Windows Photo Viewer
| File:P&F-V-icon.PNG | |
| Windows Picture and Fax Viewer for Windows XP. Windows Picture and Fax Viewer under Windows XP. | |
| Developer(s) | Microsoft |
|---|---|
| Operating system | Windows XP and Server 2003 |
| Type | image viewer |
| Website | Windows Picture and Fax Viewer Overview |
Windows Picture and Fax Viewer is an image viewer. It is a part of the Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 operating systems. It is based on GDI+ [1] and is capable of viewing images format supported by GDI+, namely, JPG, BMP, PNG, GIF (including animated GIFs), ICO, WMF, EMF and TIFF format files.
This program superseded part of the functions of Imaging for Windows in previous versions of Windows.
General
Apart from its rudimentary image rotating tool which is not lossless [2], and its TIFF annotation feature, the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer only views, and does not edit images. It can print images using the Photo Printing Wizard introduced in Windows XP. It is a color-managed application which recognizes embedded ICC color profiles (V2 only)[citation needed] in JPG and TIFF files. Windows XP contains other programs that are capable of basic image editing and scanning, such as Microsoft Paint.
The viewer program starts up if any of the picture format files is double clicked. It is not accessible from the Windows Start menu and is implemented as a dynamic-link library file called shimgvw.dll; there is no executable file.
Viewer capabilities
The viewer is capable of displaying all image formats listed above. If an image is larger than the screen resolution, it is made to fit the screen. The viewer has an option to view the image full size, but scrolling is necessary to see all areas of the image. Shown below is a screenshot of the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer’s toolbar.
Features
The following features are available by selecting the applicable toolbar icon:
- Successive viewing of all images in current folder and looping through images, that is, after viewing the last image in a directory, it again shows the first image and vice versa.
- Zoom in or out on the image being viewed.
- Allow a large image to be viewed full size by scrolling.
- Basic file management from within the viewer: Delete, Save, Copy, Print and Open with.
- Save/convert an image to a different format supported in GDI+, that is, JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF or PNG using the Copy To (Save) button.
- Set an image as the desktop wallpaper/background from the context menu.
- Print photos using the Photo Printing Wizard which allows printing images with the picture titles using various page layouts such as full page prints, wallet prints, contact/index sheets or certain fixed dimensions with the images cropped or rotated to fit the page. The wizard shows a preview of what the printed page will look like with the currently specified options. The wizard though, is not part of the viewer application and can also be launched from Windows Explorer.
- View a slideshow of all, or selected images in the folder.
- Rotate images right or left by 90 degrees. Rotation however is not lossless. [2]
- Annotate TIFF images.
- Close the viewer and open image the image in the default image editor registered for that image type (Microsoft Paint by default).
- Any image can be e-mailed by selecting the "Send To" option. Further options allow the image to be mailed full size, or in pixel dimensions of: 640x480, 800x600, and 1024x768.
- The viewer saves and remembers its window position and size.
- Supports keyboard shortcuts for all of its operations.
Handling of TIFF files
If a TIFF formatted file is opened in Windows Picture and Fax Viewer, a new toolbar will appear at the bottom of the screen. This toolbar has icons that allow other operations to be performed. Lines can be drawn on the image and text added to it. Areas of the image can be selected and concealed. The Windows Picture and Fax Viewer however is not capable of viewing multi-page TIFF files. [1]
Known issues
A buffer overflow vulnerability was discovered in the underlying graphics rendering engine, which could allow an attacker to execute code remotely by getting the user to view a specially crafted WMF file. Microsoft released a patch for this Windows Metafile vulnerability in January 2006; their bulletin also states that a valid workaround is to disable the viewer. The viewer can be disabled by using this command:
regsvr32 /u %windir%\system32\shimgvw.dll
It can be enabled again using the following command:
regsvr32 %windir%\system32\shimgvw.dll
If a picture is advanced to the next in a series after the application's window has been maximized from a restored state, then the new image appears centered around the previous, instead of within the resized window's bounds.[citation needed]
The basic transformation functions are lossy [2],and the viewer re-saves (and therefore re-applies the compression algorihm), with every change. The program does not allow the user to select the level of quality when re-saving an image.[3] Depending on the complexity of the image, multiple executions of functions like Rotate may distort an image; depending on the nature of the image, after hundreds or thousands of iterations, the image may be unrecognizable.
Windows Vista
The picture viewer in Windows Vista, renamed Windows Photo Gallery Viewer, is completely rewritten and is based on Windows Photo Gallery which uses the Windows Imaging Component (WIC). The underlying graphics engine pipeline has been overhauled [4] with support for large and high bit depth HDR images. Windows Photo Gallery has native metadata handling and tagging support and since the Windows Imaging Component is extensible, it can organize and view any image format for which a third party WIC codec is installed. By default, it can view JPEG, BMP, PNG, TIFF and HD Photo images, as well as video. RAW image formats used by high-end professional cameras are also supported by installing their respective WIC codecs. Basic photo editing such as adjusting exposure, color, red eye and cropping can be done right within the application. Windows Photo Gallery also supports ICC V4 embedded color profiles and has Windows Color System support. However, legacy image formats such as WMF and EMF do not have their respective codecs available in WIC, and therefore cannot be viewed by default. The viewer can also view GIF images, but cannot show animated GIFs; clicking on a GIF images directly will cause it to open in Internet Explorer. In Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate editions, slideshows can be viewed with visual effects and transitions.