Windows 10 default Photo Viewer - png files - Black Background Issues

Hi,

Thank you for the update and apologies for any miscommunication.

This issue is commonly caused due to incompatible/corrupted/missing display driver since I am able to view png files without any issues. Please visit the computer manufacturer's support website and install the latest display driver available.

If it is already updated, you may want to install the same driver in compatibility mode and check.

a. Right click the driver installation file and select Properties then tap or click the Compatibility tab.

b. Place a check in the Run this program in compatibility mode for: box.

c. Tap or click the drop down box and select a previous operating system, then tap or click OK.

d. Try installing the driver and check.

You may refer to: Make older programs compatible with this version of Windows (information holds good for Windows 10 as well)

Hope this helps.

I don't think you are reading the posts. You have probably got lots of other posts to respond to as well, but I think responding to some of them properly is better than responding to all of them with nonsense.

You have said you can view png files without issues. Prove it! Open this png in your photo viewer, and show us the screen shot. It should of course show you the text, as below.

If you do this, you will just see a black screen like everyone else:

The issue, as everyone here has already said, is that the photos app is using a black background to render transparent images. This is not what everyone is used to, and is causing problems for a lot of users.

It's fixed! Just tested it out. It now has a grey/white pattern as a background, even as a thumbnail

EDIT: Only works if you open the image via Windows Explorer. Not working with the Photos App native image browser

No this issue is NOT fixed.

The reported issue refers to the Win10 photo program which renders a black canvas.

The top image above is displayed in "Windows Photo Viewer" which is a different program (which is not Win10's default image viewer); it has a pale colour canvas which "shows through" transparent areas of a transparent graphic.

@Microsoft - can you please simply advise if the Win10 default Photo application has any means of changing the display canvas from black to some other colour?  This has nothing to do with defective installations or device drivers - it is as simple as someone designed this very badly - PHOTOGRAPHS on a black background might look OK, but a black background is totally useless for displaying graphics having transparent backgrounds - particularly black on transparent.

In passing, Windows Photo Viewer similarly (without the ability to change the canvas colour) is useless at displaying pale or white graphics having a transparent background.

Generic image display applications need the ability to change to colour of the canvas... which got me thinking!

Going back to pre-Win8 it used to be possible to change the SYSTEM colours of nearly every element of the Window - specifically the window canvas.  I just went and looked at the Win10 THEMES and chose the High Contrast WHITE BACKGROUND option.  Hey Presto! the PHOTO application now has a white background and transparent .png files display OK.  The rest of the display is completely garish, but that is a different matter.

Turns out this is not strictly a PHOTO program issue, rather a general Win10 issue that one cannot (apparently) select specific colours for individual components of the window, particularly in this case the canvas colour.

EDIT: I went to get a screen shot to illustrate this and I discovered that some transparent graphics render correctly, whilst others still display on a black back ground, even with the white high contrast canvas.  I have seen this elsewhere where the viewer (program) processes the transparency settings incorrectly.  There might be multiple issues in play here.

The reported issue refers to the Win10 photo program which renders a black canvas.

I've attached two screenshots, the first one with the old Windows Photo Viewer, just that you guys can see, that it really is a transparent PNG and works fine with the old program. The second screenshot is the new default Windows Photo App and now has this background pattern for all transparent images - at least for me, with all new Windows updates installed. Maybe it's because of SageThumbs which I have installed additionally.

EDIT: Oh I see the background is back to black again at the moment... weird, it was truly working that day

2nd EDIT: Okay SAGETHUMBS is the key here (download here)! I enabed .png thumbnails in the settings of the program and boom, there is the grey/white background. The reason for this is that SageThumbs creates the thumbnail with this background and the new Windows Photo App displays this exact thumbnail when opening the file. When I zoom in (and the app renders the image instead of taking its thumbnail) the background changes to black again. So the issue still exists.. It would have been too good to be true :(

3rd EDIT: Unfortunately not a perfect solution because it doesn't work for high-resolution images. The app renders these files instantly instead of showing the thumbnail first, because the thumbnail resolution is too small compared to the actual image dimensions.

You can re-enable old style Windows Photo Viewer with a small registry tweak:

http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/bring-back-the-windows-photo-viewer-in-windows-10/

that's a bit pointless the program should work and needs to be fixed the way it is it is just a second class telephone OS.   I am about to go back to windows 7 at least it works 

When I first upgraded to Windows 10 and found this problem with black showing through transparency, I decided the Windows 10 Photo app was not something I wanted to use ever again, I simply set Windows Photo Viewer as my default image opener because it gives a near-white background.  I just got a new computer yesterday and Windows Photo Viewer is not on the system!  I've updated all the Windows 10 updates and I've poured over the internet, Microsoft's website and everything but can't find how to download Windows Photo Viewer. Seriously Microsoft? What's your deal?  I found a solution:  On the Microsoft site: you can download the Windows Essentials suite from 2012: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/download-windows-essentials#wetabs=we2012  Download the suite from 2012. Open that up and only install Windows Photo Gallery. It works pretty dang close to Windows Photo Viewer. It still opens quickly and at least it doesn't have the terrible black canvas background!

Here I got the solution. check this out:

[Tip] Restoring “Windows Photo Viewer” as Default in Windows 10

I chose METHOD 3: Add "Windows Photo Viewer" Program in "Open With" List,

And it works very well in my computer. But you can choose from any 4 methods.

sorry but that is just another work around Microsoft should fix the problem

This is probably the worst response to a forum question i have ever seen.