Free Image Viewer App For Windows 8: FotoZ

FotoZ is a free image viewer app for Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 devices. When you install and launch the app, you will be presented with its main screen which allows you to easily open up an image for viewing it in full screen size. The app also has basic image editing features that allow you to easily crop a photo, rotate a photo etc. You can also choose to view the details of the image like its metadata etc., and you can also edit the information of the photo like its rating, title etc. from within the app itself.

FotoZ is available as a free download from the Windows App Store.

FotoZ folder selected image viewer screen

Main features of FotoZ for Windows 8 and Windows 8.1:

When you install and launch FotoZ on your Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 device, you will be presented with an interface which looks like the below screenshot.

FotoZ Main Screen

In the above screen, you can see the control bar of the app open at the bottom of the screen, and you can also see the photos from your image gallery in a tiled preview under the Explore tab. You can also choose to link your SkyDrive account with the app, and the images from the SkyDrive will be shown there. All you have to do is to click on the tile, and you are good to go. Just enter your SkyDrive details and the account will be linked up. When you choose a folder for viewing the images inside it, you will be presented with the image previews in the next screen of the app as can be seen in the below screenshot.

FotoZ folder selected image viewer screen

The above screen is a scrollable list of images which you can easily flip through. When you click on an image, it gets opened up in full screen size. You can see the image open in a full screen format in the below screenshot.

FotoZ folder selected image viewer full screen image

You can reveal the control bars of the app by right clicking anywhere on the screen. The control bars fly in from the top and the bottom of the screen, and you can see them in the below screenshot.

FotoZ folder control bars

The control bar at the top allows you to quickly switch between images in the selected directory. You can also choose to edit the images, take a photo using your webcam, view the image details using the control bar at the bottom. When you click on the Details button at the bottom of the screen, you will be presented with the image details like metadata etc. in a pane that flies in from the right side of the screen.

FotoZ image details

When you click on the Edit button, you will be presented with the various editing options that allow you to easily rotate the image or to crop it. If you choose to crop the image, you will be taken to the image crop screen where you can easily select a portion of the image on your screen that you wish to crop via the arrowheads at four corners of the image select tool. The tool is big enough, and hence it’s easy to use it on touch screen devices that don’t have mouse as the primary input.

FotoZ edit mode crop image

In a nutshell, this quite frankly sums up all the main features of the FotoZ app for Windows 8 and Windows 8.1.

You can also check out the Album by Sony and Picture image viewer apps for Windows 8.

The verdict:

FotoZ is a clean and nice app that allows you to easily manage your photo collection and serves as a great picture viewer replacement for the built in Windows app. The app is very lightweight, has a clean interface and makes sure that it gets the job done. I rate this app a 4 out of 5!

Get FotoZ.