Image Viewers with PNG Support

One of the biggest categories of PNG-supporting applications is image viewers; virtually every major operating system is represented. Note that PNG image editors can often be used as viewers, too; they just tend to be slower and may not display as nicely on 256-color systems. And there's considerable overlap between this page and the image-conversion page, since many viewers can save to different formats. A few of the viewers here even have minimal editing functions like cropping, color balance, etc. Follow the links for details. Ye have been warned...

As with the other applications pages, links to home WWW sites or to downloadable versions are provided where known, but if a link is broken, check the location and see if an updated version is available (and please tell Greg!). Relevant operating systems are printed in (parenthesized italics).

These are listed alphabetically, more or less:

• 1stGuide [Guido Vollbeding] (Atari) - version 29.Aug.1995 and later; read-only; uses libpng and zlib; shareware. (Supports all Atari ST/TT/Falcon-compatible systems and views in all graphic resolutions, including true-color.)

• 36-Image Converter [Phoenxsoftware] (Win32) - version 4.2(?) and later; read/write; freeware.

• ACDSee16 [ACD Systems] (Windows 3.x) - version 1.25 and later; read-only; no grayscale support prior to 1.31 beta 1 (not even recognized in version 1.3); full gamma support in version 1.31 beta 1 and later; progressive display of interlacing (sparse method); formerly known as ACDSee

• ACDSee32 [ACD Systems] (Win32) - version 1.0 beta 3 and later; read/write (read-only prior to version 3.0); full gamma support; progressive display of interlacing (sparse method); broken grayscale+alpha support; ignores background chunk; version 3.0 writes PNGs with no IEND chunk (fixed in 3.1); commercial. (This was formerly known as ACDSee 95.)

• Advanced Batch Converter [Gold-Software Development] (Win32) - version 3.5(?) and later; read/write; MNG (read-only) and JNG (read/write) support; commercial.

• Advanced Slide Show [Gold-Software Development] (Win32) - all versions? read-only; MNG and JNG support; commercial.

• AhaView [Aha-soft] (Win32) - all versions; read/write as of version 2.0b; shareware. (Version 1.1 is freeware but has read-only support for PNG.)

• AI Picture Explorer / AIPICX [Applied Insights] (Win32) - all versions; read/write; shareware. (This app not only views images but also creates web pages with image thumbnails.)

• AI Picture Utility / AIPICT [Applied Insights] (Win32) - all versions; read/write; shareware.

• Alambik Viewer [Alambik] (Win32) - all versions? read-only; freeware.

• AlphaMix [Willem van Schaik] (Win32) - all versions; read-only; full alpha support; freeware.

• Alter Image 32 [Nun's Meadow Software] (Win32) - all versions; read/write; reportedly converts bi-level (1-bit) TIFFs into 24-bit PNGs.

• Ashampoo Photo Commander [Nikolaus Brennig] (Windows 2k/XP/2003) - all versions; read/write; MNG (read/write) and JNG (read-only) support; commercial. (This is the commercial successor to SlowView. It was previously known as Mediafile Assistant.)

• AutoGraphicsHTML [fCoder Group] (Win32) - all versions? read-only; MNG and JNG support as of version 5.7; commercial. (This is a utility to create web-based photo albums. The output format is restricted to GIF or JPEG, however.)

• AutoVue [Cimmetry Systems] (DOS, Windows 3.x, Win32, Unix/X, Java) - version 15.0(?) and later; read-only; commercial. (There are several flavors of this app--basic, Professional, SolidModel, etc.--plus a simpler version called Panoramic! and a Java version called jVue. It's not clear whether all of the listed platforms have been updated to support PNG.)

• Axv [David Ramboz] (Unix/GTK+) - all versions; read-only; freeware (GPL) with source.

• BePNG [Al Evans] (BeOS DR8) - all versions; read-only; freeware with source; 84k. (This product is no longer available.)

• Boxer - see ZBoxZ below

• Cameleo [Caldera Graphics] (Unix/X) - version 2.2(?) and later; read/write; commercial.

• Collection [Caldera Graphics] (Unix/X) - all versions? read/write; commercial. (This was an image-management and database tool with viewing capabilities. This product is no longer available.)

• Comix [Pontus Ekberg] (Python/GTK+) - all versions; read-only; requires Python Imaging Library; freeware (GPL) with Python source. (This is nominally a "comic-book viewer," but it can be used as a generic viewer, as well. It can display images inside inside zip, rar, and tar archives.)

• CompuPic / CPIC [Photodex] (Windows 3.x, Win32, Mac PPC/68k, Linux) - all versions; read/write; no gamma support; progressive display of interlaced images (replicating method)

• CompuShow / CShow [Bob Berry] (DOS) - version 9.01a and later; read/write; interlacing and low-bit-depth PNG-writing code broken in 9.01a; ignores gamma chunk but has generic option to adjust display gamma; progressive display of interlaced images (replicating method); 265k

• ConGo - see the image editors page

• CryptaPix [Kent Briggs / Briggs Softworks] (Win32) - version 1.0 and later; read/write in version 1.1b and later; shareware. (Versions prior to 2.0 were also available for Windows 3.x.)

• CSView Plugins [CSU Software Solutions] (Win32) - all versions? read-only or read/write, depending; commercial. (CSView40, CSView130 and CSView150 all include stand-alone viewers and Netscape plug-ins. Some configurations include batch converters capable of writing PNG images, as well. This product has been discontinued.)

• DeBabelizer Pro [Equilibrium] (Win32) - all versions; read/write; claims full gamma support as of version 4.5; commercial.

• Drag And View [Canyon Software] (Windows 3.x, Win32) - version 2.0(?) and later; read-only; shareware.

• DTPicView [Edmund Vermeulen] (BeOS) - all versions with the translation kit (or Jon Watte's Datatypes library) and Simon Clarke's PNGHandler (see the toolkits page); read/write; progressive display in version 2.0 and later

• Easy Thumbnails [Fookes Software] (Win32) - all versions; read/write; freeware.

• Electric Eyes [Rasterman / Red Hat] (Linux/GNOME) - all versions? read/write? freeware (GPL) with source. (This viewer, like Eye of Gnome below, also has the ability to view large images [though possibly not as large as EoG].)

• EyeBatch [Atalasoft] (Win32) - all versions; full alpha support claimed; full gamma support; read/write; shareware. (This is a batch image processor and viewer; in addition to conversions, it can blur, sharpen, rotate, adjust contrast, and so forth.)

• Eye of Gnome [Federico Mena-Quintero] (Unix/GNOME) - all versions; read-only; freeware (GPL) with source. (This viewer has the ability to display extremely large images and will sprout scrollbars, if necessary, while keeping memory usage constant.)

• fbida (fbi+ida) [Gerd Knorr] (Linux/FB, Linux/X11) - all versions? read/write; requires libpng and zlib; freeware (GPL) with source. (The fbi half works on the Linux framebuffer console, while the ida half runs under X.)

• FIM [Michele Martone] (Linux/FB, Linux/X11, Linux/ASCII) - all versions; read-only; requires libpng and zlib; freeware (GPL) with source. (FIM stands for "Fbi IMproved" and is based on fbi above. It works on the Linux console with either the framebuffer driver or the ASCII Art library, and under X via the Simple DirectMedia Library [SDL].)

• FishEye [Willem van Schaik] (Win32) - all versions; read/write; uses libpng and zlib; shareware.

• Flash 4 Player [Macromedia] (Win32, Mac PPC) - version 4.0 beta 1 and later; read-only. (This is generally used as a plug-in for Navigator or Internet Explorer, but it may include stand-alone capabilities as well. Once 4.0 is officially released, the Linux, Solaris and Java versions will presumably be included, too. Note that PNG images are supported within Flash 4, but it is not clear that this plug-in can view PNGs outside of Flash 4 animations.)

• FmView [WinCorner] (Win32) - version 2.0 and later; read-only

• Free Image Manipulator / fim [Kacper Bielecki] (Unix/Qt, Win32/Qt) - all versions; read/write; requires gd, libpng, and zlib; freeware (GPL) with C++ source. (This is a batch viewer/converter with image-manipulation capabilities; it can resize, apply text overlays, and create collages with arbitrary transparency.)

• GIF Construction Set [Alchemy Mindworks] (Windows 3.x, Win32) - version 1.0d and later; read-only

• GQview [John Ellis] (Unix/GTK+) - all versions; read-only; requires Imlib, libpng and zlib; freeware (GPL) with source.

• GrafCat [Alchemy Mindworks] (Windows 3.x, Win32) - version 1.0e beta and later; read-only

• GraphicConverter - see the image editors page

• Graphic Viewer [PrimaSoft PC] (Win32) - all versions; read-only; integrates with Windows Explorer; freeware (but includes PrimaSoft ad at bottom of window)

• Graphic Workshop Professional [Alchemy Mindworks] (Win32) - version 1.1q and later; read/write; writes unnecessarily large palettes; writes invalid tEXt chunks (control characters; CR instead of LF); shareware. (Version 2.0a patch 42 is claimed to have solid PNG support, but various older versions didn't support gamma correction and [in very old versions] had compression and filtering bugs. The original Graphic Workshop was also available for DOS and 16-bit Windows.)

• GRAV [Michael Knigge] (Linux/SVGA) - version 3.1 and later; read-only; requires libpng and zlib; bugs: 24-bit support completely broken, ignores GSVGAMODE variable, and still uses libpng 0.6 (version 3.5); ncurses, ELF and dithering problems in version 3.1

• GRIP ICE [Ivan Lee Herring] (Win32) - all versions? read/write; uses PNG Delphi / TPNGImage (see the toolkits page); freeware (formerly shareware) with Pascal source. (The name stands for Geographic Raster Image Processor / Investigate Classify Extrapolate. See also Imagem on the editors page.)

• GTK See [Lee Luyang (Hotaru) and Keziah Manson] (Unix/GTK+) - all versions; read-only? requires libpng and zlib; freeware (GPL) with source.

• GV [Tamotsu TOBITA] (Win32, Windows 3.x) - version 0.85 and later; read-only; MNG support; freeware. (This is a Japanese image viewer.)

• HiJaak PRO [Inset / Quarterdeck / IMSI] (Win32) - versions 95 and 4.0 and later; read-only. (This product was called HiJaak 95 for one[?] release, possibly equivalent to version 3.0. It was later renamed "Pro," presumably after Inset was acquired by Quarterdeck, and then recapitalized "PRO" with its sale to IMSI.)

• iBrowser [fCoder Group] (Win32) - all versions? read-only; MNG and JNG support; commercial. (This is an thumbnail browser and image/animation viewer. It includes slideshow and desktop background [wallpaper] functions, and it can integrate into the Windows shell.)

• Image Alchemy [Handmade Software] (DOS, Macintosh, Unix/Motif) - version 1.9 and later; read/write; no interlacing; grayscale broken in 1.9 beta; alpha transparency broken in 1.9 beta but claimed to be fully supported in version 1.10; full gamma and color correction? commercial. (This is primarily an image-conversion app, but the OpenLook- and Motif-based commercial versions for Sun, SGI and HP workstations also have viewing capabilities, as do the DOS version and the now-terminated Macintosh port. The DOS version requires a supported video card. There are also conversion-only versions for OS/2, Linux, BSD/OS, SCO Unix, Solaris/x86, AIX and Digital Unix.)

• Image Browser Arctic [Uticasoft / Jobin Rezai] (Win32) - version 3.0 and later; read/write as of version 4.2 (formerly read-only); freeware. (This is an image viewer with slideshow capability. Prior to version 4.2 it was known as Image Browser.)

• ImageConverter Plus [Evgeny Shamin / fCoder Group] (Win32) - version 3.3(?) and later; read/write; MNG and JNG support (read-only) as of version 6.0(?); commercial. (This is a GUI image-viewer and converter with some basic manipulation capabilities; it can also plug itself into the Windows Explorer/menu system. See also 2PNG on the converters page.)

• Image Engineer [Simon Edwards / Marko Seppänen] (Amiga) - version 3.3 and later; read/write; uses the SuperView Library for reading and writing image formats (see the toolkits page); shareware. (This program also supports various forms of image manipulation, including motion blur, alpha compositing, sharpening, and embossing.)

• Image Explorer - see Image Explorer Pro or Image Navigator below

• ImageJ [Wayne Rasband] (Java) - version 1.09k and later with a plugin; read/write; requires JIMI; freeware with source. (This is a Java image-processing program geared toward scientific and medical imagery.)

• ImageMagick display [John Cristy] (Unix/X, VMS/X, Win32/X) - version 3.6.3 and later; read/write; full gamma support; full chromaticity support? broken support for sub-8-bit grayscale PNGs in versions prior to 5.1.0; minimal MNG support as of version 3.9.2 and full MNG-LC support (read/write) as of version 4.2.4 (broken in versions 5.2.7 through 5.3.6); JNG support as of version 5.5.2; requires libpng and zlib; freeware with source. (This is a multi-format viewer with the ability to display MNG-LC animations.)

• Image Navigator [VIMAS Technologies] (Win32) - version 2.0(?) and later; read-only; freeware. (Apparently this was previously known as Image Explorer. It is also bundled with VIMAS' Web Image Guru optimizer; see the image converters page for details.)

• imagENGine [ISS] (Win32) - all versions; read/write; shareware. (This is a batch viewing/conversion application. It can do basic algorithmic manipulations, including blurring, sharpening, equalization, etc.)

• Image Viewer [Microsoft] (Windows CE 3.0) - all versions; read-only; freeware. (This imaginatively named program is part of the Plus! Pack for H/PC Pro models.)

• ImageWalker [Zac Walker] (Win32) - all versions? read/write; MNG and JNG support (read-only); uses libmng, libpng and zlib; shareware.

• IMatch [Mario Westphal] (Win32) - version 2.0(?) and later; read-only; shareware. (This is not merely an image-viewer but also an image-based database retrieval engine. It can find images based on similarity to a sketch or to other images.)

• ImgView [Jeff Prosise / PC Magazine] (Win32) - all versions; read-only; uses LEADTOOLS DLLs; freeware. (This extends Windows 9x/NT's "Quick View" [right-button-click] viewing function to include 7 image formats, including PNG. Source code to the frontend viewer is included, but it can't be recompiled without purchasing the LEADTOOLS DLLs [toolkits page].)

• ImgViewer/32 [Arcata Pet Software] (Win32) - version 1.5(?) and later; read/write? gamma support? shareware.

• Inzomia Viewer [Inzomia] (Win32) - all versions? read-only; uses libpng and zlib; shareware (2.x) and freeware (1.x).

• IrfanView32 [Skiljan Irfan] (Win32) - version 1.85 and later; read/write; MNG and JNG support as of version 3.70 (read-only?); mediocre compression in old versions (before 2001?); incorporates PNGOUT optimizer (plug-in) as of version 3.97; freeware (for non-commercial use).

• IV / ImgView / Image Viewer [Wolfpack Entertainment] (Unix/GTK+) - version 0.1.8(?) and later; read/write; MNG and JNG support (read/write) as of version 2.3.1; full alpha support; requires Imlib, libmng, libjpeg, libpng and zlib; freeware (GPL) with C source.

• IvanView [Ivan A. Kotenev] (Win32) - version 1.1.22 and later; read/write; MNG (read-only) and JNG (read/write) support; commercial.

• iView MediaPro [iView Multimedia] (Mac OS, Mac OS X) - all versions? read/write; commercial.

• JImageView [Joseph McMurry] (Java) - all versions; read-only; full version requires JAI (see toolkits page); freeware (GPL) with source.

• JView [Crunch Products] (OS/2) - all versions? read/write? commercial; 1.1M. (This product has been discontinued; see Embellish on the image editors page.)

• KeyView Pro [FTP Software / Verity] (Windows 3.x, Win32) - version 4.2 and later; read/write. (FTP Software sold KeyView to Verity in late 1997. See also its entry as a Netscape Navigator plug-in on the browsers page.)

• KPNG [Ken Silverman] (DOS/VESA) - all versions; read-only; no 16-bps support; freeware. (This is a 32-bit DOS program to "view an entire directory of PNG files quickly." It requires support for 32-bit VESA modes.)

• KSquirrel [Baryshev "Krasu" Dmitry] (Unix/KDE) - all versions; read-only; MNG and JNG support as of version 0.6.0-pre9; requires libmng; freeware (GPL) with source.

• Makaha [Brandyware Software] (Win32) - all versions? read/write? shareware.

• Mediafile Assistant - see Ashampoo Photo Commander above

• Moyager [Gromada.com] (Win32) - all versions; read-only; freeware.

• MRIcro [Chris Rorden] (Win32, Linux/X) - all versions; read/write; freeware. (This is primarily a viewer for 2D and 3D medical formats--Analyze, DICOM, etc., which it can convert to 8-bit PNGs--but it can also view a number of generic 2D image formats, including PNG.)

• MST Viewer [MS Technology] (Win32, Java) - version 14.0(?) and later; read/write; full gamma support; annotation support; commercial.

• Multiview [Amiga] (Amiga) - any version via a PNG DataType (see the miscellaneous apps page for several); read-only.

• Myriad Engineering Viewer [Informative Graphics] (Win32) - version 4.1 and later; read-only; commercial. (This is a more generic viewer that is capable of displaying a large number of document, image, CAD, and 3D formats.)

• NOMSSI Viewer / NView [Jacques Nomssi Nzali] (DOS) - version 1.5 and later; read-only; shareware.

• Nview/Nconvert/XnView [Pierre-e Gougelet] (Atari, DOS, Unix/X, Windows 3.x, Win32, OS/2, BeOS) - version 2.70(?) and later (Nview/Nconvert) or all versions (XnView); read/write; MNG and JNG support (read-only) as of XnView version 1.61; freeware (for non-commercial use). (Nview and Nconvert are the older, command-line-only version; XnView is the newer windowed version. The primary release is in French, but dozens of translations are available. An English page is also available.)
• Nview/Nconvert/XnView [Pierre-e Gougelet] (Atari, DOS, Unix/X, Windows 3.x, Win32, OS/2, BeOS) - version 2.70(?) and later (Nview/Nconvert) or all versions (XnView); read/write; freeware (for non-commercial use). (Nview and Nconvert are the older, command-line-only version; XnView is the newer windowed version. The primary release is in French, but dozens of translations are available. An English page is also available.)

• Panoramic! - see AutoVue above

• pho [Akkana] (Unix/GTK+) - all versions? read/write; requires gdk-pixbuf, libpng and zlib; freeware (GPL) with source. (This is an image viewer "for viewing large numbers of images quickly, rotating or deleting some, and making notes about what to do with each image.")

• Photon Picture Viewer / pv [QNX Software Systems] (QNX) - all versions; read-only; no gamma support

• PicaView16 [ACD Systems] (Windows 3.x) - version 1.1 and later; read-only; no gamma support? (This viewer integrates into the Windows File Manager.)

• PicaView32 [ACD Systems] (Win32) - version 1.1 and later; read-only; no gamma support? (This viewer integrates into the Windows Explorer menus.)

• Piclab [Lee Daniel Crocker, Tim Wegner, Bert Tyler, Charles Marslett, Vince Pilgrim, John Swenson, Gary Osborn] (Win32) - version 2.0(?) and later; read/write as of version 2.026 (previously read-only); uses libpng and zlib; freeware with C source.

• PictView [Jan Patera] (DOS) - version 1.60(?) and later; read-only; freeware. (PictView also exists as a commercial library and as a plug-in to the Servant Salamander file manager.)

• PicViewer [Andrew Anoshkin] (Win32) - version 1.8(?) and later; read-only; shareware (also freeware Lite version)

• PikView [Andrew Richards] (Unix/KDE) - all versions; read-only; requires libpng and zlib; freeware (GPL) with source.

• PiNGer - see ZBoxZ below

• PingPong [Willem van Schaik] (NeXTStep/OpenStep) - all versions; read-only; full gamma support; both black (NeXT 68k) and white (Intel x86) binaries available; uses libpng and zlib; freeware

• PixelGraphicLibrary [Peter Beyersdorf] (Win32) - all versions; read/write. (This is primarily an image-manipulation library, but it also includes a simple demo viewer. See also the toolkits page. This product has been discontinued.)

• PixiePlus [Daniel "Mosfet" Duley] (Unix/KDE3) - all versions; read/write; full alpha support; requires libpng and zlib; freeware (QPL) with source. (This is an image manager with viewing, conversion, thumbnail, and manipulation capabilities, including support for batch-mode operations.)

• PixView [Techsoft] (Win32) - all versions? read-only? commercial. (This is a multi-format image viewer that can act as an MSIE plug-in, as well.)

• PK's Image Viewer (PkImgView) [Pranjal Kumar Hazarika] (Win32) - all versions; read/write; uses FreeImage, libpng, and zlib; freeware.

• Platypus Animator [C Point] (Win32) - version 5.1 and later; read/write? shareware. (This is primarily a creation tool for AVI animations, including conversion from collections of PNG stills, but it can also extract still images from AVIs [presumably including PNGs], and it can view individual frames or the entire animation.)

• PMJPEG [PixVision Software] (OS/2) - version 1.90 and later; read/write; no alpha support? shareware.

• PMView [Peter Nielsen] (OS/2, Win32) - version 0.92 and later; read/write; shareware.

• !Png2Spr [Tom Tanner] (RISC OS) - all versions; read/write; freeware. (This is a RISC OS PNG-to-sprite converter--and, as of version 1.20, a sprite-to-PNG converter, too. Newer versions have viewing capabilities.)

• PNGDIB viewer [Jason Summers] (Win32) - all versions; read/write; full alpha support in version 2.0.0 and later; full gamma support; requires libpng and zlib; freeware (BSD) with source. (This is primarily a "mini PNG/DIB conversion library" with two functions: one for converting PNG to DIB, and one for the reverse. Versions 1.1.0 and later also include a simple PNG viewer as a sample app.)

• PNG/MNG Construction Set Professional [Alchemy Mindworks] (Win32) - all versions; read/write; full(?) alpha support; MNG support; commercial. (This tool, the PNG/MNG equivalent of GIF Construction Set above, can be used to add alpha transparency to PNG images as well as to create, modify, and optimize MNG animations.)

• PngView [Anurag Ranjhan] (Win32) - all versions; read/write? (The author claimed that this was a viewer/editor that was still under development, but it has not been updated since March 1996 and is presumed dead. The editing functions probably never were finished, but this has not been verified.)

• PNGView [Thomas Kabir] (Win32) - all versions; read-only; full alpha support; freeware with Visual Basic source. (This is primarily a sample viewer, PNGView, that apparently can composite a transparent PNG image against a background image; but it also includes complete source code for a VB PNG-decoding library, PNGlib.)

• PolyView [Polybytes] (Win32) - version 2.40(?) and later; read/write

• PPT [Janne Jalkanen] (Amiga) - all versions? read/write; full 32-bit alpha support; freeware. (This is an image-processing and effects tool; it isn't quite a full image editor, but it comes close. It can read any flavor of PNG, but it writes only grayscale and truecolor, optionally with an alpha channel.)

• PrintGF [Cary Ravitz] (DOS, Windows 3.x, Win32) - version 1.24b and later; read-only; shareware. (This is primarily a printing utility for images, but it includes viewing capability on EGA, VGA and SVGA displays [and presumably anything with a Windows display driver]. As of April 2004, development of this product has ended.)

• Quick Image Viewer / qiv [kLoGraFX] (Unix/GTK+) - all versions; read-only; full alpha support? requires Imlib, libpng, and zlib; freeware (GPL) with source.

• QuickPic [Frank Fejes] (BeOS DR8) - version 0.90 via Jon Watte's Datatypes library and Simon Clarke's PNGHandler (see the toolkits page); read-only. (Not updated for current BeOS releases.)

• QuickShow Lite [Alchemy Mindworks] (Windows 3.x) - version 1.1e and later; read-only

• QuickTime PictureViewer [Apple] (Mac PPC/68k, Win32) - version 3.0 and later; read/write as of version 4.0; full gamma support; full alpha support; uses zlib; freeware. (This viewer supersedes Sam Bushell's Tiny Viewer, a mini-app he included with his QuickTime 2.5 PNG-Importer--see the miscellaneous apps page. Sam was responsible for the PNG support in QuickTime 3.0, too. QuickTime's PNG support actually enables any QuickTime-aware application to view PNG images, including even SimpleText. On the export side, it can convert a PICT with an alpha channel to an RGBA PNG--unless the alpha channel is is completely transparent over the entire image, in which case it will be discarded.)

• RealPlayer [RealNetworks] (Win32, Mac PPC, Linux/X) - version 7.0 and later; read-only; freeware (Basic) or commercial (Plus).

• ReaViewer [ReaSoft] (Win32) - version 1.4(?) and later; read/write; commercial. (This is a viewer with batch-conversion capabilities.)

• RO-Viewer [Thomas Middelkoop] (Win32) - all versions; read-only; uses libpng and zlib; freeware with C source.

• rpng / rpng2 [Greg Roelofs] (Unix/X, VMS/X, Win32) - all versions; read-only; full alpha support; full gamma support; requires libpng and zlib; freeware (BSD) with source. (These are the demo PNG viewers described in Chapters 13 and 14 of PNG: The Definitive Guide. The graphical front ends are very basic--no buttons, scrollbars, menus, or other widgets--but transparent images may be viewed against an optional background color in either program, and rpng2 additionally supports a web-page-like background pattern and progressive display. [rpng2 was designed to simulate the PNG decoder in a web browser.] The VMS port was done by Martin Zinser.)

• SEA [Bart Wakkee, Ralph Gortzen, Harold de Laat] (DOS) - version 1.0 and later; read/write; shareware; claimed to be much faster than even QPV. (Now distributed by Photodex.)

• Showcase [CQuick Technologies] (Win32) - all versions? read-only. (Version 1.2.00 is freeware; version 2.0 is commercial.)

• ShowImg [Richard Groult] (Unix/KDE2) - all versions; read/write? MNG support (read-only); requires Qt, libpng, and zlib; freeware (GPL) with source.

• SimpleText - see QuickTime PictureViewer above

• SlowView [Nikolaus Brennig] (Win32) - version 0.6b1 (1.60 Dev) and later; read/write; alpha support; MNG support in 0.9.0 and later; writes bloated palettes when converting from PNG or BMP to PNG (GIF to PNG seems OK); writes invalid single-pixel PNGs; uses libmng, libpng, and zlib; freeware. (This product has been discontinued. See Ashampoo Photo Commander above.)

• Smart Converter [Acoll Software] (Win32) - version 1.4 and later; read/write; MNG (read-only) and JNG (read/write) support; shareware.

• SnowView [Snowbound Software] (Win32, Java) - all versions? read/write? commercial (OEM only). (The Java version is also known as Snapplet.)

• Susie [Takechin?] (Win32) - version 0.45a(?) and later; read-only? freeware. (This is a Japanese image viewer with PNG, MNG and/or JNG support via plug-ins, of which more than half a dozen are available -- from ChangTa (PNG), Hiroaki Watanabe (PNG), MIYASAKA Masaru (PNG with source), Tietew Windows Lab (PNG), Pearly Baroque (PNG/MNG/JNG), SATO "COCKY" Akihiro (MNG/JNG), A. Mezamashi (MNG), and SOGEN (PNG/MNG/JNG). The Susie plug-in format, file extension .spi, seems to be something of a Japanese standard; for example, see also Pmacs and Picture Effecter on the image editors page.)

• SViewII / SuperView [Andreas Kleinert] (Amiga) - version 5.0(?) and later; read/write; shareware. (This includes the SuperView Library for image import/export.)

• ThumbsPlus [Cerious Software] (Win32) - version 3.0 beta 3 and later; read/write as of version 3.0g; full alpha support as of version 7(?), but no interlacing or transparency support for writing in version 3 (no info on intervening versions); text support; reportedly excellent compression, aside from saving unused palette entries (e.g., 256 for a 64-color image--fixed in version 4.10); broken conversion of GIF palettes in version 4.10 (example here); commercial (formerly shareware). (This program also has the ability to make web pages of thumbnails. Windows 3.x was supported in older versions, and a "final Macintosh beta" was available between 1998 and 2000, but as of 2005 there is no longer any trace of it.)

• TIFFY View [Art & Computer Hackbarth] (Java) - all versions; read-only; shareware. (This is a Java image-viewing applet with an associated toolkit and support for multiple formats; see TIFFY Toolkit on the toolkits page for details. Note that the related DOS viewer, TIFFY Pro, does not support PNG.)

• Tiny Viewer - see QuickTime PictureViewer above

• tnailer [William Rhodes] (Perl) - all versions; read/write; requires PerlMagick, ImageMagick, libpng and zlib; freeware (GPL) with source. (This is a command-line utility to create web pages of thumbnails from image collections, such as from a digital camera. It can also convert sizes and compression levels of larger images.)

• Translator [John Kortink] (RISC OS) - version 8.0(?) and later; read/write; shareware.

• Turbo Browser [FileStream] (Win32) - version 7.2 and later; read/write; shareware. (This is a file manager, similar to Windows Explorer, but with file-transfer, HTML-editing, image-viewing, and image-conversion capabilities in addition to standard file-management functions.)

• TurboZIP [FileStream] (Win32) - version 4.2 and later; read-only; shareware. (This is primarily a multiformat compressor/archiver, but it includes viewing capability for PNG images stored within archives, either standalone or as part of e-mail attachments. There is also a simpler version called TurboZIP Express.)

• Ulead Viewer [Ulead Systems] (Windows 3.x) - version 1.0 and later with UF2PNG.FIO plug-in; read/write; 1.1MB

• VaryView [CHEEWOO] (Win32) - all versions; read-only; shareware.

• VidFun [Lawrence Gozum] (Windows 3.x, Win32) - version 1.5 and later; read/write; shareware.

• view [Andrzej Bialecki] (FreeBSD/VGL) - all versions; read-only; gamma support; freeware (BSD) with source. (This is a tiny viewer distributed as part of PicoBSD, the single-floppy subset of FreeBSD. It currently supports only PNG, although it has slideshow capabilities. The version in the FreeBSD CVS tree is slightly more up-to-date.)

• Viewer 95 - see Quick View Plus above

• viewpng [Glenn Randers-Pehrson] (SGI Irix/X) - all versions; read-only; includes early MNG support; freeware. (Be sure to grab both viewpng.gz and pnggzip.gz . This app is no longer under development.)

• Visere [Digital Multi-Media Design] (Win32) - all versions; read/write; freeware.

• VisualPng [Willem van Schaik] (Win32) - all versions; read-only; requires libpng and zlib; freeware with source. (This is a very simple viewer designed to compile as an MSVC project in conjunction with the new DLL support in libpng 1.0.7. See also the related FishEye above.)

• wb0 [Karel "Clock" Kulhavy] (Linux/SVGA) - version of 8 November 1999 and later; read-only; requires libpng and zlib; freeware (GPL) with source.

• WebGraphics Optimizer [Plenio Software Solutions] (Win32) - version 2.0(?) and later; read/write; no gamma support; no control over compression level or filtering (output was 10% bigger than input on one test image); broken 2-bit support; commercial.

• Windows Picture and Fax Viewer [Microsoft] (Windows XP) - all versions; read-only? uses libpng and zlib; commercial.

• wxyzv [David Flater] (Unix/X) - all versions; read-only; freeware (GPL) with C++ source.

• xli [Graeme Gill / Smarasderagd] (Unix/X) - version 1.17 and later (or version 1.16 with Smarasderagd's PNG patch); read-only; freeware with source. (Updated for libpng 0.90 and later.)

• XnView - see Nview/Nconvert above

• XV [John Bradley] (Unix/X, VMS/X) - version 3.10a and later with Greg Roelofs' jumbo patches (specifically, the enhancements one, whose PNG support is an extension of Alexander Lehmann and Andreas Dilger's old PNG patch version 1.2d); read/write; shareware with source. (XV 4.00 with full PNG support was supposed to have arrived around Christmas 1995. Perhaps John really meant Christmas 2005... A Win32 port apparently is [or was] underway at one point, too.)

• ZBoxZ [Tom Zerucha] (Palm OS) - version 0.19x and later; read-only; requires zlib; freeware (GPL) with source. (This app was originally called Boxer, then PiNGer, now ZBoxZ; next week ...?)

• Zgv [Russell Marks] (Linux/SVGA) - version 2.7 and later; read-only; requires libpng and zlib; freeware (GPL) with source. (Bugs in 2.7: couldn't read interlaced PNGs at all; displayed 16-bit-per-sample PNGs incorrectly.)

• Zoom Studio [Inzomia] (Win32) - version 2.0(?) and later; read-only? commercial. (This is an image-gallery tool; it can show thumbnails or full images, manage collections, and export web pages.)

Here are some related PNG pages at this site:

• PNG-supporting Applications
  • Browsers
  • Image Editors
  • Image Converters
  • 3D Applications
  • Games / Entertainment
  • Office / Business Applications
  • Scientific / Graphing Applications
  • Miscellaneous Applications
• PNG support in VRML browsers
• PNG-supporting Hardware

• PNG Home Page
• Complete PNG Site Map

Copyright © 1995-2015 Greg Roelofs.