Is viewing destructive?

[Brett123]

Hello, silly question maybe, but is concerning me. I have just downloaded the current XnViewMP version for Windows and have not made any changes to settings. When I view a directory of images and DOUBLE CLICK (Open) an image I get a concerning warning message: This picture will be converted to RGB with 8bits per component.

Are my images being changed merely by my viewing them? I don't want to change anything, I just want to use XnViewMP as a viewer, not editor in any way.

Thank you for any responses clarifying this.

[XnTriq]

Welcome to the forum, Brett123.

Your files are not permanently modified in any way.
The message is just a reminder that XnView doesn't support bit depths beyond 8 bits per component in case the user decides to save/convert the originals to a different format.

It's strange. Every prog in existance can handle 8bit and 24bit images, many can even handle 32bits, but almost none can handle 16bits. If 24 and 32 bits aren't too hard to do, why is 16bits? I just don't get it. ::


There is a version o ImageMagick which claims to support 16 bits: http://studio.imagemagick.org/script/bi ... hp#windows

XnView can load 8/10/12/16/24/32 bits per component picture, but components are converted in 8bits... And it's a known issue with PGM 16bits...

[Brett123]

That was what I was hoping. Thank you.

PS. I am using XnViewMP as an incredibly fast, large thumbnail, viewer of hundreds of RAW images at a time before I import the select few slowly and painfully into Lightroom