Fast Raw Viewer - From 2655 to 9 images

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Hooligans Imagery

Hooligans Imagery

Michael H
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As Photo Mechanic moves to a subscription based model, and people debate using 1:1 previews and rendering in Lightroom, I wanted to share where I'm at with FRV. This matters as FRV is only $23 and often a few dollars off on sale. It renders RAW previews very quickly and has some features LRc doesn't.
I was using Auto Capture at my fountain so I could post some images to the 180-600 thread.
After @Wes Peterson helped me sort out an AC glitch, yesterday morning I ended up with 2655 images.
I tried to post 9 but found out the limit is 8 so I broke it into 7 and 2.
How did I get there and get there quickly.

I had previously set up FRV to act like Lightroom.
I always copy my images to a fast drive for culling. In this case my new Hyper Drive NVMe enclosure clocks in at about 2900mbs. I plugged my CFE card into my OWC (not so) PRO dock and copied the images.

I then opened FRW and set it to the directory and let it scan all the images.
Even though I set up my mouse to scroll the images, I just hold down the right arrow while staring at my MBP screen. When I see an image I like I do as I would do in LRc. I hit a number to rate it. When one gets in the area of a burst you can stop holding down the key and just do a single push. FRV is set up to move to the next image after a rating. Scrolling with the right arrow held down is like watching a movie. Stop it when you need too.

Z if for Zoom and between Z and Command +or- on the MAC, you can vary the zoom level as you please. In my case I had it fairly tight on the bird face or entire bird. As your series change, you do need to adjust the Z level and positioning.

THE TWO tools that FRW makes easy are sharpening and shadows/highlights. The Sharpening tool lets you cycle through a couple of options but the real benefit is it will show contrast edges and fine details. So if you are deciding between a couple of images it will show you what your eye can't see. With shadows it has a boost feature to look at noise and for highlights you can look at details. These are very helpful features for deciding between images.

FRV is set up to move the ones I rate into a subfolder called selected and I just import to LRc from that subfolder.

I was interrupted so I can't say the exact time but it's a completely different workflow that tossing rejects and its very quick and effective.

I resisted FRV for a long time. The PDF manual is very comprehensive and there are some advanced features and the ability to create your own shortcuts. I am only scratching the surface with it. I am glad I used it yesterday. They do have a 30 day free trial I believe.

NOTE for Nikon users. With HE*, it shows the embedded jpg, not a RAW preview.
 
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Hello, i really like to use ACDSee 2024 software for just preview my files before i start edit in Capture One Pro. You have by default embedded view, also singl tap to raw view. It is one time payment. I was use Acdsee whole of my life (cracked:) and i was finaly buy ACDSee 2023 and latest bcs that last one have all Z8/Z9 .raws in it.
 
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Good to know about FRV - I don't use all the features in PM so it sounds like FRV would serve me well. I'm hoping that I can still stick with PM for a while and current versions don't just stop working. Either way, FRV sounds promising.
 
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ANother + for FRV. There are numerous options for review but I like and use FRV. It is fast, provides several excellent tools to select images. The only drawback for a Nikon shooter is that it does not support HE* but since I just shoot RAW it doesn't matter to me.
 
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RockvilleBob said:
ANother + for FRV. There are numerous options for review but I like and use FRV. It is fast, provides several excellent tools to select images. The only drawback for a Nikon shooter is that it does not support HE* but since I just shoot RAW it doesn't matter to me.
Click to expand...
For HE* it shoes the embedded jpg. So there is still an image to look at.
 
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StarTracker50 said:
Is this what you guys are talking about?

FastSpring Checkout

libraw.onfastspring.com libraw.onfastspring.com

And what does Photo Mechanic have to do with this?

Forgive my ignorance. And thanks.
Click to expand...
Yes that's it. Photo Mechanic is a fast ingest program that used the embedded jpg. FRV renders the raw and you have some control over how it does it. Photo Mechanic posted this and from that here is their current pricing which as you can see is already quite a bit more. There are a number of people here that dont' like the subscription model.


The details of our subscription licensing plans will be announced in early 2024. Until the new subscription licensing plans are launched, perpetual licenses of Photo Mechanic will continue to be available in our current store at the retail prices of $169 for Photo Mechanic 6, and $329 for Photo Mechanic Plus (upgrade discounts are available for existing users).
Click to expand...

I have honestly never tried PM so I don't know what it does that FRV doesn't.
 
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I've used FRV for a quite a few years and it's my goto program for culling images from memory cards.

As others have mentioned, it's very fast...even on the older Dell XPS 15 laptop that I use when traveling. I won't rehash some of the excellent recommendations that others have made, but I don't think enough has been made of the keyboard customization that one can do. When culling images, my mouse is not really used...one hand sizing the image, the other rejecting or moving forward or backward on the filmstrip. If I do need to move around the image, I use my right index finger on the laptop touch screen. Very fast...

In my case, I've set my 1, 2, 3, 4 keys to zoom out, zoom 100%, zoom in and fit to screen, respectively, L and R arrows move through the filmstrip and the R key rejects an image and moves it to a "Global" reject folder that you can define. The default behavior is to create a "_rejected" folder on the memory card you're working on, but I prefer everything to go into one folder where I can double-check before deleting if I desire. Depending on the time I have available when doing the culling, I may tag images or I may just move them all to an "ingest" folder and then distribute them to my desired folder structure later, either within LRC or manually, depending on usage. Several ways to set up moving or copying files to frequently used destinations or new ones for particular projects.

Cheers!
 
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MotoPixel said:
I've used FRV for a quite a few years and it's my goto program for culling images from memory cards.

As others have mentioned, it's very fast...even on the older Dell XPS 15 laptop that I use when traveling. I won't rehash some of the excellent recommendations that others have made, but I don't think enough has been made of the keyboard customization that one can do. When culling images, my mouse is not really used...one hand sizing the image, the other rejecting or moving forward or backward on the filmstrip. If I do need to move around the image, I use my right index finger on the laptop touch screen. Very fast...

In my case, I've set my 1, 2, 3, 4 keys to zoom out, zoom 100%, zoom in and fit to screen, respectively, L and R arrows move through the filmstrip and the R key rejects an image and moves it to a "Global" reject folder that you can define. The default behavior is to create a "_rejected" folder on the memory card you're working on, but I prefer everything to go into one folder where I can double-check before deleting if I desire. Depending on the time I have available when doing the culling, I may tag images or I may just move them all to an "ingest" folder and then distribute them to my desired folder structure later, either within LRC or manually, depending on usage. Several ways to set up moving or copying files to frequently used destinations or new ones for particular projects.

Cheers!
Click to expand...
Exactly so many options and customizations possible.
I do similar except from high frame rate shoots, I find using the scroll wheel to locate the frames I want to explore back and forth to be very useful. So I can scroll through quickly the 80 frames with birds butt facing me, or where my fountains flowing water triggered some frames.
 
StarTracker50 said:
Is this what you guys are talking about?

FastSpring Checkout

libraw.onfastspring.com libraw.onfastspring.com

And what does Photo Mechanic have to do with this?

Forgive my ignorance. And thanks.
Click to expand...

I think when folks cull their images in advance there are a few programs that get discussed. Fast raw viewer, photo mechanic, Fastone image viewer, Adobe Bridge. So all are basically the same idea, a fast way to cull. Photo mechanic only shows the embedded jpeg of a raw, while others can be set to render the raw. Bridge and fastone are free while photo mechanic and fast raw viewer are not expensive.
 
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bleirer said:
I think when folks cull their images in advance there are a few programs that get discussed. Fast raw viewer, photo mechanic, Fastone image viewer, Adobe Bridge. So all are basically the same idea, a fast way to cull. Photo mechanic only shows the embedded jpeg of a raw, while others can be set to render the raw. Bridge and fastone are free while photo mechanic and fast raw viewer are not expensive.
Click to expand...
Photo mechanic is expensive compared to the rest and they are going to a subscription model and I linked to that above if anyone is interested.

1702913637283.png
 
Folks that use photo mechanic are very enthusiastic about the benefits. There must be something that keeps them loyal.
 
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bleirer said:
Folks that use photo mechanic are very enthusiastic about the benefits. There must be something that keeps them loyal.
Click to expand...
I think it's the image management that competes with LRc. It's a very mature product. The link mentions push back on the subscription model if interested.

From Photography Life:
The first key difference between the two, is that FastRawViewer is only designed for viewing images, while Photo Mechanic has a lot of built-in tools for importing, renaming, tagging, organizing, and editing images on your computer. So in a way, Photo Mechanic directly competes with Lightroom’s built-in file management tools. Some photographers use Photo Mechanic for those purposes and use Lightroom solely for editing, while I personally prefer to keep all organization of files within Lightroom, so the extra file management capabilities are not important for my particular needs. However, if you actively do use Photo Mechanic for file management and organization, then it is important to note that FastRawViewer does not do that.

Another difference worth pointing out is that FastRawViewer does not provide a “grid” view of images on your computer, while Photo Mechanic does.
 
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bleirer said:
I think when folks cull their images in advance there are a few programs that get discussed. Fast raw viewer, photo mechanic, Fastone image viewer, Adobe Bridge. So all are basically the same idea, a fast way to cull. Photo mechanic only shows the embedded jpeg of a raw, while others can be set to render the raw. Bridge and fastone are free while photo mechanic and fast raw viewer are not expensive.
Click to expand...

I was curious about what Camera Bits/Photo Mechanic had to say about their move to a subscription sales model.

I found this from their Pres/Founder:
"Camera Bits has big plans for how to add modern workflow capabilities to Photo Mechanic. The best way for us to bring new features to Photo Mechanic in a timely manner is through a subscription model."

What is this "modern workflow" he speaks of that they are planning to add as justification for a subscription biz model?

Use of AI? Anyone with any ideas?
 
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PhilcTx said:
I was curious about what Camera Bits/Photo Mechanic had to say about their move to a subscription sales model.

I found this from their Pres/Founder:
"Camera Bits has big plans for how to add modern workflow capabilities to Photo Mechanic. The best way for us to bring new features to Photo Mechanic in a timely manner is through a subscription model."

What is this "modern workflow" he speaks of that they are planning to add as justification for a subscription biz model?

Use of AI? Anyone with any ideas?
Click to expand...
If they added AI keywording that could be useful. I know there are programs out there. I bet Adobe is working on it too.
 
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I bought into PhotoMechanic two years ago. It is a rich featured program. Trouble is, much of the tagging features I used were not compatible with Lightroom. I emailed them about it, and they said that those features were proprietary to Adobe. So, I quit using it.

I am using Lightroom exclusively now, as Adobe appears to have made it faster, as noted earlier in the thread. Plus, there is less fussing with multiple programs at the beginning of the process. Ingesting can take a while, since the way I do it I take in everything at the beginning, including the losers…And there are usually lots of losers. But, I just mount the card and let it chug away for as long as it takes (maybe over an hour sometimes).
 
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BarkingBeans Coffee said:
As Photo Mechanic moves to a subscription based model, and people debate using 1:1 previews and rendering in Lightroom, I wanted to share where I'm at with FRV. This matters as FRV is only $23 and often a few dollars off on sale. It renders RAW previews very quickly and has some features LRc doesn't.
I was using Auto Capture at my fountain so I could post some images to the 180-600 thread.
After @Wes Peterson helped me sort out an AC glitch, yesterday morning I ended up with 2655 images.
I tried to post 9 but found out the limit is 8 so I broke it into 7 and 2.
How did I get there and get there quickly.

I had previously set up FRV to act like Lightroom.
I always copy my images to a fast drive for culling. In this case my new Hyper Drive NVMe enclosure clocks in at about 2900mbs. I plugged my CFE card into my OWC (not so) PRO dock and copied the images.

I then opened FRW and set it to the directory and let it scan all the images.
Even though I set up my mouse to scroll the images, I just hold down the right arrow while staring at my MBP screen. When I see an image I like I do as I would do in LRc. I hit a number to rate it. When one gets in the area of a burst you can stop holding down the key and just do a single push. FRV is set up to move to the next image after a rating. Scrolling with the right arrow held down is like watching a movie. Stop it when you need too.

Z if for Zoom and between Z and Command +or- on the MAC, you can vary the zoom level as you please. In my case I had it fairly tight on the bird face or entire bird. As your series change, you do need to adjust the Z level and positioning.

THE TWO tools that FRW makes easy are sharpening and shadows/highlights. The Sharpening tool lets you cycle through a couple of options but the real benefit is it will show contrast edges and fine details. So if you are deciding between a couple of images it will show you what your eye can't see. With shadows it has a boost feature to look at noise and for highlights you can look at details. These are very helpful features for deciding between images.

FRV is set up to move the ones I rate into a subfolder called selected and I just import to LRc from that subfolder.

I was interrupted so I can't say the exact time but it's a completely different workflow that tossing rejects and its very quick and effective.

I resisted FRV for a long time. The PDF manual is very comprehensive and there are some advanced features and the ability to create your own shortcuts. I am only scratching the surface with it. I am glad I used it yesterday. They do have a 30 day free trial I believe.

NOTE for Nikon users. With HE*, it shows the embedded jpg, not a RAW preview.
Click to expand...
I use FRV now to scan through my photos on the card and choose the ones I like best. So easy, so fast. Well worth the small cost, IMHO.
 
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