Part 4 of 7 · Viewing photos
Opening the viewer
Two identical ways in: double-click the row, or click its view icon. Either opens the built-in viewer on that photo, with the rest of the list as the gallery — the arrow buttons walk the list in order.
- The viewer works on HEIC directly. Nothing has to be converted first, and the viewer never writes a file.
- The title bar reads
HEIC Viewer – IMG_0421.heic; the counter next to the arrows shows3 / 12. - A photo opens fitted to the window. Resize the window and it keeps fitting, until you zoom in yourself.
- Esc closes the viewer. Your conversion list is exactly as you left it.
The viewer toolbar
One strip across the top: navigation on the left, zoom in the middle-right, rotate and full screen at the far right.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| ‹ › | Previous / next photo in the list. Disabled at the first and last photo. |
| 3 / 12 | Position in the list: this photo, out of the total. |
| − % + | Zoom out / current zoom level / zoom in. The percentage updates live. |
| Fit | Scale the photo to the window, and keep re-fitting whenever the window is resized. |
| 1:1 | One image pixel per screen pixel, centred, with panning as soon as it overflows. |
| ↺ ↻ | Rotate 90° left / right. Display only — the file on disk is untouched. |
| Full screen | Hide the toolbar and status bar so the photo fills the screen. Press F11 or Esc to come back. |
A photo smaller than the window stays centred and cannot be dragged around; once it is larger than the window, dragging pans it, and the edges stop where the image ends.
Mouse & keyboard
The viewer is built for browsing a shoot without touching the toolbar.
| Do this | Result |
|---|---|
| Mouse wheel | Zoom in / out anchored on the cursor — the detail you point at stays put. |
| Drag the photo | Pan. When the photo is smaller than the window it snaps back to the centre. |
| Double-click the photo | Toggle between Fit and 1:1. |
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| ← / → | Previous / next photo (also Page Up / Page Down). |
| + / − | Zoom in / out. |
| 0 | Fit to window. |
| 1 | Actual size (100%). |
| Ctrl+L / Ctrl+R | Rotate left / right by 90°. |
| Ctrl+C | Copy the photo to the clipboard, including the rotation you applied. |
| F11 | Full screen on / off. |
| Esc | Exit full screen, or close the viewer when not in full screen. |
The status bar at the bottom always shows the pixel dimensions, the file size and the current zoom, plus the rotation angle once you have turned the photo. In full screen the bar disappears with the toolbar; a small hint reminds you that Esc or F11 brings the window back.
Copy instead of convert. Ctrl+C puts the current photo on the clipboard as a normal bitmap, rotated exactly as displayed — the quickest way to paste one shot into a chat or a document without producing a file.