Windows XP includes Windows Picture and Fax Viewer which is based on GDI+ and is capable of viewing image formats supported by GDI+, namely, JPEG, BMP, PNG, GIF (including animated GIFs), ICO, WMF, EMF and TIFF format files. It supersedes part of the functions of Imaging for Windows in previous versions of Windows.
The Windows Picture and Fax Viewer is integrated with Windows Explorer for functions like slideshow, email, printing etc. and quickly starts up when an image is double clicked in Windows Explorer. It supports full file management from within the viewer itself, that is, right clicking the image shows the same context menu as the one shown when an image is right clicked in Windows Explorer. Images can be set as the desktop wallpaper from the context menu. It supports successive viewing of all images in current folder and looping through images, that is, after viewing the last image in a directory, it again shows the first image and vice versa. By default, images smaller than the user's display resolution are shown at their actual size. If an image is larger than the display resolution, it is scaled to fit the screen (Best Fit). Images can be zoomed in or out depending on the viewing area. When this is done, scroll bars allow for viewing of all areas of the image. It has Standard toolbar buttons for Delete, Print, Copy to and Open with. The Copy to button converts an image to a different format supported in GDI+, that is, JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF or PNG. The Print button starts the Photo Printing Wizard which allows printing images with picture titles using various page layouts such as full page prints, wallet prints, contact/index sheets or certain fixed dimensions with the images cropped or rotated to fit the page. The wizard shows a preview of what the printed page will look like with the currently specified options. Windows Picture and Fax Viewer can also rotate images clockwise or anti-clockwise, start a slideshow of all or selected images in the folder, or e-mail them by selecting the "Send To Mail Recipient" option. Further options allow the image to be mailed full size, or in pixel dimensions of: 640 x 480, 800 x 600, and 1024 x 768. Using Tweak UI, the time between images during a slideshow can be adjusted.
Windows Picture and Fax Viewer recognizes embedded ICC V2 color profiles in JPG and TIFF files. GIF files are shown with full animation, even when zoomed. TIFF files can be annotated using the Annotation Toolbar which appears at the bottom of the screen. Lines can be drawn on the TIFF image and text added to it. Areas of the image can be selected and concealed. The Windows Picture and Fax Viewer is also capable of viewing multi-page TIFF files. However TIFF images with JPEG compression are not fully supported. The last button on the standard toolbar opens the image for editing; by default, in Microsoft Paint; however any editing application can be registered for this button in the viewer. Windows Picture and Fax Viewer saves and remembers its window position and size and supports keyboard shortcuts for all of its operations.
Raw image formats, which are the preferred formats in professional photography are not supported, however, Microsoft released a later update called RAW Image Thumbnailer and Viewer for Windows XP for viewing certain raw image files.
Read more about this topic: Features New To Windows XP, User Interface and Appearance
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