How to open a photo in an editor from your file manager

Right-click the photo in Disk Sort by Zaweba and choose Open with. The menu lists installed Zaweba apps that can edit the file first, such as Paint by Zaweba, then the apps that view it, then the Windows default program and Choose another app. Pick the editor and the photo opens in it.

Sorting and editing tend to happen in the same sitting. You flick through a folder, find a picture worth working on, and want it in a proper editor without hunting for it again from inside that editor's own Open window.

Where Open with lives

Open with is on the right-click menu and on the File menu. It works from the thumbnails (Ctrl+1), the detailed list (Ctrl+2) and the one picture view (Ctrl+3 or Enter), so you can choose a photo however you are looking at the folder.

The order of the list is deliberate. Editors come first because opening a photo to change it is the common reason to reach for this menu. Viewers come next for when you just want a better look. The Windows default program and Choose another app are always at the end, so any other program on your computer is still within reach.

For several files at once, only apps that take many files at once are offered. That keeps you from sending a batch to a program that would only open the first one.

Keyboard routes

Enter opens the selected picture in Disk Sort's own large view. Ctrl+Enter opens the file with the Windows default program, which is quickest when that default is already the editor you use. Shift+Enter shows the file in Explorer, handy when another program wants you to drag it from there.

Quick edits without leaving

Not every fix needs an editor. In the large view, E opens Disk Sort's own photo editor: crop with aspect presets or a custom ratio, straighten with a slider, turn left or right with [ and ], and adjust Brightness, Contrast and Warmth, with Auto-level. Edits are stored beside the photo and the original is never modified. Ctrl+E exports the tagged or selected photos as new files with the edits applied.

A sensible split is to do crops and straightening in Disk Sort while you sort, and open the few pictures that need real retouching in an editor through Open with.

Opening photos from inside archives

ZIP, 7z, RAR and TAR files open as folders in Disk Sort. If you open a photo from inside one, it is copied read-only to a temporary folder first. That protects the archive, but a read-only temporary copy is not the place to keep changes. To edit a picture from an archive for keeps, extract it first with Extract to on the right-click menu, then open the extracted copy.

Keeping track of what you edited

Mark the pictures you plan to edit with a star or as keepers (P), or tag them with T, and the photo filter or G brings them back as a list later. That way you can sort a whole folder first, then open the chosen ones in an editor one after another.

Disk Sort by Zaweba is free and runs offline, and it only lists the Zaweba apps you actually have installed.