PSD CODEC

This small application enables your Windows system to natively support the display of Adobe Photoshop Document (PSD and PSB) files through its default image viewing application, may that be either the newer Windows Picture Viewer or the older Windows Photo Gallery and Windows Live Photo Gallery tools.

It also allows previewing and displaying Photoshop PSD files in Windows Explorer or even in Windows Media Center. This tiny plug-in is fully compatible with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows, and it supports all the latest editions of Windows: Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP.

This program will allow you to preview the Photoshop files in Windows Explorer as their thumbnails will be shown in any window of the Windows Explorer as well as in any standard file opening dialog boxes. Furthermore, besides PSD and PSB files, it will let you observe thumbnails for EPS, AI or even PDF files which were saved with XMP-formatted thumbnails. Last but not least, it will enable viewing XMP, IPTC, and EXIF metadata from PSD and PSB files; and searching the file system based on these metadata using Windows Desktop Search.

Installing and using this plug-in is a simple matter that can be handled by anyone. The application has small flaws: it requires a system restart after its installation and its so-called “Preferences” window contains no actual preferences, but just the registration dialog. Anyway, if you work with PSD files on a Windows system on a constant basis, you will find that this nice little tool is undeniably handy.