FledgeView

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Peaking

Copying is blocked here. The text is selected, so press Ctrl+C (⌘C on a Mac).

Features

Turn tools on or off. Your choices are saved in this browser.

Before you move photos

FledgeView moves the actual files into new folders on your drive. If these photos are already imported into Lightroom Classic (or Capture One, or another catalog app), it will lose track of them and show them as missing. Nothing is deleted, but you’ll need to relink them.

The easy way: organize before importing. Run FledgeView on the card dump first, then import into Lightroom.

If they’re already in Lightroom, you can relink them afterward and keep your edits:

  1. Library → Find Missing Photos
  2. Click the ! on a thumbnail → Locate
  3. Pick the file in its new folder, with Find nearby missing photos checked
  4. Repeat once for each new folder

Changed your mind later? Undo last organize puts everything back.

Folder stats

Export

Resizes finished photos for websites and social media. Your originals are never changed.

Building preview…

Uses your Frame settings from the camera view: frame, mat, size, wall, and any zoom you set there.

Removing location helps protect nest sites and sensitive species.

Start at with

What’s new in FledgeView

About FledgeView

Light Image Viewer & Exporter, by HatchApps · · What’s new

A camera-back style viewer, culler, and web exporter for photographers, made by HatchApps LLC.

Your photos are read on this computer and never uploaded. Ratings and settings are kept in this browser.

Made by Frank Hatcher, wildlife and bird photographer. See my work at frankhatcher.com.

FledgeView is a HatchApps LLC tool: hatchappsllc.com

Enjoying FledgeView? It’s free, and tips keep it going.Support on Ko-fi

© 2026 HatchApps LLC. All rights reserved. Free to use for your photography. Please don’t resell, rebrand, or redistribute it without permission.

Thanks for using FledgeView

I hope it’s saving you time. FledgeView is free, with nothing locked away, and tips keep it going.

This is the only time you’ll see this note. You can always find Support FledgeView in the Help menu.

Support on Ko-fi

Auto-pick sharpest frames

Scores every frame in every burst, then picks the frames that are nearly as sharp as the best frame in their burst. Nothing is moved or deleted, and you can change any flag afterward.

of the sharpest frame in their burst, or better.

Keeper analytics

Monitor check

For best results, set browser zoom to 100%, dim the room lights, and look straight at the screen. This checks shadow and highlight detail only; checking color accuracy needs a hardware calibrator.

Shadows: 0 to 20

You should be able to tell about patch 3 or 4 apart from 0. If several of the darkest patches blend into black, the screen is crushing shadows, and prints will likely come out darker than they look here.

Highlights: 235 to 255

You should see 251 or 252 as different from 255. If the brightest patches merge into white, the screen is clipping highlights, so feather detail you can’t see here may still be in the file.

Smooth gradient

This should look smooth from black to white. Visible stripes or color tints in the grays point to an uncalibrated screen or a low-quality display mode.

Getting started with FledgeView

A free photo viewer, culler, organizer, and exporter for photographers.

Welcome

FledgeView looks like the back of a camera. It reads the shooting details from your files, helps you find your best frames, organizes your folders, and makes clean copies for social media, galleries, and print previews.

Your photos never leave your computer. Nothing is uploaded, and there’s no account to create.

Quick start

  1. Click Import to copy a memory card into your main photo folder, sorted by date and lens. Or click Open folder for photos already on your computer.
  2. Browse with ← →, or click the thumbnails on the left.
  3. Rate as you go: 1–5, P to pick, X to reject.
  4. Use Cull ▾ to sort picks and rejects into folders, or organize everything by lens.
  5. Use the Share panel to make social media copies or a web gallery.
Press ? anytime for the full list of keyboard shortcuts.

Opening photos

  • Open folder loads a folder, including its subfolders, and replaces what’s loaded. Open file adds one or more photos. You can also drag photos or folders onto the page.
  • For folders of 10 or more photos, FledgeView asks how to sort them: by file name, capture time, sharpness, or rating. Change it anytime with Sort above the thumbnails.
  • Works with JPEG, PNG, WebP, and RAW files from most cameras: Sony ARW, Nikon NEF, Canon CR2 and CR3, DNG, Olympus ORF, Panasonic RW2, Fuji RAF, and more.
  • RAW files show the JPEG preview the camera stores inside the file. It’s great for culling, but it isn’t the full raw data, so judge critical sharpness in your raw editor when it matters.
  • The slider above the thumbnails changes their size. The ‹ button hides the sidebar for a bigger screen, and Photo info at the bottom expands the full EXIF details.
Moving files and saving to folders need Chrome or Edge. Safari and Firefox can view, rate, and export, but not organize. On a Mac, the downloaded copy opens in Safari by default: right-click it and choose Open With → Google Chrome.

The camera screen

  • The overlay shows your settings the way your camera does: mode, shutter speed, aperture, exposure compensation, ISO, focal length, and lens. With a teleconverter or APS-C crop mode, it also shows the effective focal length.
  • Photo view (top right, or V) shows just the photo, filling the screen. ← → or the arrows at the edges move between photos, rating keys still work, Z or a double-click zooms to 100%, and I shows the photo info. Press Esc or click ✕ to return, on the photo you were viewing. Edited photos are shown with their edits.
  • Zoom with the scroll wheel or + −, in 10% steps. Double-click or press Z to jump to 100% and back. 100% means one photo pixel per screen pixel.
  • On RAW files, an amber Beyond preview detail notice appears when you zoom past what the embedded preview can show.
  • Under the screen, the gradient and the red, green, and blue bars show the brightness under your cursor, with a “near max” note when a channel is close to clipping.
  • 25% / 50% / Max sizes the viewer, and Full screen (F) gives it the whole monitor.

The three panels on the right

  • View: the Info dial (I cycles full info, exposure only, and the photo alone), zoom, and the review tools.
  • Rate: position and file name, rating icons, Pick and Reject, Advance (Auto moves to the next photo after you rate; Manual stays put), and the Show filter.
  • Share: Web gallery and Social media.

Review tools

  • Blinkies (B): blown highlights flash red.
  • Peaking (E): paints the sharpest edges yellow. The slider under the screen sets how much is highlighted.
  • Focus pt (A): a green box shows where the camera focused. Sony files only, and only straight-from-camera files; edited exports usually lose this information.
  • Compare (C): the current photo and the next one side by side, with zoom linked. Click either photo to select it; ratings, P, and X apply to the selected one.
  • 4-up (Q): four photos at once. Click one to select it, then rate, pick, or reject it. With Advance: Manual, you stay on the same four, so you can pick one and reject the rest. With Auto, P picks the selected photo and loads the next four. ← → move four at a time.
  • Frame (M): see your photo framed on a wall.
  • Lens tools (top toolbar): the depth of field and field of view calculators. See “Lens tools.”

Culling: finding your keepers

  • 1–5 rates, P picks, X rejects, and U clears the flag. Ratings show as feathers; change them to stars, dots, or diamonds in View ▾ → Features. Ratings are saved in this browser.
  • Show in the Rate panel filters to one exact rating or to your picks. Cull ▾ → Show adds rejects, unflagged photos, and “3 and up” style filters.
  • Filter, under Sort in the sidebar, shows only one lens, camera, or file type. Teleconverter combinations are listed separately, and filters combine with ratings and picks. Clear shows everything again.
  • Bursts: frames shot within half a second of each other are grouped, shown by a colored bar under the thumbnails. Each frame is labeled compared with the sharpest one in its burst: Best, Sharp (within 90% of the best, which the eye can’t tell apart), a percentage for slightly softer frames, or Soft (below 70%). Hover over a label for the exact figure. On Sony files straight from the camera, sharpness is measured around the focus point (usually the eye), so a soft frame can’t win on a busy background; other files are measured across the whole frame.
  • Auto-pick sharpest scores every burst and picks the frames nearly as sharp as the best one. It never rejects anything unless you turn that option on, and it leaves photos you’ve already rated alone.
  • Move picks and rejects… moves picks into a _picks folder and rejects into _rejects, next to your originals. Choose Picks and rejects, Rejects only (keepers stay where they are), or Picks only. Run it again after changing your mind, and photos move back. Nothing is ever deleted: once you’re sure, delete _rejects yourself in File Explorer or Finder, which sends it to the Recycle Bin or Trash.
  • Import (the first button in the toolbar) copies a card into your main photo folder, organized the way you choose: date / lens by default, or year, month, and day, lens first, a shoot name, or your own Custom pattern using words like {year}, {date}, {lens}, {camera}, and {shoot}. A live example shows where photos will go. Teleconverter shots can get their own subfolder, and sidecars travel with their photos. Choose the card and your main folder, check the plan, then click Import. Tick Backup and choose a second folder (ideally on another drive) to write a verified second copy at the same time. Every copy is checked, photos already imported are skipped, and the card is never changed. Then cull the new folders and import them into Lightroom when you’re ready.
  • Organize into lens folders moves each photo into a folder named for its lens, with teleconverter shots in their own subfolder. It shows the plan first, sidecar files (.xmp, .dop, .pp3) move along, and Undo last organize puts everything back.
  • Write ratings saves your ratings into .xmp sidecar files for Lightroom.
The first time you move files, FledgeView explains what happens to photos already in a Lightroom catalog. See “With Lightroom.”

Frame mode

Click Frame on the camera body to see the current photo framed and hanging on a wall.

  • Choose the frame, Flat or Box profile, frame width, mat color and width, print size, and wall color.
  • Zoom and drag the photo inside the frame to try a tighter crop. The frame stays put.
  • The line under the options shows the image size and whether the file has enough resolution for that print size.
  • Guides (G) shows rule of thirds, golden ratio, or diagonal lines over the photo while you frame it. They never appear in saved images.
  • Save image exports the framed mockup, ready for your website or a post.
Frame mode is a visual preview, not a color-accurate proof. Real mat and frame colors vary by supplier.

Quick finish: simple edits

Click Quick finish in the Edit and share section of the control panel (or Edit in the top toolbar) to open the Quick finish panel to the right. Your other panels stay put, so you can rate and edit in one pass. Click Quick finish again or Done to close it; FledgeView remembers whether you left it open.

  • Light: exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, whites, and blacks. Color: temperature (blue to amber) and tint (green to magenta), shown on colored scales, plus vibrance. Detail and effects: sharpen and vignette. Double-click a slider to reset it.
  • Crop and straighten: click Crop, then drag the corners or the whole box; choose an Aspect or Free. Straighten levels a tilted horizon, showing a grid while you drag. Click Done cropping (or press Enter) to finish. While you crop, the box shows the size you’re cropping to: pixels, megapixels, and print size in inches at 300 ppi. The crop is kept with your other edits, and Export\u2019s social shapes crop from the cropped photo.
  • Saturation boosts or calms every color evenly, while Vibrance favors muted colors. Clarity adds contrast to mid-size detail, such as feathers and fur, without sharpening smooth backgrounds.
  • Black & white: tick it in the Color section, then choose a Filter to control how colors turn into grays (Orange darkens skies and is a good all-rounder; Red is dramatic; Green lightens foliage) and an optional warm or cool Tone. Temperature, tint, and vibrance step aside while it’s on; the Light sliders do the rest.
  • Sharpen here is for individual photos, like crisping feathers or fur. The Sharpen setting in Export is lighter output sharpening for resized copies. They work together.
  • Auto sets a starting point. It leaves well-exposed photos nearly alone and does more for dark, bright, or flat ones.
  • Hold Before (or the \ key) to see the original.
  • The histogram at the top updates as you drag, and its corner triangles light up when highlights blow out (right) or blacks get crushed (left), with how much. Tick Clipping warnings (or press J) to also see where on the photo: red for blown highlights, blue for crushed blacks. It’s off by default.
  • Copy and Paste move edits between photos. To apply them to a series, select the photos first: Ctrl-click (Cmd-click on a Mac) thumbnails one by one, Shift-click for a range, or Ctrl+A for every photo shown. Then click Paste to selected. Paste to all shown does the whole sidebar at once.
  • Edited photos show an Edited mark. Edits are saved in this browser and applied when you export, make a gallery, or use Frame mode. Your originals never change. Export… at the bottom of the drawer opens Export with this photo (or your selected photos) already chosen.
Quick finish works best on finished or straight-from-camera JPEGs. RAW files edit their embedded preview, and blown highlights can’t be brought back from a JPEG; for heavy work, use your raw editor.

Social media and export

  1. Click Social media in the Share panel (or Export in the toolbar) and choose which photos: this photo, your picks, everything shown, or any folder.
  2. Pick a Shape: the original shape, a platform size (Instagram feed, grid, square, Stories and Reels, landscape, YouTube), or All platforms for one copy in every shape.
  3. For social shapes, the crop starts on your subject. Drag the preview to reposition, use Crop zoom, and step through photos with ◀ ▶. Press S to skip a photo, and G for composition guides.
  4. Turn on the Info bar to add a slim strip with your camera settings and your text under each photo.
  5. Set the file names, then click Export.
  • Presets at the top of the Export window save your settings by name (shape, size, info bar, metadata, file names). Pick one to fill everything in; change anything and it shows (modified) with Save to update it. Use the ⋯ menu to save a new preset, rename, delete, or export and import .fvpreset files to share. Presets never include which photos or their crops.
  • All platforms: each shape keeps its own crop (use the shape buttons above the preview), and the info bar can be on or off per shape. File names say where each goes, like A1209362_Instagram-Feed_4x5.jpg. With several photos, each shape gets its own folder.
  • Long edge for the original shape: 1080, 1600, or 2000 px, 50% or 75%, the original size, or custom. Nothing is ever enlarged.
  • Exports are saved as sRGB. If a photo uses Adobe RGB or ProPhoto, FledgeView says so; for print copies, resize in your editor.
  • Your originals are never changed, exports never overwrite a file, and location data is removed by default to help protect nest sites and sensitive species.
  • Crops and skips save as you go. If you stop partway, reopen the same photos and click Resume.
On Instagram, choose Original (or tap the expand arrows) in the upload crop step, so it keeps your full frame. Instagram’s profile grid trims 4:5 posts to 3:4, which can hide an info bar; that’s why it’s off by default for the Instagram shapes.

Web gallery

Share a set with friends, family, or a client as a small gallery they open in any browser.

  • Click Web gallery in the Share panel. Add a title and message, pick one of five styles, and fill in your details: name, tagline, website, logo, and the email address for selections. They’re saved for next time.
  • Optionally add a link to your print store, with your own button text.
  • Choose the photo size (1600 px is a good balance), quality, file names, downloads, and the info bar. Location data is always removed.
  • Save as ZIP to email or share by cloud link, or Save to folder to upload to your website.
  • Viewers check their favorites and click Send my selections, which opens an email to you listing the file names.
ZIPs over about 20 MB are large for email; a cloud link (OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox) works better.

Lens tools: depth of field and field of view

  • Click Lens tools in the top toolbar, then the Depth of field tab, to open the depth of field calculator: sensor, focal length, teleconverter, aperture, and distance, with a side view of the sharp zone and an exposure section.
  • Use this photo fills it in from the photo you’re viewing: focal length, teleconverter, aperture, sensor format, ISO, and shutter speed, plus focus distance when the camera recorded it.
  • If no focus distance was recorded (common with edited exports), estimate your distance to the subject.
  • Field of view (the second tab) compares focal lengths in two ranges, Wide (9 to 100 mm) and Telephoto (100 to 1600 mm, including teleconverter combinations): frames drawn to true angular coverage, angles seen from above, and a table of horizontal, vertical, and diagonal angles. Click focal lengths to compare, drag the slider to try any other, and pick your sensor. Use this photo draws the frames on the photo you’re viewing, with the megapixels you’d keep by cropping to each. On a telephoto shot it also shows what a 1.4× and 2× teleconverter would have framed, to compare a TC with cropping.

Data and insights

  • Folder stats charts the focal lengths, ISOs, shutter speeds, apertures, and lenses you used.
  • Keeper analytics compares your picks with everything you shot, showing which settings produce the most keepers. Counting each burst as one moment gives the fairest picture.
  • Copy for spreadsheet and Download CSV file give you every photo’s details to sort and filter in Excel or Google Sheets.

Using FledgeView with Lightroom

  • Organize before you import. Lightroom Classic remembers where each photo lives. Run Organize into lens folders and Move picks and rejects on the card dump first, then import into Lightroom, and everything lines up.
  • Moved photos that were already imported? Lightroom marks them missing (a ! on the thumbnail). Nothing is lost: choose Library → Find Missing Photos, click the !, choose Locate, and pick the file in its new folder with Find nearby missing photos checked. Repeat once per folder.
  • Ratings carry over for raw files when you use Cull ▾ → Write ratings, which saves them in .xmp sidecars that Lightroom reads when it imports raw files. (Lightroom ignores sidecars for JPEGs.)
  • Ratings come back too: when you open a folder, FledgeView picks up star ratings and rejects from .xmp sidecars and from ratings stored inside photos. A sidecar takes priority over a rating inside the file, and anything you’ve rated in FledgeView is never overwritten.
  • Undo last organize in the Organize window puts photos back where they were.

Good to know

  • Privacy: photos are read on your computer and never uploaded.
  • Where your ratings live: in this browser. Clearing your browsing data removes them, so use Move picks and rejects, Write ratings, or Copy list to keep a lasting record.
  • On fledgeview.com or downloaded: both work fully in Chrome or Edge, including moving files, writing sidecars, and saving straight to folders. Safari and Firefox can view, rate, edit, and export. After your first visit, fledgeview.com also works offline, and Chrome or Edge can install it as an app.
  • View ▾ → Appearance switches between Camera (the camera-back look) and Clean (flat and Mac-inspired, using your system’s font). Everything works the same in both.
  • View ▾ → Features hides tools you don’t use, changes the rating icons and burst timing, and can bring back the move warning.
  • Tips: hover over any button or slider for a short description and its shortcut. Turn them off in Help ▾ → Show tips.
  • Help ▾ → Send feedback opens an email with your version, browser, and screen size filled in, so problems are easy to track down.
  • Help ▾ → Monitor check tests whether your screen shows shadow and highlight detail properly.
  • FledgeView is free. If it saves you time, Help ▾ → Support FledgeView leads to a tip page on Ko-fi.

How should these photos be sorted?

You can change this anytime with Sort, above the thumbnails.

The sharpness options score each photo first. For a large folder of RAW files, the first time can take a few minutes; scores are saved for next time.

Your browser will say “Upload”

The next window is your browser’s own folder picker. Its button says Upload, and the browser may ask whether to “upload” the files to this site.

Nothing leaves your computer. FledgeView reads your photos right here, in your browser. There’s no server to send them to.

In Chrome or Edge on fledgeview.com, or in the downloaded copy, FledgeView uses a newer picker that says Select folder instead.

Move picks and rejects

Moves photos into _picks and _rejects folders next to your originals. Sidecar files move with them. Nothing is deleted: change a flag and run this again, and photos move back.

Using Lightroom? Photos already in your catalog will show as missing after a move until you relink them (Library → Find Missing Photos). And when you import a folder with “Include subfolders” on, Lightroom brings in _rejects too: untick it in the import panel, or delete _rejects in File Explorer or Finder once you’re sure.

Import from card

Copies photos from a memory card (or any folder) into your main photo folder, sorted into folders the way you choose: by date, lens, shoot, or your own pattern. Sidecar files come along. Nothing on the card is changed or deleted.

CardNot chosen
Main folderNot chosen
Off

The plan

Choose a card and a main folder to see where each photo will go.

Organize into lens folders

Moves each photo, and its sidecar files (.xmp, .dop, .pp3), into a folder named for the lens it was shot with. Nothing is copied or deleted, and you can undo it.

The plan

Using Lightroom Classic? Photos already in your catalog will show as missing after they move. How to relink

Best: organize before you import. Run Organize on the card dump first, then import into Lightroom, and nothing goes missing.

Already imported? Relink and keep your edits:

  1. In Lightroom Classic, choose Library → Find Missing Photos.
  2. Select a missing photo, click the ! on its thumbnail, then Locate.
  3. Browse to its new lens folder and pick the file. Leave Find nearby missing photos checked, and Lightroom relinks the rest of that folder too.
  4. Repeat once for each lens folder.

Quicker, with a catch: right-click the original folder and choose Synchronize Folder, which imports the moved files and can remove the missing entries. Edits saved only in the catalog are lost, unless Lightroom was writing them to .xmp sidecars (FledgeView moves those along with the photos).

Or undo: Undo last organize puts everything back where Lightroom expects it. Capture One and other catalog apps behave the same way.

Make a web gallery

Creates a small gallery folder (page, photos, thumbnails) to email as a ZIP, share by cloud link, or upload to your website. Viewers can check their favorites and send you their selections.

Style

Your details

Photos

Location data is always removed. At 1600 px, photos look great on screens but are too small for sharp prints beyond about 5 × 7 inches.

Lens tools

Keyboard shortcuts