Best way to view photographs (Windows 10)

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
August 2, 2020
4 replies
965 views

Hi y'all. I know this may seem a super simple question, but how do y'all view your photographs once loaded on your computer (Windows 10)? I've taken a 2 year break from editing my photographs (via Photoshop) and the Windows Photo Viewer that used to be on my Windows 7 desktop performed more accurately than the Windows 10 Photo app (which makes pictures more saturated than they truly are once I pull them into Photoshop). I'm not as experienced with Lightroom or Bridge - so I wasn't sure if that's how people view their pics or what. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Angela

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Correct answer Per Berntsen

The Windows 7 Photo viewer was color managed, which is why it displayed correct colors.

Color managed applications use the monitor profile to display correct colors by converting the colors from the document profile to the monitor profile.

The Windows 10 Photos app is not color managed, and does not do this conversion, so it will not display correct colors.

You also seem to have a wide gamut monitor, which will inevitably lead to over saturation when viewing images in applications without color management.

The solution is to only use color managed applications to view your work.

Windows 10 has no native color managed applications (except the latest version of Edge). I suggest that you use a third party color managed image viewer like FastStone, which is free for personal use.

Color management is not enabled by default. Go to Settings > CMS to enable it, both boxes must be checked.

Another option is to use Bridge, which you can install from the CC desktop app.

Nancy OShea

Community Expert

I mainly use Bridge.

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

I often feel that Bridge is the great unsung hero of the Adobe apps. It is incredibly useful and powerful, and despite trying to getting into using Lightroom, I always return to a Bridge/Photoshop workflow. Faststone is a great app as well, and I know several NZ camera clubs use it to manage their club night presentations. I also use Bridge for choosing sets of images for interclub competitions. Using star ratings and filtering by those ratings lets you quickly whittle down a selection, and being able to drag thumbnails (and resize on the fly) makes it easy to fine tune the best way to display the set.

A

angelam54321Author

Participant

Sweet - thanks for the tips!

Per Berntsen

Community Expert

Both Bridge and FastStone are free, so I suggest that you try both, and see what works best for you.

I use ACDSee (not free), because you can customize the interface, and it has configurable keyboard shortcuts.

Per Berntsen

Correct answer