Cobalt Photo
For Windows 10 and 11 · x64 and Arm

Every picture.
Open in an instant.

Cobalt Photo opens 43 picture formats — photos, RAW, Photoshop, icons, SVG, JPEG XL — finds any shot by date, place or camera, edits it, and saves it to any of 13 formats, by the hundred. The viewer is free. Forever.

Download from the Microsoft Store See what it opens ↓
Pro: 14 days free, no card. Then $3.99 a month — everything included.
Cobalt Photo viewer: Lago di Carezza
43formats it opens
23of them RAW, 17 camera makers
13formats it saves to
172slideshow transitions
$3.99a month for all of it
Opens everything FREE

No “can’t open this file” again.

Photoshop files without Photoshop. JPEG XL without a plugin. RAW straight off the card. Cobalt Photo reads them itself — Windows doesn’t have to.

  • Next picture already there. The neighbours are read while you look.
  • Huge files open fast. A 463 MB Photoshop file is on screen in 0.17 s.
  • Free forever — no ads, no time limit.
43formats,
one viewer
JPEG it also saves to · PSD it opens · and PDF, to save pictures as pages
HEIC opens and saves with Windows’ free HEIF and HEVC extensions. RAW: the camera’s own preview at once, the full picture developed when you zoom in.
360° and panoramas FREE

Step inside your 360° photos.

A 360° shot opens from the inside: drag to look around, scroll to look closer, the compass shows where you face. Panoramas fill the height, with a mini-map of the whole strip under them.

  • Insta360, Ricoh Theta, phones, drones — marked spheres are found by themselves.
  • Sharp from inside — read at up to 8192 px once you start looking.
  • PANO and 360° tags on the thumbnails, and a search for them.
A 360° photo seen from inside, the compass turning
A panorama gone along, its mini-map under it
Your library PRO

All your photos. One calm window.

Folders, drives and cloud folders on the left, the thumbnails in the middle, everything about the picture on the right — its light, its colours, where and when it was taken. Open one, and the full viewer opens right there.

  • Stars, labels and tags written into the file — 1–5, 6–9, X to reject.
  • RAW + JPG as one tile, cloud files never downloaded just to show them.
  • Rotate, resize, rename, move in batches — with Undo.
The manager with a trip's folder
The folderA picture’s detailsOpen — right inside
Where taken PRO

See where you’ve been.

Open a folder of trip photos and its map draws itself: every place with its pictures and how many. Click a place and you’re looking at just those.

  • Offline — the world’s borders and towns ship with the app.
  • “Carvoeiro, Faro” — places named the way people say them.
  • Share without your home address — remove the location from copies in one go.
A folder's map of where it was taken
One picture's place, light and colours
RAW PRO

RAW, developed. On every core.

See the camera’s preview the moment a card is open. Zoom in, and the shot is developed from the sensor data — highlights pulled back, colours as the camera meant them.

  • Convert a whole card to JPG, HEIC or 16-bit TIFF, developed anew.
  • Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fujifilm, Olympus, Panasonic, Pentax, Leica, Hasselblad and every DNG.
Camera previewDeveloped
2.3×faster on all cores
3.9×converting 3 at once
16-bitTIFF and PNG out
Editor PRO

Brush it away. It’s gone.

Paint over what doesn’t belong and it fills in from around it. Then crop, light, colour, curves — all in 16 bits, saved as a copy or over the original with Undo.

  • Retouch — fill from surroundings, healing brush, clone stamp.
  • Areas — change one part of the picture, or one colour only.
  • Text, stickers, watermark, frames and effects.
The editor with a balloon over the Alps
The photoPaint over the balloonFilled from around it
Slideshow

172 ways from one photo to the next.

Pick one transition or let them take turns. Add your own music, choose the facts on screen, show two photos side by side or a wall of prints — on whichever monitor you like.

  • F5 from anywhere — the viewer, a folder, a search, a selection.
  • Your music from your own files.
  • Settings open free; the show itself is Pro.
The slideshow's window
Convert PRO

Same look. Much smaller files.

Drop a folder, pick a format, done. AVIF and JPEG XL keep the picture as it is at a fraction of the size — and the location is left out of the copies.

  • Saves to 13 formats — every one worth saving to: JPG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, HEIC, JPEG XL, TIFF, BMP, GIF, JPEG XR, ICO, TGA, and PDF. RAW, Photoshop and Krita files are opened, not written: those are what a camera or an editor makes.
  • Exact size — width × height with crop, fit or stretch; or 75 %, half, the long side.
  • 2–3 pictures at once, so a hundred go by quickly.
Convert with 23 photos, AVIF chosen
JPEG 85100 %
JPEG XL 85~70 %
AVIF 65~60 %
The same look as JPEG 85 — measured on our test photos.
Cull PRO

Keep the sharp one. Skip the rest.

Shots taken within a second of each other become a series. Cobalt Photo tells you which is sharpest, you press X on the misses, and Done sends them to a folder or the Recycle Bin.

  • The whole burst side by side, and at 100 %.
  • Find duplicates across folders, even resized copies.
  • Import from a card into folders by date.
Cull: the sharpest of a burst, five stars
One at a timeThe burst side by side
For designers and developers FREE

Icons, animations, vectors and layers.

The files other viewers show as a blank square.

Every size of an icon

ICO, CUR and macOS ICNS: each size in a row, saved as PNG one by one or all at once.

Animations that play

GIF, animated WebP, APNG and animated cursors — pause, step frame by frame, save a frame.

SVG, sharp at any zoom

Drawn as vectors, not pixels — zoom in as far as you like and the edges stay clean.

463 MB · on screen in 0.17 s

Photoshop, Krita, OpenRaster

PSD, PSB, KRA and ORA as their finished picture, plus TGA from games and 3D.

Right where you are PRO

No app to open first.

Right-click pictures in Explorer, or drop them on the shelf that slides in at the edge of the screen. Converted, shrunk for mail or cleaned of their location — next to the originals, which stay untouched.

📁 Pictures › Portugal 2023
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Open
Share
Cobalt Photo›
Copy
Rename
Properties
To JPG
To PNG
Smaller for mail
Remove location
To PDF
✓ 4 pictures → JPG, beside the originals · Show
The drop shelf
Drag pictures to the edge of the screen
Fast

Made to keep up with you.

Native Windows code, every core put to work, nothing waiting on a server.

0 s

to the next picture

It is read while you look at this one.

0.17 s

a 463 MB Photoshop file

On screen at once, the full picture read behind it.

1.2 s

36 megapixels to JPEG XL

A full-frame shot saved in a modern format.

2.3×

RAW on all cores

11 cameras’ shots developed in 11.3 s instead of 26.2.

3.9×

Convert, several at once

Nine RAW files to JPG in 7.3 s instead of 28.3.

Instant

folders you’ve seen

Thumbnails are kept; cloud files are never downloaded just to show them.

Measured on our test PC.
Pricing

Free to look. $3.99 to do everything.

One plan, everything in it, no extras to buy. Try all of Pro for 14 days — no card, nothing to cancel.

Viewer

$0 forever
  • Opens all 43 formats
  • 360° photos, panoramas, animations, icons, SVG
  • Zoom, full screen, the whole folder
  • Rotate and flip, saved to the file
  • Copy, print, share, set as wallpaper, delete
Download from the Microsoft Store Free, with no ads

Cobalt Photo Pro

$3.99 a month
  • Everything in Viewer, plus:
  • The library: search, places, saved searches
  • RAW development, Cull, duplicates, import
  • The editor: retouch, areas, text and effects
  • Convert and resize to 13 formats, Save as
  • Slideshow, the Explorer menu and the drop shelf
✓ 14 days free — no card, it simply stops if you don’t subscribe.
Download from the Microsoft Store The same app — Pro is switched on inside it
No account. Microsoft Store handles the subscription.
Your pictures stay on your PC. Nothing is uploaded.
Works offline, maps and places included.
x64 and Arm, Windows 10 and 11.

Questions

Is the viewer really free?

Yes, with no time limit and no ads. Open any picture, go through the folder, zoom, rotate, print, share. Pro adds the library, the editor, Convert, RAW development and the rest.

What happens after the 14 days?

Pro windows tell you how many days are left. When the trial ends they ask you to subscribe; the viewer keeps working as before. Nothing is charged unless you subscribe in Microsoft Store.

How do I cancel?

In your Microsoft account, under Services & subscriptions — any time. Pro works until the end of the period you paid for.

Why does it open 43 formats but save only 13?

Because the other 30 are made by something else. RAW is what a camera writes from its sensor; Photoshop, Krita and OpenRaster files are an editor’s own documents with layers; ICNS, cursors and SVG are made by the tools that draw them. Cobalt Photo opens all of them and saves what you need from them: JPG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, HEIC, JPEG XL, TIFF and the rest.

Do my photos go anywhere?

No. Cobalt Photo works with the files on your PC and in your Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive or iCloud folders. Places are named from data inside the app, without the internet.

Can it be the app my pictures open in?

Yes — choose Cobalt Photo Viewer once in Windows’ Default apps, and a double click opens pictures in it.

ViewerCobalt PhotoManagerConverter

Every picture. Open in an instant.

Free viewer. Pro for $3.99 a month, 14 days free.

Download from the Microsoft Store