Which photo formats Disk Sort shows, HEIC included
Disk Sort by Zaweba shows JPG, PNG, WebP, HEIC, GIF, BMP and TIFF as thumbnails and full size, the right way up, with camera and date details.
Photos come in more formats than they used to. Disk Sort by Zaweba shows JPG, PNG, WebP, HEIC, GIF, BMP and TIFF, both as thumbnails in the Files tab and full size in the large picture view. Each is shown the right way up from the camera's EXIF orientation note, and the info panel gives camera and date details.
The formats and where they come from
JPG is still the most common photo format, made by most cameras and phones and used by most websites.
HEIC is the format many recent phones, iPhones especially, save photos in by default. It keeps good quality in smaller files, but plenty of programs on Windows still struggle to show it. Being able to flick through HEIC pictures without converting them first is one of the reasons people pick a sorter that reads them.
PNG is common for screenshots and graphics, and for pictures with sharp edges or text.
WebP turns up when you save pictures from the web.
GIF covers short animations and old web graphics. BMP is an older Windows format, often from scanners and very old software. TIFF is used by scanners and in photography and printing work where quality matters more than size.
The right way up
Phones and cameras rarely turn the pixels when you hold them sideways. They store a note in the photo saying which way up it should be. Disk Sort reads that note, so portrait shots appear upright in thumbnails and in the large view without you turning anything. For the odd picture a camera got wrong, the editor's [ and ] keys turn it left or right.
Camera and date details
The info panel on the right shows camera and date details for the selected photo, and the detailed list has camera and date taken columns. Sorting by date taken lines up pictures from several devices in the order they were really taken, which matters when a phone and a camera were both used on the same day. The photo filter can show pictures from one camera only.
What you can do with each format
All seven formats work with the photo tools. Mark keepers with P, rate with 1 to 5, zoom to compare sharpness in the large view, and press E to crop, straighten and adjust. Edits are stored beside the photo and the originals are never modified; Ctrl+E exports the tagged or selected photos with edits as new files.
Bulk rename can use photo details in names, with tokens such as {width}, {height}, {camera}, {lens} and {rating}.
Mixed folders
Folders from a phone often mix HEIC photos with JPG screenshots and PNG images saved from apps. The kind filter can show only pictures, so documents and videos don't get in the way, and the TYPES tab totals a folder by extension, which shows how much space each format takes.
Other files
Disk Sort isn't only for photos. Everything else on the drive appears in the file list with its size and dates, and Open with lists installed Zaweba apps that edit or view the selected file, followed by the Windows default program. Ctrl+Enter opens a file with its default program.
For the photos themselves, Disk Sort by Zaweba gives you one place to see, sort and tidy all seven formats, whatever device they came from.
