Preview alternative?

[GGJstudios]

Preview (or its future replacement) is the app for the job. This functionality should not rely on third party solutions. Apple needs to fix it.

Wrong. Apple is not obligated to provide free apps for every purpose that conform to your particular set of criteria, just so you don't have to use 3rd party alternatives. Preview and Quick Look do the job that they are designed for. They just don't do what you want them to. Get over it. They don't fulfill your individual set of arbitrary requirements (which aren't shared by everyone), and they're not likely to in the future, since Apple has no financial motivation to max out their capabilities. If you don't like an app (Apple or 3rd party), find an alternative.

 

[Beta Particle]

It doesn't have a full screen view that can be toggled via keyboard shortcut

Space/Alt-Space

It doesn't allow you to navigate across images while in full screen view

It doesn't let you navigate across all images within a folder by simply tapping left and right arrow keys - instead you need to tap arrow keys in the direction that the next icon appears in the folder, requiring a series of taps like "right, right, down, left, left, down, etc." which is ridiculous

Select the images you want to view before invoking quick look. (CMD+A for all)

It doesn't let you zoom in and out of an image using keyboard shortcuts

It doesn't give you the option of viewing two or more images simultaneously in separate windows

It doesn't let you perform very basic editing such as losses rotation, which you often want to do in the fly without opening a full blown image manager/editor.

This is what Preview is for.




I understand that it’s a difference in workflow where in Windows you just open the first image in a folder and can hit left/right to flip through them, but there is also a ton of functionality that Preview has that Windows’ photo viewer does not.

 

[AndaM]

Sorry I am late in the game but I totally second freediverx. For all the reasons he mentions plus the fact that Preview does not give consistent results and does not give a decent preview in terms of sharpening for all images. This is quite annoying for me as I cannot rely 100% on it for quick looks outside my editor of choice. Certain images, looks like high detail and files over 5-6mb creates the problem (definitely when scaling down), look softer than they should and that they look in most other image viewers I have tried. This should not be the case. I guess they made a compromise to get better performance but I would have appreciated a setting for that. I could live with a few milliseconds more to get a decent quality image.

I am a photographer and all the time you need to double check a file and I need a quick and snappy way of opening a file for a quick review. Sometimes I need to look at all files in a folder and... oh, I forgot to select all. This is very counterintuitive. To demonstrate that, try doing that with Get Info in Finder... A great moment awaits ahead if you happened to select 100 files! So that is the kind of things I have removed from my habits (I mean selecting multiple files and opening them in a software via Finder).

I agree that Apple does not have to release every piece of software with everyone's particular need but this is the platform of choice for photographers, designers, videographers, etc. It should have a solid image viewer, period.

I am trying to get answers from Apple on my particular sharpness problem but it doesn't seem like I am a big enough customer to make a difference.

So, thanks to this thread I have tried Xee and it seems to do the job so far. Image quality is much better at least. I just find it annoying that this basic functionality is not as good as it should for my shiny new Mac and it's popularity in the field...

It's also funny that Safari does a better job at scaling...

 

[leman]

Here are my 50 cents: Preview is great for PDFs and I agree that its lacklustre for images (but its also not its purpose). For quick image viewing, I just use Finder's Quick Look (another killer feature in OS X for me). Its extremely fast, convenient and very lightweight.

 

[AndaM]

Well, I have to disagree. It is clear that Preview is meant to preview PDF AND images. It is just not good enough for certain type of users that happen to like Apple products for their work.

As for Quick Look, I don't use Finder (an even worst embarrassment if you ask me, another subjet...) so it does not help. Plus it is mostly featureless and image quality is worst.

B.T.W. Xee is NOT color managed. I wonder why not in 2012

Anyways, back to square one for me...

 

[Deraillor]

I agree with freediverx and AndaM, Preview is not up to par. And yes, Apple does need to step it up. Macs are touted as the premium experience for graphic artists, photographers, and all things visual.

AND they got rid of the hand panning tool?!? My crime is that I don't use a "might mouse" or a trackpad. My punishment: no more panning in Preview. Period. That's just ridiculous.

 

[gypsydavey]

Not sorted

I find a complaint that no-one has yet mentioned. I sometimes have 200-odd assorted pix in a folder with names they came to me with. Preview does not pull these up in the order they appear in Finder - in fact it's hard to tell what order it uses. I know it treats capital letters differently from lower-case (which is nonsense) and sometimes pix with names beginning with letters will appear in the middle of a whole string of pix with names having numbers only. I agree with many of the previous gripes, particularly the one where you close an image and the whole program closes, leaving you to refind your place.

 

[rmpbklyn]

I want a preview alternative. Simply put. Preview sucks. Any alternatives?

try foxit, gs pdf, and even chrome has built in pdf reader

 

[raqball]

try foxit, gs pdf, and even chrome has built in pdf reader

Ahh..... The post you are responding to was from 2011 and the OP has not logged back in to the forum for almost 6-years.... I hope the OP has found something by now...