Thumbnail Browsers anyone?

[Curby]

What thumbnail browsers is everyone using?
I have tryed them all and continue to stand by ACDsee. Thumbs Plus 4.10 is good but I only use the evaluation. I heard The newest version of Thumbs Plus will convert .CRW files (is this true)
________
Curby

[Trav]

Curby, I swear by ACDSee as well and have not found anything superior to it. It is the quickest image viewer and has plenty of convenient features.

Travis

[LKraven]

ACDSee is the best that I have found for browsing images. It loads very quickly. In fact, I prefer the older version (now called the Classic version).

The new version has some photo-editing tools, but they're pretty bad.

I use Thumbsplus to do organizing of my personal galleries.

I use QImage for lots of stuff too... just wish he'd acknowledge some bugs and quit releasing a new version every hour...

[James]

I don't like Canon's Zoombrowser.. how can I get rid of it and still download the pictures from my Pro90??

I prefer ACDsee for image managment, and polyview for slide shows. Zoombrowser is far to slow and does not automatically refresh images when you make deletions in the root windows explorer directory.

James

[rknol]

That's right. The latest version, in combination with the CRW-addon shows CRW-files and converts them. I'm running the beta, so I'm pretty shure about it.

Curby wrote:
Thumbs Plus 4.10 is good but I only use the evaluation. I heard The newest version of Thumbs Plus will convert .CRW files (is this true)
________
Curby

[rknol]

James, you don't have to use Zoombrowser, just use an imaging program and transfer your pictures by using Twain. Or buy a CF-card reader and copy them by using windows explorer.
James wrote:
I don't like Canon's Zoombrowser.. how can I get rid of it and still download the pictures from my Pro90??

James

[James]

Thanks for the advice, I think I will get a cf-card reader and get rid of Zoombrowser.

James

[nadim]

James,
before you buy a Card Reader, have you tried the software that Chris Breeze have written (freeware) ?

Download the "DownLoader" from : http://www.breezesys.com/

Regards
nadim

[James]

Hi Nadim,

Thanks for the advice and the link. Have loaded the program and removed the Zoombrowser. It works great!

I may still get a CF-Card reader to keep permanent connecting to my home PC and the Canon cable for my Notebook.

James

[RHBinDFW]

I've heard lots of people discussion ACDSee and ThumbsPlus, but I haven't located a site where I can explore them a little further. I'm not disappointed in IrvanView, which is what I've been using, but the ability to work directly with CRW files is really tempting.

Can one of you post a link or two to these sites?

Thanks--
--rhb

LKraven wrote:
ACDSee is the best that I have found for browsing images. It loads very quickly. In fact, I prefer the older version (now called the Classic version).

The new version has some photo-editing tools, but they're pretty bad.

I use Thumbsplus to do organizing of my personal galleries.

I use QImage for lots of stuff too... just wish he'd acknowledge some bugs and quit releasing a new version every hour...

[Trav]

I have a quick question about using TWAIN for downloading the pics. In ACDSee, for example, it'll ask you how much compression you want to use when downloading the images. Since the images are already compression on the camera files, does using TWAIN mean you are using MORE compression? For example, lets say the compression on the pics on the camera is 30% compression. When I use Twain to download the pics, does it further compress OR does it uncompress first and then recompress at your specified compression level? I hope that question makes sense! I just noticed that when I downloaded using Twain, the file sizes were either larger or smaller depending on what settings I used and wondered how this might result in a difference on the photos.

Thanks,
Travis

rknol wrote:
James, you don't have to use Zoombrowser, just use an imaging program and transfer your pictures by using Twain. Or buy a CF-card reader and copy them by using windows explorer.

James wrote:
I don't like Canon's Zoombrowser.. how can I get rid of it and still download the pictures from my Pro90??

James

[rknol]

Twain just copies the files from out of the camera to your thumbnail-program. But then the thumbnail-program has to save it somewhere. If you choose to save it as jpeg, another compression will be added. You can better save it as tiff, but then you loose the exif information.
Therefore it is best to buy a CF-card reader and simply copy the files from card to PC.

To resume: Twain does not decompress/compress the file, it is simply a mechanism to copy files. Your thumbnail-program gives it an extra compression (if you choose to use jpeg).


Trav wrote:
I have a quick question about using TWAIN for downloading the pics. In ACDSee, for example, it'll ask you how much compression you want to use when downloading the images. Since the images are already compression on the camera files, does using TWAIN mean you are using MORE compression? For example, lets say the compression on the pics on the camera is 30% compression. When I use Twain to download the pics, does it further compress OR does it uncompress first and then recompress at your specified compression level? I hope that question makes sense! I just noticed that when I downloaded using Twain, the file sizes were either larger or smaller depending on what settings I used and wondered how this might result in a difference on the photos.

Thanks,
Travis

[rknol]

Thumbsplus can be downloaded from www.cerious.com. That's the normal version. The new betas can be downloaded when you read their newsgroups. In the beta-groups, there are links to the latest beta. They say that you only can run the CRW-beta if you have a valid license for T+. Don't know if it's true: I have a valid licence.

[RHBinDFW]

Thanks-- I'll check it out today.

--rhb
rknol wrote:
Thumbsplus can be downloaded from www.cerious.com. That's the normal version. The new betas can be downloaded when you read their newsgroups. In the beta-groups, there are links to the latest beta. They say that you only can run the CRW-beta if you have a valid license for T+. Don't know if it's true: I have a valid licence.

RHBinDFW wrote:
I've heard lots of people discussion ACDSee and ThumbsPlus, but I haven't located a site where I can explore them a little further. I'm not disappointed in IrvanView, which is what I've been using, but the ability to work directly with CRW files is really tempting.

Can one of you post a link or two to these sites?

Thanks--
--rhb

[James]

Hi,

You can get ACDsee at www.acdsee.com

There are a number of downloads available.

James

[teekay]

Have been lurking as a "reader" for a while - most useful forum! Just switched to digital (G1, natch) and am blown away by the possibilities.

I've also found a real gem for thumbnails-to-Web pages: THUMBER from http://members.tripod.com/~tawba/thumber.htm

The program's strength is it's dead easy interface for organizing thumbnails into Web pages, linking them to full size originals, complete with selective EXIF info, all with a few clicks. The page is then a cinch to customize in any HTML editor. Also does simple, lossless tranforms retaining all EXIF info.

Did a trial of camera and THUMBER yesterday, example at http://www.netidea.com/~teekay/thumbs/kiteday.htm

The images are nothing great - I was just testing settings under high contrast conditions.

Teekay

[Del K]

I also use Thumber, and am very happy with it as long as I stick with JPEG. It does not handle CRW or TIFF. With JPEG, though, it is very functional. Exports EXIF as text or csv; I use csv to build Excel spreadsheets of image directory data. Thumber also creates html files to look at your photos, and has a configurable rename function. This combination, while not "professional" standard, is very convenient for maintaining a personal directory. I plan to archive it on CDR when my zip disk fills up. Too bad it does not deal with TIFF and its image info, I have to do that manually. When I shoot RAW, I save the image info using Chris Breeze downloader, make a JPEG copy for Thumber to display, and enter the data manually.

[Leo R]

I came across an excellent EXIF browser at

http://members.nbci.com.../mkowalski.1/index.html

It will display all the photo and camera info, display thumnails and a whole lot more that I have not explored yet. A relatively small file for downloading. Oh and did I mention that it is lightning fast.

Leo

[John - NJ]

Leo:

I fixed your link. Does it work with CRW files?

Leo R wrote:
I came across an excellent EXIF browser at
http://members.nbci.com/mkowalski.1/index.html

[Leo R]

John - NJ wrote:
Leo:

I fixed your link. Does it work with CRW files?

Yes it works with Canon CRW files as well as jpeg and files already converted from crw to tiff or bitmap. You can toggle between a window that lists all the files in a folder along with the info about the picture eg camera, shooting mode, exposure, lens focal length, flash on or off, etc etc and a window of thumbnails. Clicking on a thumbnail gives a full screen view or other sizes by a zoom + or-. There are other features that I have not used yet.

The detailed file listings seem to be in a spreadsheet format and clicking on a column heading causes the list to be resorted by that heading-eg clicking on the exposure time heading, sorts the list by shutter speed used.

Leo

[gandini]

So, I'm totally confused now! Too many programs for viewing images. But I know what my question is... (damn it)

Reading all this thumbnail stuff, am I right in thinking that there's a 640x480 pixel version of the image inside the CRW file? So when I download an image from my CF card, via my MicroTech USB reader I get:

CRW_1055.CRW containing RAW image data and 640x480 JPG image, and
CRW_1055.THM containing JPG image possibly 120x180 or smaller.

There's EXIF data somewhere here, too, but I don't know where.

I currently use ACDSee to view the THM files to see if any photos are just so bad I don't want to deal with them. Then I convert all remaining images into TIFFS, view them, then delete those I find to be out of focus, or blurred, or otherwise flawed or uninteresting.

I think it would be nice to get that 640x480 JPG out of the *.CRW file and use that to make more informed decisions.

IF Im right, is there a way to get access to that larger thumb image?

cheers,

[Del K]

See the thread on YARC in this section. If you have a Windows PC, you can use it to automatically retrieve the jpg thumbs with exif. I use it and then use the Kowalski Exif Viewer or Max Lyons Thumber to view the exif and thumbnails.