Topic for feature requests

 

Please post feature requests in this forum thread.

This topic is way too long, also most requested features are already implemented, so we decided to start a new one: https://www.fastrawviewer.com/node/770

Just use any of 'next file' shortcuts (space, right arrow, etc), or record own for next file action.

 

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Alex Tutubalin/FastRawViewer team

This software has been fantastic, and you have single-handedly helped me enjoy my photography experience again. The slow process of culling photos has been such an energetic drain on my enthusiasm, and I felt trapped under a growing mountain of photographic backlog.
After using the software for while,  I have a few thoughts on possible future feature requests:

  • On the filmstrip view, when selecting multiple photographs and using a keyboard shortcut, it applies only to the active enlarged photo, not all selected (I.e move to rejected). It would be nice to have the keystroke apply to all selected photos in filmstrip mode. 
  • Echoing the request from others in this thread, additional filtering options would be excellent; I.e: filter by lens type, camera body, keywords, and logic (filename/keywords do/NOT contain)
  • File Renaming / Metadata modification. I current mass-select and send to external program MetaImage to modify exif externally. I need this for several reasons: sometimes multiple cameras from a shoot have a consistent offset of internal time (I.e one camera is 1 hour ahead). I also shoot film, so I update the scanned file's exif with info like film emulsion (as a keyword), date shot, camera body, etc. 
  • Keywords beyond color labels and star ratings. 
     

This software is brilliant and these are things I can work around. However, with the changes above, I would be less reliant on external applications. Thank you!!

User to user, the first answer to your first one is to set preferences. There is a page called 'Grid/Filmstrip' there, and an option 'Single file keys work for multiple files too'. Second answer, if you prefer not to, you can set shortcuts for batch operations, 'Batch copy/move' section. The manual should help with the details.

Hi Xasan,
I have the "Single File Keys Work for Multiple Files too" option enabled. The key actions (such as move files) will work on all selected files in grid view, but it will only affect the displayed image in single image mode while the filmstrip is in view. I am a new user, and I'm using the v1.70 beta. Perhaps the behavior is different in this version?

When 'single file keys work for multiplle files too' is enabled, shortcuts (and context menus) works 'in context':

  • In Single file view mode:
    • shortcuts works on the only image open, even if some files are selected in filmstrip
    • right click in single image view: works on this single image
    • right click in Filmstrip: works on multiple image if clicked on 'part of selection'
  • In Grid view:
    • If current file is part of the group: shortcuts will act on group
    • if right cliked file is part of the selected group: right click acts on group

It is possible to have separate shortcuts that works on selected files only. To do that you need to uncheck 'Single File keys works on....' checkbox.

See manual chapter for details: https://www.fastrawviewer.com/usermanual16/multiple-files

(you may need to read entire chapter up to 'Operations with selected files: compatibility mode with older versions' subsection

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Alex Tutubalin/FastRawViewer team

I would like to see an option under the settings to automatically save the last selected image in each folder, so that when you change folders, the last saved image is automatically selected.
When a folder contains many images (almost always, actually) it is simply time consuming to go back to the last selected image, if you can remember it at all.
This would be a really very useful feature, which of course should be able to be turned on and off.

Dear Sir:

Thank you, we will consider adding this to a future release.

Instance Number to differentiate between two (or more) open instances of FRV.
Opening up a second instance of FRV in order to compare two photos "side-by-side" is very handy. I don't actually compare them side-by-side, instead I put both instances full-screen and then Alt-Tab quickly between the two instances to compare two similar images. For example, assume I have two similar images and I want to pick the "better" of the two (better focus, composition, etc.). I find it easier to "swap back and forth" between the two using Alt-Tab to swap between two open instances of FRV, one instance has image A open and the other instance has image B open.
It would be very helpful if you could display an "instance number" in the FRV title bar (like a big 1 and a big 2) so I can remember which is which. 
Hope that request makes sense.

Update image XMP Metadata whenever the XMP sidecar file size/date changes.
Refering to process in the request above, where I have multiple instances of FRV open in order to quickly Alt-Tab between them as a way of quickly comparing a set of similar images...
Once I find the image I want I will mark it with a star rating and a colored label. Obviously, this makes it easy to see the "picked" images in the filmstrip bar at the bottom of the screen. Unfortunately, the filmstrip is only updated in the instance of FRV in which you made the start and label selections. In other words, if I mark an image with a star rating and colored label in instance A of FRV, when I Alt-Tab to instance B of FRV I do not see those updates on the filmstrip. If I select an image in the FRV B instance I will see in the XMP Metadata panel the selections for that image that I made in the FRV A instance, but those changes to the XMP are not updated in the filmstrip. 
I guess you could call this a bug, but it's probably something that was not thought about in the context of multiple instances of FRV being used like this. I'm simply asking that if an instance of FRV sees that a sidecar file has been updated (new date/size) it would be great if FRV would reread and update the display elements in the FRV UI that are impacted by the updated XMP data.
p.s. Thanks for a terrific product!!

FastRawViewer does not monitor XMP files for changes mostly because of possible performance issues (such monitoring may cause heavy loads on network connection).

To reload folder contents and update XMP metadata in FastRawViewer use  Menu - File - Reload - Reload current folder (Ctrl-Shift-F4 for windows version w/ default shortcuts set). It will re-read all metadata and thumbnails

 

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Alex Tutubalin/FastRawViewer team

> FastRawViewer does not monitor XMP files for changes mostly because of possible performance issues (such monitoring may cause heavy loads on network connection).
Regarding performance issues associated with network drives. It wouldn't be necessary to monitor the network filesystem; a reasonable compromise would be to only check the XMP file that belongs to the image file that is in focus (currently selected image file), or just check the XMP file at the moment an image file is selected for viewing, and update the UI appropriately. 
Thank you for the reload hint.

In terms of performance this is acceptable solution, but such behaviour will result in interesting effects, for example:

  • If XMP Rating/Label filtering is used, currently open file may disappear from being viewed if XMP Rating/Label has changed by external program.
  • And it will not appear back when rating rolled back (by external app) because this file is not open (after disappear) and so not monitored.

Also, if there is no existing XMP file, FRV will need to monitor XMP file arrival. The only way to do that is to reread entire folder, again resulting in huge performance penalty (on something like 1GBps network and large folder).

So, we opted to only explicit folder reread, even on local media, to not complicate things much.

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Alex Tutubalin/FastRawViewer team

Favorite Folders don't work with network drive
I have setup a Linux Samba file server on which I organize my photos for editing, storage, backup, etc. My network connection between the Windows machine on which I run the FRV software and other photo editing software is fast enough that I don't need to have all the image files stored locally on my Windows editing machine, I just edit directly on the Linux Samba server. This means that I reference the folders using Windows UNC notation, for example: \\samba\Pictures\...
I can save a Windows UNC name in the "Favorite Folders" panel, but it only opens the top-most "root" folder of the Samba server. In other words, it opens the Samba server's files but always at the very top-level (e.g., \\samba) not at the level in the file hierarchy that I have saved in the favorite (e.g., \\samba\Pictures or \\samba\Pictures\2020\folder-name).
Is there a way to fix this? It would be very handy if you could save a complete external file reference as a "Favorite Folder."

UNC paths are not auto-expanded in Folders panel (there are several technical reasons behind this).

To add full UNC path to Favorite folders lis you need to

 1) Expand UNC path subtree manually in Folders panel

 2) use right-click menu on some subfolder to add it to  favorite folders list

 

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Alex Tutubalin/FastRawViewer team

Followup: to auto-expand UNC paths in Folders  panel use  Preferences - Removable media - Show unmounted network volumes in Folders panel (on first use) setting.

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Alex Tutubalin/FastRawViewer team

Infrequently, I might find an image sequence that would make a good animated GIF, and so I combine several shots into an animated sequence using an external editor.
 
I noticed that displaying the resulting GIF is not supported by FastRawViewer. It would be nice to see this image format supported in the grid view, rather than seeing the "decoding error" thumbnail. I know this is possibly outside of the scope of this application, but this file format is natively viewable on both Windows and Mac OS. Supporting GIF files would add to the completeness of displaying images found within a folder.

Happy New Year!

Sorry, no plans for supporting GIF files (also: BMP, WEBP, TGA and hundreths of other existing graphics formats). There are a lot of image viewers for that.

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Alex Tutubalin/FastRawViewer team

Great Software
I first will say that the software is exceptional. A few comments, very minor ones, it would be nice if the bottom bar contrast setting used the +/- icons like the EV selection instead of the Up/down arrows. It makes it totally consistant then. And if the contrast control worked the same as the EV where you can toggle contrast change on or off by selecting the center number as it does in the EV.
 

Thank you for your feedback.

We deliberately chose different buttons for different actions to make them appear visually different.

Regarding the click on the contrast value to reset: that's a great idea, added to TODO.




 

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Alex Tutubalin/FastRawViewer team

Default-Crop (Aspect Ratio)
It would be nice if the Default-Crop for a RAW-Image could be applied. For example if I take a Photo in RAW and set the Ratio from i.e. 3:2 (native sensor ratio) to 16:9 (Default-Crop) the RAW and also the embedded JPG has still the native sensor ratio of 3:2. This behaviour is as far as I know identical for all Camera-Manufactors.
If I open the RAW in Adob Bridge or Lightroom the Default-Crop will be aplied by default.
I already invested some time how it could work and I found die apropriate EXIF-Data for Olympus und Canon via EXIF-Tool (https://exiftool.org/).
I am also able to give support for this feature, or if it would be possible write a PlugIn for it.
kr Philipp

Use Preferences - Image Display - Crop to manufacturer recommended margins checkbox

 

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Alex Tutubalin/FastRawViewer team

Any plans to support the iPhone 12 Pro Apple Pro Raw (DNG) format?  I know this is not really RAW, but these iPhones can take very nice images.
David

Apple Pro RAWs are normal/correct DNG files, so already supported, no known issues.

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Alex Tutubalin/FastRawViewer team

Great program, so please take these suggestions as ways to extend beyond the features it already does well:
 
Depending on the ultimate goals of the developer(s), I'd love to see more digital asset management within this application so that I have to rely on less programs. Some ideas that come to mind:

  1. Introduce "Collections" to allow a collection of photos to be collected without changing their storage location. On occasion, I may search through multiple folders to collect a group of photos that will need to be exported for a project. It would be nice to drag and drop the found photos into a collection so that I can see the related photos from different folders.
  2. Recreate "Selected" and "Rejected" as an array, with the ability to create additional catagories with the ability for each to create a subfolder or go to a global folder. Use Case: I use "Rejected" as a global 'erase this photo' folder. I use "Selected" as a subfolder reject. It would be nice to be able to create another folder, called "Originals" as the remaining photos may be standing by for edits, and when those edits are done, I'd like the edits to be in the root, and the originals to be moved into a new subdirectory called "originals." I believe an array would allow for a user to define (as many as they need) subfolders/global folders to allow for more flexibility in organizing folders into subfolders or global target folders.

As echoed by many, would love the ability to edit/see IPTC keywords, and potentially filter/sort by these keywords.

I know this has been asked for before.. Though I really would like to be able to view two photos (split pane) like in Photo Mechanic and some other aplications.  For raw, the speed (when I enable "real" raw previews in Photo Mechanic with Adobe converter), preview quality, everything is so much better to me in FRV.  It is just that when I shoot a "burst" of photos, I like to compare two at time, quickly freeze one and keep scrolling through the rest.  The photos are so simlar, sometimes it is hard for me to pick when I have to go back and forth.  Otherwise very happy customer for 3+ years now.

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