@Guy Simmons: I've checked some of your other comments here and it seems that you have a nice record of "not seeing" what app X or Y brings to the table.

Nothing personal, but I get this sometimes with FastPictureViewer, mostly from auto-proclaimed "software experts" who cannot tell the difference between color management that work and color management that don't, or GPU acceleration, or 64-bit support, or multi-core support for batch processing, who express their superficial opinion about my software without even trying it and, most of all, without having any idea about the issues encountered by professional photographers in their daily workflows and the problems my app is supposed to solve.

Back to your remark now. Please list the "excellent and just as fast" freeware viewers that you know of, and which supports *all* of the following (be specific):

- Native 64-bit version.
- ICC v2 and v4 color management with profiled monitor support.
- Adobe XMP-compatible inter-operable rating/labeling system.
- Direct3D hardware accelerated zooming and panning.
- Support for up to 64bpp image formats and up to 48bpp display modes.
- Image codecs that enable raw support in Windows Explorer.
- Tethered shooting mode through USB2 and PTP/MTP protocol.
- Real-time folder watching function (detects and display incoming pictures).
- Instantaneous (and permanent) RGB histogram and EXIF info display.
- Unicode-native, to support file names written in any language.
- Point-and-click, rule-based batch file processor (scriptable in JavaScript for advanced users).

You will be hard pressed to find any free app that supports even *one* of the above, let alone all of them.

On the speed aspect, FastPictureViewer is limited by the refresh rate of your monitor when operating in Direct3D hardware accelerated mode. As such the upper-bound display rate is 60 images per second, provided that your hard disks and CPUs are fast enough to supply images so fast (which is doubtful, unless the pictures are relatively small). Real-world performance when previewing high resolution raw files as created by most of today's top DSLRs is about 5 - 10 images per second on current hardware and operating systems, what other app that you know of, at any price, can make such claim?

Like anyone else you are warmly welcome to download the free trial version from the website. Skimming the user's forum is also a good idea, if only to get a feel of the issues users encounter and the various topics discussed.

While FastPictureViewer Professional is an application designed for Windows 7, it also runs on Vista and even XP SP3, with some functional and performance restrictions, so almost anyone can try it right away and make their own opinion.

Following the ever expanding "getting started" guide is highly recommended, even for advanced computer users, and ideally a thorough evaluation should include at least one life-size culling session, say import, view, rate, backup, dispatch and export a thousand raw files, before the true value if this software can be assessed.

I bought it when it was offered here and am very please. One license covers two computers (PC/Notebook). Light on system resources and fast even on my Netbook (Atom processor) which I carry with my digital camera. I am glade it offered here again so I can buy yet another license for my other PC.

Thanks Bits du Jour and Axel Software

Apiwat