Better competition

Submitted by fishmi on Sun, 04/14/2019 - 07:05
Forums: 
General discussion

Until a few days ago, I was a big fan of FastRawViewer , but now I have again tested some "oldtimers" for sorting my RAW files, especially XNView MP, Honey View and FastStone Picture Viewer and to my surprise I had to realize that all three programs display RAW files (compressed and separate JPG) noticeably faster than FastRawViewer. 
Especially XnView MP makes this very convincing and offers all functions for marking the files.  The program has currently replaced FRW in my case.
 
Why do I write this here? 
Because I actually think the operating concept for FastRawViewer is better and I would like to know how I can make FastRawViewer display RAW files as fast as XnView MP.
Maybe special settings are necessary. I've already tried everything, be it prefetching or faster display of FUJI RAW files (Fuji X-T3).
But nothing has helped: the display is always noticeably slower, of course I can't quantify it exactly in milliseconds. But with XnView MP I can go back and forth between the RAW files very fast, felt without any time delay, the photo is immediately displayed sharply. This is an enormous time saving for the regular viewing of many photos (up to 10000).
What do the programs do differently than FRW?
 

My work environment: 
Lenovo Thinkpad P70
Processor: i7 -6820HQ
Graphics card: Nvdia Quadro P3000
Windows 10, 64 bit

 

lexa

Sun, 04/14/2019 - 08:58

Dear Sir:

The programs you listed do not display RAW data but displays embedded JPEG preview (embedded in RAW file). This may be faster, especially if file readinig speed is limited by media used.

 

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Alex Tutubalin/FastRawViewer team

fishmi

Sun, 04/14/2019 - 11:59

Thanks for your quick answer.
I had already thought that there was an essential difference. But FRW doesn't get much faster if I change the display to embedded JPG. In addition, the exposure correction is no longer available to me and I need this regularly.
 
The question is, of course, what do you want or what do others do with FRW?
I suppose that many users use the program to evaluate their RAW files in order to process them in other programs. Because basically the display of the RAW and JPG files is faster than with Lightroom or C1.
 
But what is the advantage of viewing the RAW file?
I want to be able to judge quickly whether the motive of the photo is successful, whether it is halfway sharp and which photo is the best for a series of pictures. 
Everything else I can optimize in other programs.
For this evaluation I only need JPGs and I want to see them without delay (especially when jumping back and forth between series of pictures).
And as I often photograph indoors, I have many underexposed RAW files whose exposure is adjusted as automatically as possible. And unfortunately that doesn't work with JPGs. XnViwe MP offers the increase of the gamma value, which is of course only conditionally useful.
 
Maybe I don't belong to the target group of FRW either.
After all, the word "RAW" is already in the program name, so why focus on the JPGs?

lexa

Sun, 04/14/2019 - 12:13

Dear Sir:

FastRawViewer always decode RAW data from RAW images (because FRV's main purpose is to display RAW files), so changing default display to JPEG do not change much.

For RAW shooters culling based on RAW data (not JPEG) is essential, because JPEG-based culling may result into wrong selection.

See our articles with examples:

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Alex Tutubalin/FastRawViewer team

fishmi

Mon, 04/15/2019 - 04:53

Thanks for the explanations and the links to the blog.
Maybe I should read it more often :-)
Now I understand the focus of the program and see that these advantages are not relevant for me.
Of course I hope for a lot of other users.
 
Please don't understand my contribution as criticism or wrong.
I am still a big fan of FRW.
I will certainly continue to use the program for special purposes and observe where the development is going. 
 
Regards
Martin

fishmi

Mon, 04/15/2019 - 04:57

I'm sorry for the wrong abbreviation.
I mean of course FRV, FastRawViewer 

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