How to disable blur in Windows 10's Photo Viewer when zooming (or alternative programs)?

Question

I work on pixel art stuff so this always bothers me. Windows 10's default imageviewer does this to the images:

and while it's great for some types of images it doesn't work with what I usually have to look at. Something that bothers me is that when I close the program it shows the image without blurriness for a split second, so I wonder if I there's a way to completely disable the feature. Good program alternatives are also appreciated.

Answer 1

Irfanview is a good alternative to the windows photo viewer, and it has existed since the Windows Xp era. It has many skins and plugins that you can use to customize it to your liking. Windows Photo Viewer does not have an option to disable automatic blurring, so this is a better substiute.

It is a solid piece of software that you can use for all the purposes you can use the default photo viewer for. I'm very sure that unlike Windows Photo Viewer, it does not antialias(blur) the image that you are zooming into, although it has an old looking design.

Answer 2

The default Windows 10 app for viewing pictures is Photos. On the other hand Windows Photo Viewer is an older app, which I - and many others - preferred. You can still enable this program on Windows 10 to get the old behaviour back. Here's A tutorial on how to do it, although it requires some registry edits, which always seem a bit scary. It worked perfectly for me though. See comparison below:

Blurry - Photos

Not blurry - Windows Photo Viewer

It also offeres greater maginification and seems more responsive / is quicker to open