Two great utilities for photographers using Windows XP
I’m still on Windows XP (don’t think I’ll switch to Vista any time soon), and I’ve gotten accustomed to not being able to view thumbnails of my RAW image files in Windows Explorer. That is, until now. Just found two great little photo utilities from MS (surprise, surprise) and thought I’d share the info.
The first is called Microsoft RAW Image Thumbnailer and Viewer for Windows XP. It’s a really long name but this little utility does just that. Once it’s installed, you can see thumbnail previews of your photos right in Windows Explorer, without having to open Bridge or Lightroom. That’s pretty nice! Not only that, but this lightweight app will also let you open up the RAW files and view/print them.
The second is called Microsoft Photo Info, and it will let you edit a photo’s meta data (EXIF, IPTC) right from Windows Explorer. Once installed, it puts a “Photo Info” option on the right-click menu for any photo (RAW files as well), and it lets you open up single or multiple photos and edit the EXIF data. It’s really handy, and I’m sure it’ll work great for those folks who don’t have Bridge or Lightroom.
By the way, I also talked about editing the EXIF data in your photographs in this post, where I outlined three other EXIF editing apps for Windows. Looks like there’s plenty of choice out there, so don’t be shy, dig in and edit away. Let’s all have nice, clean, crisp meta data in our photos! 
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Thanks, Raoul. I’d been using Abander PhotosControl, but it leaves a lot to be desired. Microsoft Photo Info is great. Lightweight, quick.
Comment — May 21, 2007 @ 12:56 am
Two great utilities for photographers using Windows XP…
If you’re still using Windows XP, MS has released two free utilities to let you view RAW files and edit your photos’ meta data, all right from Windows Explorer….
Trackback — June 12, 2007 @ 3:13 pm
[...] 8/16/07: Since I wrote this post, I discovered two more free utilities for photographers, created by Microsoft. They work on Windows XP, and some of their functionality is built into [...]
Pingback — August 16, 2007 @ 7:10 pm
hi raoul,
would you know of any digital cameras that allow adding a comment into an exif field so that images are searching by the comment when imported into a photo manager that has exif search capabilities? i photograph real estate and would be nice to enter the address of the subject before taking the shot rather than having to tag it in software after the import.
thanks
pang
Comment — March 28, 2008 @ 11:52 am
I don’t. Most cameras will allow you to add a snippet to the EXIF data that is added to every photo (something like your name, for example), but you can only do this through the camera software, by connecting the camera directly to the computer. My Canon 5D, for example, has that capability.
I don’t know of anything that will let you do it in the field. I understand Nikon cameras have a plug-in geotagging device, and that might let you either add an address line, or let you see the photos directly on a map. I also understand there are many other geotagging devices that can be used in the field with other camera brands, but I’m not interested in that sort of thing, so I haven’t looked into it.
Comment — March 28, 2008 @ 12:13 pm