From ACDSee to XnView

[Lapinoo]

Untill a couple of days ago, I was a regular user of ACDSee, but this time, I am not willing to pay the ACDSee tax to upgrade (quite expensive for few new interesting features).

I look for a new program and found XnView. I was surprised to see such a good product almost free... Kudos !!!

I was mainly looking for a good program to manage a large collection of pictures (20000+), so I mainly look at XnView through this filter !

After playing with XnView for a few hours, here are some features I would like to see :

• Complete support for ICC profiles : reading colorspace from pictures, using a special profile for display and printing. ACDSee does that quite well. It is a feature important to me since I stopped shooting in sRGB JPEG quite some time ago. Adobe RGB1998 and ProRGB should be well supported in a DAM.
• Time shifting feature : Very often, I forget to change the time date of a camera (daylight saving time, trip in another time zone), so I get a lot of pictures for which I have to update the EXIF/IPTC timestamp.
• Use EXIF maker notes in file rename templates. There are valuables informations in those, one of which I use in my naming convention.
• Reuse the file number in the file name when renaming. Eg. : If the file I'm going to rename is IMG_9355.jpg, I would like to use 9355 in the name template. I keep this information which I can not get from the EXIF on my Canon EOS 30D.
• Add ICC profile to files without modifying the JPEG. Very useful feature found in Downloader Pro that enables me to add the Adobe RGB 1998 profiles to JPEG files coming from my camera.
• Folders thumbnails are very poor. It seams to me that they are build using the included thumbnail of the pictures rather than the thumbnail XnView built.
• Folder exclusion from the database : I would like XnView not to index and build thumbnails for specific folders.
• How about having a Ken Burns effect for slidewhows. This would make them first class !
• XMP file support : those files should be used when they exist. They content IPTC data for RAW files and much more (they are not dedicated to RAW files). They should be renamed, move and deleted when the file they relate to is modified.
• Database explorer : browse pictures by keyword, by location (according to the IPTC data), by camera, by lens and so on. Check Adobe Lightroom which does it pretty well.
• Better support for several file types : RAW files for EOS 40D (already being discussed somewhere else) and many lage ICON files.

Keep up the good work !

[Clo]

Lapinoo

Hello ! Welcome aboard ! Bonsoir, bienvenue à bord !

• Well, according to the forum rules, you would have to split your thread into several parts to get
one thread per topic, or else it's getting a big mess…
- Hence, I'll answer about one topic only for now :

…Folders thumbnails are very poor. …

• Not at all, you can customize completely the shown thumbnail of folders,
please have a glance HERE (scroll ▼ to the image…). The same IN ENGLISH…
- You can display too 4-in-1 thumbnails in these folders (check the Options…)

BTW : We have a French section here

[Lapinoo]

• Well, according to the forum rules, you would have to split your thread into several parts to get one thread per topic, or else it's getting a big mess…

OK, I'll repost everything. French or English. What do you prefer?

…Folders thumbnails are very poor. …

• Not at all, you can customize completely the shown thumbnail of folders,
please have a glance HERE (scroll ▼ to the image…). The same IN ENGLISH…
- You can display too 4-in-1 thumbnails in these folders (check the Options…)

Thanks for the link.

In fact, I use 4 in 1 thubnails fo the folders. My complain goes to the 4 little thumbnails used in the big one. This is especially true for folders containing only RAW files. image thumbnails are very bad. I can post you a screen shot if that helps.

[Clo]

Lapinoo

Hello !

• You can post in any section, I can read¦write¦speak in the two languages, no problem…
…but French is richer and less confusing…

• The thumbnails within the 4-in-1 are generally very bad, not only in XnView,
I guess it's because they are created by Windows, and it doesn't resize them properly according to the folder thumbnail size.
- I can notice the same phenomenon in Total Commander,
while I have set XnView (or another method) to display thumbnails and the awful 4-in-1…

KR
Claude
Clo

[Troken]

You can display only one folderthumnail if you rename the image to "folder.jpg" (for a jpg that is, I think other formats work as well). It looks really sweet.

[Lapinoo]

I posted like mad lately

I chose english so that many more can follow on the discussions !

Don't hesitate to switch to french if required !

[Lapinoo]

• The thumbnails within the 4-in-1 are generally very bad, not only in XnView,
I guess it's because they are created by Windows, and it doesn't resize them properly according to the folder thumbnail size.
- I can notice the same phenomenon in Total Commander,
while I have set XnView (or another method) to display thumbnails and the awful 4-in-1…

Thanks,

In fact, 4-in-1 are almost OK when folders contain only JPEG files. They are much worse when the folder contains RAW files XnView choses to elect for display on the folder thumbnail.

Do you want a screenshot for a better explanation ?

[helmut]

Welcome in the forum and thank you, Lapinoo, for splitting up your issues into individual topics. This will make answering much easier. Also thank you for your suggestions - even if some of them are implemented, already.

[Lapinoo]

Welcome in the forum and thank you, Lapinoo, for splitting up your issues into individual topics. This will make answering much easier. Also thank you for your suggestions - even if some of them are implemented, already.

Thanks !

Next time I'll spend more time playing with all the feature before posting !