The Bottom Line
IrfanView is a very small and speedy free (for personal use) image viewer and thumbnail browser with impressive file format support and lots of extras.
Pros
- IrfanView is free for non-commercial use.
- Very small and fast. Does not put a strain on system resources.
- Views, opens, and converts to and from an impressive number of file formats.
- Works in older Windows versions going back to Windows 95.
Cons
- Some portions of the user interface look outdated.
- Only one undo level.
- Google toolbar and Desktop Search installers are bundled. You must manually opt out if you don't wan
Description
- Quickly view images, browse thumbnails, print, sort and manage image, audio, and video files.
- Image editing and manipulation - crop, flip, resize, color correct, sharpen, fix red eye, lossless JPEG rotation, etc.
- Special effects - 3d button, blur, emboss, oil paint, edge detection, median, explosion, pixelize, sepia, rain drops.
- Create a panorama by joining multiple images, view EXIF and IPTC metadata, send files by email or FTP.
- Batch processing - convert, rename, scan, apply adjustments, add overly text, and capture screen shots all in batch mode.
- View and export stand-alone slide shows, generate contact sheets, generate HTML for simple photo gallery thumbnail pages.
- Use simple drawing tools to add markup and text to your images.
- A set of free plugins adds more file formats and additional features. Supports third-party Filter Factory and 8bf plug-ins.
- Free for noncommercial use. Commercial or business users must register for US$12.
- Available for Windows 95/NT/98/2000/ME/XP in multiple languages.
Guide Review - IrfanView Free Image Viewer
IrfanView is useful for quickly viewing images, browsing folders of images as thumbnails, converting formats, sorting media files, batch processing, and much more. The IrfanView program itself is a small 1.7 MB download, but by adding the (also free) plugin bundle, you get much more functionality.
IrfanView's layout isn't suited to my tastes, but don't let that stop you--lots of people love this powerful, free image viewer. The software is constantly being updated with new features.
