The best and fastest image viewer made is Irfanview!!!

Irfanview is by far the best image viewing tool out there. It can also play many media formats, like mp3, mpg, mpeg, flash content like flv games or the older swf files and many others.

Beyond that Irfanview can build you web pages to display pictures to share. It makes the thumbnails and puts them on an index page and then if makes a page for each image to view full sized. You can use some included filters to touch up the images or you can add filters to do even more.

It is in no way comparable to Photo Shop or Paint Shop Pro, but it's not intended to be. Instead it's a stand alone application that you can run from a flash drive and take with you in your pocket without installing anything on a computer I find that handy when showing pictures to others on the fly or getting images from them without having the proper program required to view them. Like when I go to OfficeMax to get larger sized prints and need to check format requirements.

If you decide to install I recommend you install the addons package. It's tiny and useful

Irfanview [Computer version]
Irfanview [Flash drive version]
Plugins
Sample page

*WARNING:

 "Some NSFW content on page. It is just my animated gif page that I use for posting from."

These are the file formats/extensions supported by the current version of IrfanView: AIF¹, ANI, AU¹, AVI, AWD, B3D, BMP, CAM, CLP, CPT, CRW/CR2, CUR, DAT¹,DCM/ACR, DCX, DDS, DIB, DJVU, DLL/EXE, DXF/DWG/HPGL/CGM/SVG, ECW, EMF,EPS/PS/PDF/AI, EXR, FITS, FLI/FLC², FPX, FSH, G3, GIF, GLCD, HDP/WDP, HDR,ICL, ICO, IFF/LBM, IMG, JLS, JP2, JPG/JPEG, JPM, KDC, Mac PICT², MAG, MED,MID, MNG/JNG, MOV¹², MP3, MPG/MPEG¹, MPO, MrSID, NLM/NOL/NGG/NSL/OTB/GSM, OGG, PBM, PCX, PDF, PDN, PGM, PIC, PhotoCD,PNG, PPM, PSD, PSP, PVR, QTIF², RAS/SUN, RealAudio, RAW, RLE, RMI, SFF,SFW, SGI/RGB, MrSID, SWF/FLV, SND¹, TGA, TIF/TIFF, TTF, TXT, WAD, WAL,WAV, WBMP, WMF, WMA, WMV, WBC/WBZ, WEBP, WSQ, XBM, XCF, XPM, (DNG, EEF, NEF, ORF, RAF, MRW, DCR, PEF, SRF, X3F, RW2, NRW). ¹ Microsoft's Media Player program is required for these formats. ² Apple's QuickTime program is required for these formats. Note: Many of these formats are supported through PlugIns, check the table below and read the file "i_plugins.txt" for more infos. PlugIns Download: http://www.irfanview.com/plugins.htm IrfanView Formats Overview: Extension Format name Open Save AIF Sound file, Audio Interchange Format YES¹ ³ ANI Animated Cursor format for Microsoft Windows YES AU, SND Encoded Audio format used by Sun and NeXT machines YES¹ ³ AVI, WMV, ASF Audio Video Interleaved: Microsoft's video for Windows YES B3D BodyPaint 3D Format YES³ BMP, DIB Windows Bitmap YES YES CAM Casio digital camera file YES³ (JPG version) CLP Windows clipboard format YES CPT CorelDraw Photopaint image YES (CPT version 6) CRW, CR2 Canon RAW image YES³ CUR Cursor Resource file format for Microsoft Windows YES DCM, ACR, IMA Dicom/ACR file format for medical images YES³ DCX Multipage PCX files format YES DDS Direct Draw Surface YES³ DJVU, IW44 DjVu file format YES³ DXF, DWG, HPGL, CGM, SVG CAD formats YES³ ECW Enhanced Compressed Wavelet YES³ YES³ EMF Enhanced Metafile Format YES YES EPS, PS, PDF, AI PostScript formats YES³ EXR OpenEXR format YES³ FITS Flexible Image Transport System YES³ FLI, FLC Autodesk animation format YES² ³ FPX FlashPix format YES³ FSH EA Sports FSH format YES³ YES³ G3 Group 3 Facsimile Apparatus format YES³ GIF Graphics Interchange Format YES YES HDP, WDP Microsoft HD Photo format YES³ HDR High Dynamic Range YES³ ICL, EXE, DLL Icon Library formats YES (icons) ICO Windows Icon YES YES IFF, LBM Interchange File Format YES IMG GEM Raster image YES³ JLS JPEG-LS, Lossless JPEG YES³ JP2, JPC, J2K JPEG 2000 format YES³ YES³ JPG, JPEG Joint Photographic Experts Group YES YES JPM JPEG2000/Part6, LuraDocument.jpm YES³ YES³ KDC Kodak digital camera format YES³ Mac PICT, QTIF Macintosh PICT format YES² ³ MED MED/OctaMED sound format YES³ MID, RMI Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) YES³ MNG, JNG Multiple Network Graphics YES³ MOV, MP4 QuickTime Movie format YES² ³ MP3 MPEG audio layer 3 format YES³ MPG, MPEG Moving Pictures Experts Group format YES¹ ³ MrSID, SID LizardTech's SID Wavelet format YES³ DNG, EFF, NEF, MRW, ORF, RAF, DCR, SRF, ARW PEF, X3F, RW2, NRW Digital camera RAW formats (Adobe, Epson, Nikon, Minolta, Olympus, Fuji, Kodak, Sony, Pentax, Sigma) YES³ NLM/NOL/NGG/OTB/GSM Nokia/LogoManager files YES³ OGG OGG Vorbis audio format YES³ PBM Portable Bitmap file format YES YES PCX PC Paintbrush format from ZSoft Corporation YES YES PCD Kodak Photo CD YES PDN Paint.NET file format YES³ PGM Portable Greymap file format YES YES PIC Softimage PICT YES³ PNG Portable Network Graphics YES YES PPM Portable Pixelmap format YES YES PSD Adobe PhotoShop format YES PSP Paint Shop Pro file format YES³ RAS, SUN Sun Raster format YES³ RA RealAudio sound format YES³ RAW Raw (binary) data YES³ RLE Utah RLE format YES³ SFF Structured Fax File YES³ SFW Seattle Film Works format YES³ SGI, RGB, RGBA Silicon Graphics format YES³ SWF, FLVFLV Macromedia's Flash/Shockwave format YES³ TGA Truevision Advanced Raster Graphics Adapter (TARGA) YES YES TIF, TIFF Tagged Image File Format YES YES TTF True Type Font YES³ TXT Text (ASCII) file YES WAD WAD3 game format YES³ WAL Quake 2 textures YES³ WAV, WMA Windows audio file YES³ WBC/WBZ WebShots formats YES³ WBMP WAP Bitmap format YES³ WEBP Weppy file format YES³ YES³ WMF Windows Metafile format YES WSQ Wavelet Scaler Quantization YES³ XBM X11 Bitmap YES³ XCF GIMP file format YES³ XPM X11 Pixmap YES³ ¹ Microsoft's Active Movie program is required for these formats. ² Apple's QuickTime program is required for these formats. ³ PlugIn is required for these formats, see above for download.