Some key features of Picview include support for photography RAW formats, viewing photos in folder, immersive borderless browsing, rich and customizable gesture controls for viewing, pinning/pasting, text recognition/cropping image main subject and more.

Viewing Photography RAW Formats

Despite being only 7.8MB in size, Picview integrates the ability to parse RAW formats with fast parsing speeds, making it both lightweight yet powerful.

  • Viewing of various photography RAW formats like CR2, CR3, NEF etc. and quick loading speeds.
  • Viewing of capture time, lens model, ISO sensitivity, aperture, shutter speed and other attributes.
  • Browsing of over 30 formats including GIF, SVG, AI, WEBP, PS, Sketch, PDF etc.

Support for multiple formats

Viewing photos in folders

Seamlessly view pictures within a folder by double clicking to open images, using keyboard arrows to flip pages, smooth mouse scrolling for zooming.

  • Browse images filtered by extensions.
  • Sort by name, extension, date modified, date created, capture date, photo size ascending/descending.
  • Browse images across sub-folders.

For instructions on how to set up Picview for continuous folder viewing of images, please refer to Move through images in a folder —— How to view photos in folders on macOS.

Immersive Borderless Image Viewing

The interface is clean and minimalist with no distractions, fast loading, and a refined appearance.

  • Automatically hide/show title bar, toolbars and other auxiliary windows which can be customized to be shown/hidden.
  • Slideshow style automatic image switching with customizable transition time and styles including random or loop.
  • Viewing images in fullscreen automatically hides/shows the cursor for an immersive viewing experience.
  • 10 viewing window scaling modes including fixed window size or window adaptive to image size.
  • Multiple viewing methods including single/multiple windows and pinning to open images.

For settings on immersive viewing window modes, please refer to the Window image zoom mode for viewing.

Rich Gesture Operations for Viewing Images

The gesture operations for viewing images in Picview are both rich and practical, considering various usage environments and habits, where you can find the shadow of viewing images in Windows.

  • Mouse scrolling allows page flipping, zooming, and moving within large images that do not fit the window.
  • Mouse dragging enables moving the window or copying images, and moving within images.
  • Mouse double-click provides full-screen view, closing windows, zooming in/out, and continuous zooming.
  • Full keyboard support for browsing photos, including customizable shortcuts.
  • Great touchpad gesture support including two-finger swipe to flip pages and two-finger pinch to zoom.

For details on gesture operation settings and usage, please refer to Rich Gesture Operations - Viewing Images with Mouse, Keyboard, and Touchpad.

Pinning/Pasting

Easily pin any photos, images, text as notes on the desktop for convenient side-by-side comparison viewing.

  • Pin photos and images directly on the desktop for viewing.
  • Pin text and words on the desktop for viewing.
  • Float above all windows, always within easy reach.
  • Use mouse scrolling to adjust pin/note size.
  • Set shadow and transparency levels.

For instructions on using pins/notes, please refer to the How to use Pin and Paste - Transform images or text into desktop sticky notes for easy reference and comparison article.

Pinning/Pasting Demo

Text Recognition and Object Cropping

With AI support, Picview blurs the line between images and documents, allowing images to be handled similarly to documents. This enables directly selecting, copying text from images when writing papers or documents.

  • Automatically recognize text within images, allowing selection, copying, translating of text in images.
  • Automatically recognize the main object/subject within images, allowing cropping and pasting of the key object/subject into other applications.

Further Reading

  1. Frequently Asked Questions