Basic image editing, viewing, nice uncomplicated program?

[MTHall47]

I am still having a tough time deciding.

Does anyone have an image viewing, importing, arranging program they are absolutely thrilled with?

[Menneisyys]

I am still having a tough time deciding.

Does anyone have an image viewing, importing, arranging program they are absolutely thrilled with?

It all depends on your needs. The best two price-wise "basic" apps are Resco and Spb Imageer. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. Unless I know what exactly you want to do, I can't really say which of the two should be bought.

You're welcome to read a beta of my forthcoming review of all image viewer / editor apps on the PPC. The beta is (still) available at http://menneisyys.freeweb.hu/PICVIEWERS - I think you'll get an naswer for ALL of your questions :)

[elemess]

Menneisyys, I use an Ipaq 3970 which came with the Ipaq Image Viewer.

Image viewed by this viewer are amazingly good whereas the same images viewed in Pocket Internet Explorer are blurred. Even images less than available screen space and hence not shrunk to fit.

Is PIE not capable of the same image quality?

[Menneisyys]

Menneisyys, I use an Ipaq 3970 which came with the Ipaq Image Viewer.

Image viewed by this viewer are amazingly good whereas the same images viewed in Pocket Internet Explorer are blurred. Even images less than available screen space and hence not shrunk to fit.

Is PIE not capable of the same image quality?

It's not really meant for individual image viewing. All the available pic viewers (even the built-in Pictures or the Ipaq Image Viewer) are way better than PIE.

[elemess]

I was hoping to be able to display some detail around the images.

Have a look at http://www.ceramike.com/ppc/potters.htm
and you will see what I mean.

Click on the + next to Richard Batterham, then the numbers below the image, etc.

[Menneisyys]

I was hoping to be able to display some detail around the images.

I don't quite get it - you want to zoom into images and/or want an image viewer that does dithering to avoid ugly color "steps"? I've made two sample images of the latter:

This is PIE, without dithering (it's certainly visible around the pot):
http://menneisyys.freeweb.hu/PICVIEWERS/lisaa/PIE.jpg

And, this is F-S Album (didn't want to install XnView / Aidem's two apps - these are the other image viewers with dithering in 16-bit mode - for this screenshot), with dithering:
http://menneisyys.freeweb.hu/PICVIEWERS/lisaa/albumpic.jpg

You can always save an online image to your local PDA by using, for example, Spb Pocket Plus - it's prolly the best PIE plug-in, and also has image saving capabilities. After having saved, you can "fire up" a local pic viewer to watch the images in their full glory, properly shrinked, dithered etc.

[elemess]

Its the dithering that I want to avoid.

When viewing images on a PC, the quality seems to be affected only by the monitor/video card being used, i.e., all software packages produce the same quality when viewing the same image. Presumably this is because they all use the same Microsoft provided windows components?

This is obviously not the case on PPC.

What I want, is to be able to allow the user to choose which image to view and to be able show some text describing the image. PIE seemed an obvious choice as I have built many web sites and am familiar with HTML, ASP, etc.

[Menneisyys]

Its the dithering that I want to avoid.

When viewing images on a PC, the quality seems to be affected only by the monitor/video card being used, i.e., all software packages produce the same quality when viewing the same image. Presumably this is because they all use the same Microsoft provided windows components?

This is obviously not the case on PPC.

You mean dithering-wise?

On the desktop, dithering is not used because it's not using a 16-bit screen. On a 24-bit screen (16 million colors) dithering is simply not needed.


What I want, is to be able to allow the user to choose which image to view and to be able show some text describing the image. PIE seemed an obvious choice as I have built many web sites and am familiar with HTML, ASP, etc.

Then, you should go for e.g. Resco or Spb Imageer. They're able to display image annotations without running a slideshow. (Most other apps only display annotations in slideshow mode, which means that your friends won't be able to freely choose the pictures they want to see.)

You may also base your favourite image viewer on whether the format of annotations a specific image viewer using is portable. Unfortunately, for example, Resco's using a non-portable image text annotation format, so you won't be able to see your annotations if you plan to view the images with another image viewer that, otherwise, would be able to use (standardized) image annotations. See the "Comment in a separate text file in <picfilename>.ext ?" row in the above-linked article.