Making it the default
- Right-click an image in Explorer and choose “Open with” → “Choose another app”.
- Pick ELX-PhotoViewer and tick “Always use this app”.
- Repeat for each extension you care about, or set the associations in Windows settings under Default apps.
Enter takes you to the shellOpened by association, the program shows only the picture. Enter builds the file shell around the current file — which is usually what you want two seconds later.
File operations
| Action | How |
|---|---|
| Copy, cut, paste | Ctrl+C, Ctrl+X, Ctrl+V — and the clipboard is shared with Explorer |
| Delete | Del, to the recycle bin; the cursor moves to the next file |
| Drag and drop | Inside the program and to or from Explorer |
| Force copy or move | Hold Ctrl to copy, Shift to move, regardless of the drives |
| Rename | F2 on one file renames it in the list; with several selected, batch rename opens |
| Paste over the same name | A replace dialog with previews of both files. Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V in the same folder make a copy beside it — photo-copy.jpg |
| File attributes | Ctrl+T |
| Hidden files | Ctrl+H |
| New folder | Ctrl+Shift+N |
| Open in the photo editor | Ctrl+E |
| Ctrl+P, with a preview | |
| Properties | The context menu — the system dialog |
Settings (F9)
- Scaling modes, the background and looping.
- The folder the program starts in.
- Video thumbnails (mkv, mp4, avi, ts, mts, wmv, 3gp) are switched on here.
- The “Редактировать…” (Edit…) item in the Explorer context menu for photos and videos.
Batch conversion
- Select the files and press Ctrl+K.
- Choose JPEG or PNG and set the parameters — quality and subsampling for JPEG, interlacing and filter for PNG.
- Decide where the results go and whether a suffix is added to the name.
- Decide whether originals are removed afterwards; they go to the recycle bin, so this is reversible.
- Start. The work runs in the background with progress shown, and the list keeps your place when it finishes.
EXIF is carried overCapture date, camera and orientation survive the conversion — which is what keeps a converted folder sorted correctly by date afterwards.
Animated GIF
Animations play in full screen: frames are composed according to the disposal method and the delays come from the file itself. “GIF to MP4” saves the animation as H.264 video using the encoder Windows already has, laying the variable GIF delays onto the even frame grid the encoder requires.
Photo and video editors
Ctrl+E opens the current picture in the built-in photo editor. The video editor trims a clip by time, crops it, adds a frame, a caption, a watermark or a logo, blurs an area and saves the result as MP4; for that it uses ffmpeg, which is installed together with the program.
From ExplorerWhen the option is enabled in the installer or in the settings, the Explorer context menu offers “Редактировать…” (Edit…) for photos and videos.
When something is wrong
| Symptom | Where to look |
|---|---|
| A file will not open | The system imaging component does not know that format — a raw file from a very new camera, usually |
| Thumbnails are slow the first time | They are being built and cached; the second visit is fast |
| Videos have no thumbnails | Video thumbnails are switched on in the settings (F9) |
| Sorting by resolution takes a moment | Dimensions are being read in the background; the list rebuilds when they are ready |
| Colours look wrong | A colour profile the display is not applying — check the monitor profile in Windows |
| Association does not stick | Windows resets some associations after an update; set it again in Default apps |