Mac users have it easy. On OS X, the system decodes all major image types. On Windows however, only the most ubiquitous formats (JPEG, BMP, PNG, GIF and TIFF) are recognized out-of-the-box, which becomes frustrating for graphic designers.
The problemYou see, Windows actually has a nice, modern, extensible imaging framework called Windows Imaging Component (WIC). In Windows 7, this framework allows new image formats to be seamlessly integrated in the OS, meaning that they’ll have thumbnails decoded, that you’ll be able to search for embedded metadata and that any WIC-enabled application will be able to open those files.
This system makes a lot of sense and it would have the potential to obsolete all/most thumbnail explorers, from ACDSee to XNView. Think about it: why should I launch a whole big application just to see what’s in a PSD file? Sure, image organizers usually have additional image processing abilities, like batch rename or watermarking, but wouldn’t you like to have these seamlessly integrated in the system? I know I would.
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