Software Review – Lyn Photo Viewer for Mac

Lyn is a browser-based photo viewing application for the Mac Operating System. It works on Mac OS X 10.4 or later. It’s currently listed as a public beta that is set to expire on January 15, 2011.

Lyn is a very intuitive photo viewer. No manual is provided (or needed). The help menu has a very cursory overview of the application. However, I really didn’t need a manual. I was able to walk through the application in a few minutes and easily understand how to use it.

The user interface is very intuitive. The UI reminds me of a cross between the Finder and Adobe Bridge. The file folders are listed in the left pane of the application with the photos in the right pane. It also provides several options on how to view the photos (tiled, single photo with slide bar, and a list with metadata). The search function seems to work only with the filename and filetype, not the EXIF data.  Lyn also allow you to view photos in multiple folders by command clicking on each folder – a very nice feature.

Double click to view a single image. Lyn has a toolbar on the top of the window that quickly lets you zoom in and out, zoom to 100%, and rotate the image. It also has a button to view the image on a full screen and a slideshow button. The Info “I” button shows most of the meta/EXIF data for the photo. Geotag data was also shown for my iPhone pictures.

Overall, Lyn is an easy to use, free photo browser. The app was also very stable for a beta app. It did not crash on me at all. It also supported all of the file types that I use: Canon Raw, Nikon Raw, tif, and jpeg.   The app is supposed to support all popular photo formats. Visit their website for a list. It was also very intuitive to use – no manual needed.

There are a few features that it is missing that would prevent me from using the application on a daily basis. I’d like to have some ability to update EXIF data and delete files. Since you cannot delete files or mark them for deletion, you cannot use Lyn to delete unwanted photos after a photo shoot. Also, it would be great to search on EXIF data. The app also was a little slow to load RAW and large tif photos. Then again, I’m also a 3 year old iMac.   Hopefully, these and more features are to come after the public beta expires on January 15, 2011.

Give Lyn a try at www.lynapp.com.

Related Blog Posts
Keyboard Short Cuts to Speed Up Culling Your Bird and Wildlife Photographs in Lightroom
Testing the Photoshop 2023 Object Selection Tool on a Variety of Nature Photographs
How Well Does the Remove Powerlines Feature Work in Luminar Neo?