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Picasa vs FastStone vs ?


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Until now I've used the buildin photo viewer but now with my canon 600d pics i find it a lot slower than picasa and other softwares I've tried. Never tried FastStone but heard it's pretty good so i might try it out.

What software you use to open \ manage your pics?

Thanks

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iPhoto is all I can recommend, I tried the rest and eventually began using iPhoto on my Mac. Best decision I've ever made.

Otherwise - Picasa was the best.

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I use Lightroom. There is a new version now and I think its at a discounted price. I haven't used any freeware tools recently, but when I did, I preferred Windows Photo Gallary; Picasa was good but it didn't support the standard tag and meta data formats that Windows Photo Gallery, Lightroom and Windows Explorer support (something I depended on since I use tags and metadata a lot when categorizing my photos). This was an issue with Picasa not being up to date with standards, dunno if el goog fixed it recently.

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Lightroom. It's a must when working with RAW images. And the price is really quite nice since Lightroom 4.

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No real order here but for Windows I have used and tried these

Bibble Pro

Lightroom

ACDSee Pro

Xnview

I liked Bibble Pro a lot and it seem retain the correct colors of my photos compared to Lightroom. I don't recall why this was.

Good luck

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Picasso is a manager and fast stone is primariy a viewer.

Anyway on windows its only two I recommend

Lightroom for the pro or amateur that wants a bit more control

Windos Live Photo Gallery for the P&S and amateur photographer(non raw).

Picasa jus doesn't compare to WLPG, it's adjustment tools are worthless and it's to slow on big collection and don't work as well when connecting to nn google service. Whereas WLPG connects to Flickr p, Facebook and everything else directly or wih a single easy to install plugin.

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Who cares about silly effects, I'm talking about real actual useful image adjustment tools. Where Picasa falls hard.

And no, I can tell you it does not run smoother, quite the opposite, and it certainly ain't more robust. I use Lightroom anyway though, but if I'm on another computer or just managing quick family pics and such, yeah, WLPG is the tool of choice far ahead of Picasa.

One of the problems with Picasa is actually demonstrated in your last picture as well. A problem that's especially bad due to it's horrible handling of raw files. Where it won't load them with the "exposure" and developement "settings" from the camera and loads it way to bright.

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WLPG is very sluggish. I don't have it but even on a store PC I was messin around with (playing with a planar brand touch screen hooked up to a pc) WLPG loaded very slow on a 6 core with 8GB RAM. It seemed a bit sluggish and derpy.

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um no. you can clearly see they have the same adjustment tools which work exactly the same if anything.

and in my screenshots i have a effect selected which is why its color/brightness is different.

real time usage:

takes forever for WLPG to boot up, and then its even slightly laggi while using as you can see when i click an image.

while picasa is almost instant.

I don't even really care all that much, just hate people posting stuff as if its fact.

Also i prefer light room over both as well for image adjusting, as i stated in my earlier post.

Umm, no they don't work the same, notice ow all the adjustment bars on Picasa starts at the far left, allowing you to increase brightness, contrast and all that. Well in WLPG they properly start in the "middle", like they should.

WLPG WAS laggy, back in the first version. It has since passed way beyond Picasa. And Picasa starts up fast because of all the background tasks and services google ads to startup to make their crap appear to start instantly, while in reality theyre already running since they slowed down your startup.

And no, I don't just post thing I "think" as fact, I post suff I know as a fact, since I like using the best tool for the job, I test them also I know which is best. It just so happens your favorite tol has some serious shortcomings, you don't care about them, but they're still to serious to make it the best.

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These threads that like to use the term "best" No matter what it is discussing normally end in fail/fanism.

The OP asked what you use, not what is "best" which is a better way to look at it you ask me. It's fine to throw out what you use and for what "you" do you might find your current tool choice the best. Does not make it fact, no matter what you think - or how many other products you might have played with.

The "best" solution for a specific use or user is going to have so many variables at play it is pretty much impossible to quantify which is "best"

Is it even available on the OS the user is using, what is the cost? There are great tools both free and paid - does it mean that paid is "better", does it mean free is "best"?? Like I said there are lot of variables to take in to account. To be honest the only one that can do that is the user.

Unless you can run the tools/device/whatever through a series of exact tests that allow you to quantify the results the term "best" is always going to be subjective. Even when you do have a set of tests to base the comparison on, your still more than likely going to have to come down to a subjective choice.

Unless what your talking about is of very limited scope its almost impossible to determine the best of something.

Just because you find X better suited to your wants/needs/requirements does not mean its better than Y. In general they may do exactly the same thing when it comes down too it. But maybe X is cheaper, maybe Y has better eye candy but does whatever a bit slower. Maybe user A does not need all the features of X and finds it complicates it use for his needs.

Hawkman you can your say your statements are Facts all you want -- sorry just because you find X better suited to your tastes/needs/etc does not in fact make it better than Y for user B.

We can all make our arguments why we find X better than Y, but that does not make it a fact for some other user.

I say utorrent is better p2p client than transmission - does not make it a fact. You could have 1000 uses like utorrent better compared to 1 that likes transmission better. Still does not make it a fact. Maybe there is small aspect of utorrent that 1 user just does not like, or feature that transmission has that utorrent that does not that is a deal breaker for them, etc. So to them transmission is the better choice.

We may find why they like something better than our choice idiotic in nature and pointless - still comes down to their choice.

Keep in mind that there are 1000's of ways to skin a cat - which way a user finds best is going to be up to them. All we can do is exchange our views and opinions to help each other find the one they like.

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Sorry but when adjustment tools are as idiotically designed and practically broken as they are in Picasa, I can say facts are facts. We're not talking opinions anymore then, just plain facts, those tools are plain broken by design.

The only way it's better for anyone use case scenario is if their camera never takes anything but perfectly exposed and balanced shots, especially nothing over exposed in the least.

And/or they don't use RAW at all.

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Ok I use several programs. Not because I need to but because it works for me best.

First I use light room for all my RAW as an organizer.

I use Windows preview just to look at pics but I use ACDsee Pro to organize my regular pics. I like the database scheme and can upgrade as needed.

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I'll give ACDsee pro a try. So far Windows Gallery (The latest version) was sluggish for me with opening pics. I havn't tried managing my collection with it because i'm looking for something that will also open my pics fast which Windows Gallery doesn't do. Opening small pics is fine but when the pic is over 6 MB it takes 1-2 sec to open, sometimes in blurry form and takes another 1-2 sec to show it in full quality. (20 Mb HDR pics are much worse)

Picasa is pretty much the same.. My system isn't high end (e6750, 6 gigs of ram) but i would still expect pics to open instantly if video players can open a 14 gigs mkv video files in less then a sec.

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I personally use Picasa for general management and photo previews, and Lightroom for managing photos taken with my SLR.

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I'll give ACDsee pro a try. So far Windows Gallery (The latest version) was sluggish for me with opening pics. I havn't tried managing my collection with it because i'm looking for something that will also open my pics fast which Windows Gallery doesn't do. Opening small pics is fine but when the pic is over 6 MB it takes 1-2 sec to open, sometimes in blurry form and takes another 1-2 sec to show it in full quality. (20 Mb HDR pics are much worse)

Picasa is pretty much the same.. My system isn't high end (e6750, 6 gigs of ram) but i would still expect pics to open instantly if video players can open a 14 gigs mkv video files in less then a sec.

No matter how fast your system is, it can't open a 20MB raw image file instantly. it needs to first read it from the disk, which takes time then it also with a RAW needs to analyze and apply the raw development settings from the camera which requires a little bit of rendering.

and the comparison to video files doesn't work, since a video file doesn't need to show the whole movie at once, it's start with the beginning and goes on, and each frame is no a 20 MB raw file that requires live post production to not look weird.

the only ways to open 20 MB raw files "instantly" is to use SSD disks, even then you might get a little delay, or rather it would open the image, then in the blink of an eye the image woudl flash over form the unmanaged raw files to the raw files+camera post settings.

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and the comparison to video files doesn't work, since a video file doesn't need to show the whole movie at once,

Good point :)

Does your reply applies to JPEGs to? I haven't started using RAW yet with my DSLR

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More or less.

jpegs in the 6-20MB size range will still take time to load from disk, same amount, and sometimes they are saved in the progressive method with causes them to load slower by gradually increasing quality, giving you a basic version first. that's a problem with the type of jpeg used though.

You will however not see the step where you get a washed out or dark or what seems like a badly exposed image first before the viewer loads the exposure/development settings from the file and applies them.

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Until now I've used the buildin photo viewer but now with my canon 600d pics i find it a lot slower than picasa and other softwares I've tried. Never tried FastStone but heard it's pretty good so i might try it out. What software you use to open \ manage your pics?

Shasoosh...

Suggest you use Canon's own Digital Photo Professional 3.11.4.10 for RAW PP work and FastStone 4.60 for the rest. As the RAW format is Canon's own, DPP probably handles it the best. FastStone is also a good photo file 'organizor' and can be used to launch other PP software. Best, CBA

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FastStone FTW. Picasa sucks.

My only complaint with FastStone Image viewer is that it adds unnecessary context menus for every folder which can be only removed by a registry tweak.

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Options

  1. Lightroom is a digital darkroom workflow tool, it's used for developing RAW files and is a very powerful tool outside of Photoshop. You would use this if you take your photography seriously and want the best possible image from your camera, having all the control as to how your photo is developed.
  2. Picasa, iPhoto, Faststone and Windows Gallery are photo organisers and have in built limited touch up tools.

So question is what level of photography do you do?

If you're like most who just want to take photos to capture the moment and not bothered if the Bokeh is right or DOF is spot on etc. then stick with something from option 2. Try them all out and see which works for you.

If you like more control over your photos and shoot in RAW then choose option 1. If you have Photoshop then even better, you will have Bridge which is a pretty good organiser. Trials are available for you to try before committing.

Bottom line is not everyone is the same all we can do is provide our own opinions; best way is to try for yourself and see what works for you.

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