KingView
The most image formats · archive support · RAW support —
fast and crisp with hardware acceleration.
Accurate color, top speed, every image
Free Download v1.1.0The Most Image Formats
JPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, HEIC, JXL, PSD, EXR, SVG and more — from everyday images to camera RAW, no codecs needed
True HDR
Real brightness on HDR displays. 10 HDR formats plus iPhone gain map (Ultra HDR) rendered accurately — best in class
Archives, Webtoons & Comics
View 36 archive types (ZIP, RAR…) without extracting, plus webtoon strip and two-page comic view
100% Free
Free for individuals, companies, schools and government alike — no license inquiries needed, ever
Powerful Decoding Engine
- Faster startup and paging than other viewers in measured A/B tests — instant window + two-stage display
- 40 camera RAW formats (CR2/CR3, NEF, ARW, RAF, RW2, DNG …)
- 10 HDR formats + Apple/ISO gain map (iPhone HDR photos)
- Monitor ICC color management — accurate wide-gamut P3
- Parallel multithreaded decoding with preload cache (no UI blocking)
- Adaptive paging — every image actually shows even while holding the key
Only in KingView
Features you will not find in other image viewers — only in KingView.
Playlists
Gather images scattered across folders and archives into one list, just like a music player. Add and reorder in a dedicated manager window, then page through or run a slideshow on that list alone.
Slideshow Backdrop + Music
When aspect ratios differ, a soft blur of the image fills the background instead of black bars — and you can add background music. Viewing photos becomes an exhibition.
Explorer-Style Image Browser
A separate window (G) with folder tree, address bar and thumbnails. One click shows the image full-size in the main window, and archives browse just like folders.
Rating Culling — View Only Your Picks
Rate with Alt+1–5 and auto-advance to the next shot. In the browser, filter by rating, sort by stars and see ★ badges on thumbnails to review only what you picked (Lightroom-compatible XMP).
Magnifier — press and hold
Hold the left mouse button and a magnifier pops up right there, zooming into the finest detail. Release and you are back.
Color picker
Check the color value of any point on the image, right on the spot — handy for design and development work.
Select a region — search & save
Drag to select a region, then run an image search with it or save just that part as an image.
HDR image viewing
Opens HDR images as they are, with rich brightness and color.
View images inside archives
Flip through images inside ZIP and other archives without extracting anything.
Metadata editing
Go beyond viewing EXIF — edit it directly, down to GPS latitude/longitude, and clean up location info before sharing.
Clip Studio .clip preview
Preview Clip Studio (.clip) files instantly, without launching the app.
Text recognition (OCR)
Recognize text in images and copy it out as plain text.
Multiple View Modes
- Fit window / original / fit width / fit height + upscale small images
- Webtoon mode (vertical strip, width 100%/640/760/800px)
- Two-page view (solo cover, right-to-left, smart pairing)
- Loupe — hold left button, always magnifies
- Zoom 5%–5000%, cursor-anchored zoom, edge-locked panning
- Slideshow (4 transitions, blurred backdrop, background music)
- Command palette on the left edge in full screen — nudge the pointer there for rotate, adjust and view commands
- Drop several folders and archives at once and page through them as one list
Image Processing & Adjustment
- Rotate (90°/10° steps, absolute angles), horizontal/vertical flip
- Live adjust — brightness, contrast, gamma, saturation, sharpen (non-destructive)
- Five zoom-quality levels — pixelated to best quality (+sharpen)
- Lossless crop — cut a region from JPEG with zero re-encoding
- Edit date & GPS metadata only — original backed up for 24 h
- Set as wallpaper — pick monitor, backdrop color, position and size with a live preview
Intuitive Interface
- Dark main window with customizable title bar & background colors
- EXIF panel (Tab) + full-tag & XMP metadata window
- Explorer-style image browser — folder tree, archive browsing, multi-select
- Star rating culling — XMP sidecars, Lightroom-compatible, sort by rating
- GIF/APNG/WebP/AVIF/ugoira animation (0.25–4× speed, frame export)
- Full HiDPI support · UI in 20 languages
- Fully remappable shortcuts, mouse buttons, resume last position
- Playlists — gather images from many folders and archives into one list (dedicated manager window)
- Explorer previews out of the box — AVIF, JXL, PSD and 20 formats get thumbnails right in File Explorer
- Recent items panel — click one of your last 10 files or folders straight from the empty window (enable in Settings)
Select a region and the action bar appears — search, copy, save, lossless crop, OCR (actual screenshot)
Region Search · OCR · Photo Culling
Ctrl+drag over the image and an action bar appears instantly: [Google Search] [Copy] [Save] [Lossless Crop] [Extract Text]. Search what you see, save just the part you need as a new file, and copy text right out of the photo — all inside the viewer.
- Ctrl+drag a region → instant Google Lens image search
- Crop & save — cut the region out of the original with zero quality loss
- Text layer (T) — select and copy text inside images (OCR)
- Rate ★1–5 and auto-advance — cull hundreds of shots in minutes (Lightroom-compatible XMP)
- Browser rating filter (*3), sort by rating, ★ badges on thumbnails
- Album folders — one Ins keystroke copies/moves to your picks folder
- Pro color picker (I) — pixel loupe with RGB/HEX/HSL/HSV, one-click copy
KingView Explorer
Installing KingView also installs KingView Explorer, a separate program built for browsing photos. Launch it from the Start menu or from the KingView context menu: pick and organize with the folder tree, thumbnails and preview pane, then double-click to view full-size.
- Archives (ZIP, RAR, 7z and more) expand as nodes right in the folder tree — something Windows Explorer cannot do
- Thumbnail, details and list views, with Ctrl+wheel thumbnail sizing in six steps
- Favorite folders, recent locations in the address bar, name search and patterns like *.jpg
- Star ★, animation and format badges on thumbnails — ratings shared with KingView itself
- Double-click to open the KingView viewer full screen (windowed mode is an option)
- File management — F2 rename, new folder, copy/move/delete, two-way drag and drop with Windows Explorer
Keyboard Shortcuts
| Navigation | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ← / → | Previous / Next image | Home / End | First / Last image |
| Mouse wheel | Previous / Next image | [ / ] | Previous / next archive or folder |
| Ctrl+PgUp / PgDn | Jump 10 forward / back | G | Image browser (separate window) |
| Zoom & Rotation | |||
| + / - | Zoom in / Zoom out | R / E | Rotate right / left 90° |
| Ctrl+Mouse wheel | Zoom in / Zoom out | H / V | Horizontal / Vertical flip |
| 0 | Reset zoom & position | Z | Reset zoom, rotation, flip and adjustments |
| View Modes | |||
| 0 / 7 / 8 / 9 | Original / fit height / fit width / fit window | W | Webtoon strip mode |
| F / Enter | Fullscreen | Tab | EXIF panel |
| Shift+F | Upscale small images | 2 / 3 / 4 | Two-page view (smart pairing, reading direction) |
| B | Grid view (full-window thumbnails) | I | Color picker — pixel loupe + copy color |
| Tools & Files | |||
| Shift+G / Ctrl+Drag | Region select — Google Lens / copy / lossless crop | T | Select & copy text (OCR) |
| A | Live adjust (brightness · contrast · gamma · saturation · sharpen) | Alt+1~5 | Star rating ★1–★5 (auto-advances) |
| Ctrl+0~9 | Slideshow (number = interval in seconds) | Del / Ctrl+Z | Delete to recycle bin / undo delete |
| Ins / Shift+Ins | Send to album folder 1/2 | O | Open file |
Supported Image Formats
| Format | Extensions | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | ||
| JPEG | .jpg .jpeg .jfif |
The universal standard for photos |
| PNG / APNG | .png .apng |
Lossless with transparency; APNG adds animation |
| BMP | .bmp |
Uncompressed Windows bitmap |
| GIF | .gif |
The familiar 256-color and animation format |
| TIFF | .tif .tiff |
High-quality format for print, scanning and archiving |
| ICO | .ico |
Windows icon files |
| TGA | .tga |
True-color format used in games and graphics work |
| PCX | .pcx |
Legacy format from the early PC era |
| PNM | .pnm .pbm .pgm .ppm |
Simple uncompressed Unix-family format |
| QOI | .qoi |
Fast, simple modern lossless format |
| DDS | .dds |
DirectX game texture format |
| Next-Gen | ||
| WebP | .webp |
Google's web-optimized format (supports animation) |
| AVIF | .avif |
Next-gen high-compression format based on AV1 |
| HEIC / HEIF | .heic .heif |
The default iPhone photo format |
| JPEG XL | .jxl |
The official high-efficiency successor to JPEG |
| BPG | .bpg |
HEVC-based high-compression format |
| JPEG 2000 | .jp2 .j2k |
Wavelet format used in medical and archival fields |
| JPEG-XR | .jxr .hdp .wdp |
Microsoft's HD Photo family format |
| Ultra HDR JPEG | .jpg |
Gain-map HDR photos (iPhone/Android) — decoded for true brightness |
| HDR PNG | .png |
PNG carrying HDR brightness data |
| OpenEXR | .exr |
Industry-standard HDR format for film VFX |
| Radiance HDR | .hdr |
HDR format used in 3D rendering and HDRI |
| Professional | ||
| RAW ×40 | .cr2 .cr3 .crw (Canon) · .nef .nrw (Nikon) · .arw .srf .sr2 (Sony) · .raf (Fujifilm) · .orf (Olympus) · .rw2 .rwl (Panasonic) · .pef .ptx (Pentax) · .srw (Samsung) · .dng (Adobe) · .3fr .fff (Hasselblad) · .iiq .cap .eip (Phase One) · .mos (Leaf) · .x3f (Sigma) · .mef (Mamiya) · .mrw (Minolta) · .erf (Epson) · .dcr .kdc .k25 (Kodak) |
40 camera RAW types — no codecs needed |
| PSD / PSB | .psd .psb |
Photoshop documents (PSB for very large files) |
| CLIP | .clip |
Clip Studio Paint originals |
| SVG | .svg |
Vector format that never pixelates when zoomed |
| Animation | ||
| GIF · WebP · APNG | .gif .webp .apng |
Animated images play automatically — speed control and frame export |
| AVIF Sequence | .avif |
AV1-based animation sequences |
| Ugoira | .ugoira |
Pixiv animations play directly, no conversion |
| Archives | ||
| ZIP / ZIPX | .zip .zipx |
The most common archive (password supported) |
| 7-Zip | .7z |
High-ratio open-source archive |
| RAR | .rar |
Widely used commercial archive |
| EGG / ALZ | .egg .alz |
Korean ALZip-family archives |
| TAR family | .tar .gz .bz2 .xz .zst |
Archives from Linux and developer environments |
| LZH / CAB / ISO | .lzh .cab .iso |
Legacy archives, Windows cabinets and disc images |
| Comic books | .cbz .cbr .cb7 |
Comic book archives — perfect with webtoon mode |