I'm a long-time user of both gPhotoShow and Wallpaper Slideshow Pro, and I've recently started taking a lot more photos with my iPhone than with my dSLR which means most of them are stored in HEIC format.
I was surprised to note that while gPhotoShow supports HEIC on Windows 10 via the Windows Store codec, WSS Pro doesn't. Are there plans to add compatibility to WSS or is this some sort of technical limitation? I understand WSS works by re-writing everything to a large BMP on the fly anyway so I can't imagine there's a technical barrier, but when Microsoft is involved who knows?
I could convert my HEICs to JPGs and store them separately for WSS purposes, but I'd rather keep everything native if possible. At the moment this is no more than a slight irritation (probably less than 5% of my photos are HEIC) but as I will no doubt take more photos with Apple hardware it's going to become more significant.
I hope this is something that's in the pipeline, but either way thanks for providing some great software that's still the best of its type IMO. I've just checked my email correspondence and the first mention of gPhotoShow is from 2003, and I've never found anything more feature-rich in all the time since. That's some impressive longevity.
HEIC support
Re: HEIC support
Hello,
WallpaperSS Pro should load and display heic files in the same way as gPhotoShow Pro.
Did you add heic file extension in Settings->Option->general ? In the middle of the window there is a ckecbox labeled "Additional file extension", tick the ckeckbox and add "heic" (without quotes!) in the text box
This should be enough to find heic files and load them when building wallpaper
WallpaperSS Pro should load and display heic files in the same way as gPhotoShow Pro.
Did you add heic file extension in Settings->Option->general ? In the middle of the window there is a ckecbox labeled "Additional file extension", tick the ckeckbox and add "heic" (without quotes!) in the text box
This should be enough to find heic files and load them when building wallpaper
Gianpaolo Bottin
gPhotoShow.com
gPhotoShow.com
Re: HEIC support
Apologies for necroing this thread but there are three reasons:
1. You are absolutely right, Wallpaper SS Pro does display HEIC files if those instructions are followed.
2. I must apologise profusely for not seeing this reply for two years. Really not sure how I missed it, or why I forgot to check for an answer.
3. The reason I'm back here at all is because I'd forgotten I'd asked this question before and I just had reason to ponder it again. When I put "wallpaperslideshow pro heic" into Brave Search, the first response was from whatever LLM-based AI they're using, and it gave the following with two citations:
"Wallpaper Slideshow Pro does not currently support HEIC files, unlike gPhotoShow Pro which can display HEIC files when the appropriate codec is installed. You can add HEIC file support to gPhotoShow Pro by installing the HEIF codec from the Microsoft Store and configuring the software to recognize HEIC files. However, as of now, there are no plans to add HEIC compatibility to Wallpaper Slideshow Pro, despite it being technically feasible since the program can handle BMP files dynamically."
Disappointed, I followed the link to the second source it cited and it was this thread! The AI appears to have taken my erroneous assertion that HEIC wasn't supported, and is parroting a version of it back as an answer two years later. It doesn't seem to have factored in the correct answer, from the author no less, at all.
I've had a "conversation" with the AI in which I got it to correct its initial answer (this time it parroted your response as a series of bullet points) but new searches for "wallpaperslideshow pro heic" are still returning the original, erroneous, answer at time of posting. I don't know if this is due to cached data. I'd like to think it will auto-correct given time now that it "knows" it made a mistake, but I've no idea how these things work if I'm being honest.
I can only apologise for a) missing this answer for two years and b) inadvertently seeding at least one AI with bad data. If I remember I'll try the search again in a week and see if it's giving the right answer then. If not, I might just delete the original message since it seems to have confused at least one LLM and may be leading people astray who take the answer at face value without checking the source.
Thanks again for some great software. In terms of pixels pushed to screen per unit time, your programs might be second only to Windows itself as the things with which I've visually interacted most in the last 22 years.
1. You are absolutely right, Wallpaper SS Pro does display HEIC files if those instructions are followed.
2. I must apologise profusely for not seeing this reply for two years. Really not sure how I missed it, or why I forgot to check for an answer.
3. The reason I'm back here at all is because I'd forgotten I'd asked this question before and I just had reason to ponder it again. When I put "wallpaperslideshow pro heic" into Brave Search, the first response was from whatever LLM-based AI they're using, and it gave the following with two citations:
"Wallpaper Slideshow Pro does not currently support HEIC files, unlike gPhotoShow Pro which can display HEIC files when the appropriate codec is installed. You can add HEIC file support to gPhotoShow Pro by installing the HEIF codec from the Microsoft Store and configuring the software to recognize HEIC files. However, as of now, there are no plans to add HEIC compatibility to Wallpaper Slideshow Pro, despite it being technically feasible since the program can handle BMP files dynamically."
Disappointed, I followed the link to the second source it cited and it was this thread! The AI appears to have taken my erroneous assertion that HEIC wasn't supported, and is parroting a version of it back as an answer two years later. It doesn't seem to have factored in the correct answer, from the author no less, at all.
I've had a "conversation" with the AI in which I got it to correct its initial answer (this time it parroted your response as a series of bullet points) but new searches for "wallpaperslideshow pro heic" are still returning the original, erroneous, answer at time of posting. I don't know if this is due to cached data. I'd like to think it will auto-correct given time now that it "knows" it made a mistake, but I've no idea how these things work if I'm being honest.
I can only apologise for a) missing this answer for two years and b) inadvertently seeding at least one AI with bad data. If I remember I'll try the search again in a week and see if it's giving the right answer then. If not, I might just delete the original message since it seems to have confused at least one LLM and may be leading people astray who take the answer at face value without checking the source.
Thanks again for some great software. In terms of pixels pushed to screen per unit time, your programs might be second only to Windows itself as the things with which I've visually interacted most in the last 22 years.
Re: HEIC support
FWIW I used the Brave Search feedback tool last week, and as of March 1st 2025 the AI is now returning a more accurate if non-committal answer to this question. Its primary citation is now the author's reply, rather than my OP, but with the caveat "This may not fully resolve the issue." I'm guessing it's over-interpreting the word "should".
Trust me, this definitely does fix the problem and Wallpaper Slideshow Pro does work with HEIC files.
(Let's hope the AI is still parsing this thread
)
Trust me, this definitely does fix the problem and Wallpaper Slideshow Pro does work with HEIC files.
(Let's hope the AI is still parsing this thread
)