While there are a lot of image viewers available, most of them are bloated with features that go far beyond the intended purpose. Also, a good image viewer should have simple navigation controls and a clean UI that lets you look at your pictures without distractions.
NexusImage is a free image viewer, with a modern, intuitive UI, that makes it very easy to browse through pictures without any settings required.
Installation & Requirements
NexusImage is a portable application so you can use it as soon as you extract the small 2MB archive and launch the .exe file. The program doesn’t perform any modifications on Windows Registry and works on all Windows operating systems starting with XP.
Interface
NexusImage has an extremely simple interface, that doesn’t hold any secrets, even for new users. After launching the program, users will be able to open any image via Windows Explorer. A filmstrip thumbnail preview is available for all the images in the related folder and navigation is performed using the mouse scroll button or the arrow keys. Zooming in/out is just as simple, enabled by +/- keys. This is everything you need to know for basic usage of the program.
By default, the desktop is dimmed while viewing pictures, but users can change the dim level from the program’s preferences. This menu is accessible from the small button available in the top-left corner of the UI or by right-clicking anywhere on the image. Lots of other options are available from navigation and zooming to basic editing tools such as rotate, flip, edit caption and delete/copy/cut.
The “Edit With” option lets users create a list of other image editors to send the image for editing to the desired program straight from NexusImage’s interface. The Tools section offers a window with EXIF information, show/hide thumbnail view, changing the UI background color, using the image as desktop background, setting file associations for Windows Explorer context menu integration and changing the program’s language.
Pros
– Very small, portable application.
– Simple interface with easy navigation and zooming.
– Supports all popular image formats, such as jpeg, bmp, png, gif, ico, tiff and wmv.
– Offers a set of basic editing functions and allows users to create a list of third-party image editors that can be launched from the program’s interface.
Cons
– None worth mentioning.
Alternatives
– XnView
– FastStone Image Viewer
Conclusion
NexusImage has an attractive, yet very simple layout that makes image viewing an effortless task for any user. While no configuration is required to use it, the program does have a menu with a basic set of options and tools, which is a must for any respectable image viewer.
