I also use Faststone a lot, as it is one of the most versatile programs of its type.
My main complaint about it is that it does read NEF files oddly sometimes. It tends to over-brighten shots that are purposely dark or low key.
In answer to MEPER's question, Faststone does not do the same operations on Raw files as the Nikon programs do. It does a lot, but does not change white balance, exposure comp, etc. in the same way. But it does do a good job of level correction, and seems to have a better facility for recovering highlights than most programs, including the Nikon ones.
e.t.a. interrupted by dinner, I should mention that you can fine tune the reading of files in Faststone, and it's possible one can get it right with enough effort. I tend not to be very diligent about color purity, but in recent efforts to do low-key macros with flash, I've found it better to use some other program to do the basic conversion to JPG even if I end up using Faststone in the end for convenient finishing.
