xee, and while it's not what I wound up settling on, Pixea is a really good freebie that I'd like to recommend for your page.

Pixea - The invisible image and video viewer macOS

Pixea is an image and video viewer for macOS with a nice minimal modern user interface. Pixea works great with JPEG, HEIC, PSD, RAW, MKV, MP4 and many other formats.

www.imagetasks.com

 

[MacInWin]

I must admit I am totally dumbfounded by the suggestions to use Preview as a replacement for IrfanView. Preview does not allow you to do to things that are essential for quickly reviewing and sorting a collection of photo files, which Windows users take for granted:

1. Using the left and right arrows on the keyboard to go to the previous/next photo.
2. Using the Delete/Backspace key (or at least the Del key) to quickly send blurry, duplicate or otherwise unwanted photos to Trash.

Of course, if Preview does have those functions, then I am obviously not using this app correctly. But I am still in week 1 of my transition from Windows to Mac, and this is definitely one of the pain points.

You brought up a two year old thread. The OP is probably happy with whatever solution that resulted. But the things you describe are available in Finder. It's call Quick View. Open Finder. Navigate to the folder with the images. Click on one, which one doesn't matter. Just click once to select it. Now press the space bar. Quickview open the image in a window. You can use the up/down arrow keys to select the previous/next item. Only images open as an image, but text files open as text, Word documents in a preview mode. Folder don't show anything. To delete, on the top bar click "File" then "Move to Trash." There are even some simple editing tools in Quick View. Oh, and videos start to play, so you can even preview them in Quick View.

There is also a view in Finder called "Gallery" that allows quick review of images. Click on this icon on the top bar of a Finder window:


It may also look like this, if your Finder window is large enough to have space on the top bar:


Select "Gallery." or select the far right icon that has a box with a line below it--that is Gallery mode. What results is a screen with the file content represented in the top window and a row of the items in the location across the bottom. You can expand the Finder window to as large as you need to see the images larger. For non-image files you get an icon for what they are (Folders, for example). For images, you get a thumbnail the size of the area you have allocated. To delete, right click and Move to Trash. No editing in Gallery, and videos don't automatically play, but you can see the content. To open a new folder that is on the bottom line, just double click on it. Basically, all of this is how Finder helps to view and manage files in macOS. Finder is a very powerful tool.

 

[Pomeroy]

Seems a lot of people expect Preview to let you see the next image in a folder by using the up down keys, doesn't work. Preview is doing what you told it to do when you opened a single image. Don't open a single image to scroll, open the Folder and all the images will be in the side bar and you can scroll, edit, sort and delete the images.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

Pixea is a really good freebie that I'd like to recommend for your page.

Thanks! I'll check it out and add it.

 

[KnocksX]

Thank you for all the responses. I realize I was necromancing a thread but it's ranked highly in Google and lots of people probably come here looking for solutions. These people will probably benefit from up-to-date solutions and a renewed discussion.

I will get to all the responses later but wanted to address these two first.

Have you tried the "Photos.app"?

I am wary of Photos because it seems connected to iCloud and exhibits iTune-ish behavior, using scary words like "Import" and "Sync," which implies that it creates duplicate copies of my images in a separate location and wastes disk space (not to mention creating additional maintenance work). This is a nightmare that I went through with iTunes and my MP3s back in the day and don't even want to experience again. Whether it actually does all those things or not, I'm not sure, but it did give me a small heart attack when I opened it and it said "Imported," and I quit the app promptly. All I'm trying to do is view a few images directly from Finder. I don't need any importing or copying.

I previously mentioned Xee, but the developer has largely abandoned it. MacPaw bought it out from the original developer several years ago, but I guess they are too busy hawking CleanMyMac to pay it any attention. It has had some weird issues since at least Big Sur, maybe Catalina, that have gone unaddressed. And they have yet to go Universal.

I downloaded version 3 of Xee and loved it until I saw that it fails to display about 1/3 of my images correctly and displays a "TV static" screen instead. Has that been your experience as well? It's a real shame because the app seemed perfect.