Best Photo Viewer for Windows 11 [Top 7 Tested]
View and organize photos on Windows 11 with these tools
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Key notes
- Most people overlook photo viewing apps, but a good one can change your life.
- A great photo viewer has editing tools built right in and supports a wide variety of file formats.
- This guide showcases the top five photo viewer apps on Windows 11.
Regarding the best apps for your Windows 11 PC, a Google photo viewer on Windows 11 is a must-have.
In today’s guide, we will help you find the best software for your needs, so let’s get started, shall we?
Does Windows 11 have a Photo Viewer?
Yes, Windows 11 has a Photos app that works as the default photo viewer. However, third-party viewers usually have many benefits, including the following:
- Image editing – Many viewers allow you to edit photos, so they work as photo editing software.
- Supported formats – Usually, third-party viewers support more formats. Some of them even work with video formats.
- Improved organization – A quality photo viewer can help you organize your photos. As such, it resembles photo management software in terms of functionality.
What is the best photo viewer for Windows 11?
Adobe Lightroom – Best for professionals
Adobe Lightroom is a photo management and editing tool capable of organizing and improving image quality with market-leading functionalities.
This Adobe solution does not require much introduction because it’s already quite popular. So, you can streamline the photo viewing process using AI technology and online photo storage to save your best shots.
To give you more details, the software offers support to manage your files on your PC, tablet, mobile phone, you name it. This way, you can apply edits for certain images and share them automatically on other devices.
Other practical managing features include Adobe Sensei’s machine-learning image search, image labels for categorization, flags, and ratings for your best shots, and so on.
By choosing Lightroom, you start with 1 terabyte of cloud storage to never worry about insufficient memory. And if you need more, you can always require additional space.
As we said, it’s possible to sync your photos on all devices and view your files in one place regardless of what device you’re working on.
In conclusion, you can improve your photo organization and editing skills using this remarkable photography tool.
Adobe Lightroom
Organize image stocks and simplify your workflow using this new-age photo managing software.Apowersoft Photo Viewer – User-friendly and simple UI
Apowersoft Photo Viewer sports a user-friendly and responsive interface that is normally hidden from view. You can activate the menu bar by hovering your mouse over the sides and bottom of the app.
Windows Photo Viewer inspired its layout but took it a step further.
Apowersoft is more than a simple photo viewer. It can also be used as a universal image editing tool, although its tools can be a little on the light side for more people.
You can do basic edits, add text to the images, apply a filter, or draw on the photo itself. It even comes with a handy screenshot tool.
The app can open the rarely seen HEIC and HEIF formats. Very few apps support these two formats, so if you’re a photographer who utilizes them, Apowersoft is the viewer for you.
And like IrfanView, Apowersoft is very efficient as it consumes very little of the computer’s resources. You won’t have to worry about system performance. It can record displays; useful when creating GIFs.
In addition to the free version, Apowersoft has different paid versions that stack on features like Video Converter Studio and Audio Recorder.
Apowersoft Photo Viewer
This easy-to-use and versatile app allows you to manage your images while offering other amazing features easily.Movavi Photo Viewer – Modern image-editing features
Another great photo viewer app for Windows 11 is Movavi Photo Manager. If you’re looking for one of the more advanced feature-rich tools, Movavi is one of the best.
Like all the other apps, it supports a wide range of image formats. The app also has some Photoshop-like features and capabilities like being able to edit people in the photo or enhance it.
Movavi can locate duplicate images so that you can delete them, and sort the ones you have by geolocation, data, and other forms of metadata. The user interface is also pretty good and a breeze to browse through.
You can even create albums using the app’s face recognition function, a truly unique feature the majority of photo viewers don’t have.
It has a built-in search bar and can handle large amounts of images. And because Movavi is such a good product, you’ll have to purchase it to get the most out of it.
ACDSEE Photo Studio Ultimate 2022 – Great for image organizing
Tech company ACDSee recently released the latest rendition of its photo viewer app, Photo Studio Ultimate 2022. The app is so bold as to call itself the photographer’s secret weapon, and it’s not hard to see why.
Like the other apps on the list, Ultimate 2022 offers new time-saving features like Media mode for when you want to interact with ACDSee’s vast photo database.
It also comes with the new People Mode, powered by an AI-driven engine that allows you to categorize images by whoever is in it. You can compartmentalize by client, family, friend, or some person of interest.
This is all to manage better the photographs you’ve taken and will give you suggestions in the form of an AI assistant for grouping similar people.
On top of that, you can flex your creative muscles with an improved color range and noise reduction. Ultimate 2022 is genuinely the photographer’s best friend.
123 Photo Viewer – Friendly and simple interface
If you’re looking for a photo viewer with a simple user interface, 123 Photo Viewer is a fantastic option. The interface is smooth and intuitive as you can click left or right to view the next one, and clicking on it once magnifies the image.
It comes with various special effects and filters that you can use to edit your pictures, and then view them all with the Slideshow feature. You can add different styles of mosaics, and text, or draw on them directly.
123 Photo Viewer supports tons of different formats beyond PNG and JPEG. The viewer supports Photoshop files and those tricky Webp images that many websites use nowadays.
The app also supports animation viewing which you can stop and resume at any time. You can control the animated video frame by frame and magnify each one. Best of all, each frame can be saved separately as its own static image which you can take to another to edit and put back in.
There is a catch, however. You can try all the features for three days, after that, it will change to a more restrictive version. To use everything the 123 Photo Viewer has to offer, you’ll have to pay for the full version. You can get the 123 Photo Viewer app from the Microsoft Store.
IrfanView – Wide array of formats
IrfanView is a free fully-fledged photo viewer that offers a wide range of features. It supports over 70 different file formats that you can crop, resize, mirror, change color balance, or manipulate its color depth.
There’s a Thumbnail feature that can create a thumbnail image ranging from 50 x 50 to 600 x 600 pixels.
It supports over 70 different file formats including PDF, BMP, PSD, and TIFF. IrfanView can be customized with PlugIns which will enable the app to handle additional image, video, and sound formats. Plugins can also add more features like screen capture and the ability to send an image through email.
Professionals will enjoy the multiple language support, watermark image option, and IPTC editing feature. The latest version supports a new Camera RAW Plug-in and the WPG format.
Best of all, IrfanView is noteworthy for its compact size. It’s 5MB, so it hardly takes up any space on your hard drive and consumes very little of the computer’s resources.
There are two versions of the app: a 32-bit and a 64-bit version. The 64-bit version can load large files that go beyond the image RAM size limit of 1.3 GB and is much faster for big files. You can get both versions from the Microsoft Store.
Settings up a different default photo viewer in Windows 11 can be tricky, but our guide on how to set IrfanView as the default photo viewer should be able to help you.
⇒ Get IrfanView
Google Photos – Ideal for mobile phones
Google Photos is one of the best free photo viewer apps on the market today. You can easily share photos and videos with friends and family thanks to shared albums.
The app has a fantastic user interface that helps automatically catalog everything in an easy-to-browse fashion. You can navigate a lifetime of photos with a few clicks.
The service stores photos on secure cloud storage in Google’s servers which you can access on your phone, tablet, or computer. Features on Google Photos are pretty rudimentary, but the sheer accessibility is more than enough to overcome any sort of negative aspects.
The ability to access your photos on basically any device sells itself, plus Google Photos supports different image formats. You’d have to go out of your own way to look for one that doesn’t work. Features include the ability to backup photos for free, organize content in such a way that is easily searchable, and wipe out anything.
The free version of Google Photos allows you to store up to 15GB of photos, which would be enough for most people, and you can always create a new account if you want more. But, there’s also a paid version that increases the amount to 100GB.
Feel free to leave a comment below if you have any questions on other Windows 11 third-party apps.
In case you’re looking for more similar apps, be sure to check these great photo viewer apps for Windows 10.
Also, leave comments about reviews that you’d like to see or information on other Windows 11 features.
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