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IrfanView from Skiljan Irfan (FreeWare)
By admin | May 25, 2007
IrfanView is a rather small and compact image converter and refinisher (the size of the installer executable is only 885K). It’s especially useful for working with digital photos and their refinishing. IrfanView is a very fast image viewer/converter. It features: viewing support for dozens of formats both popular and obscure, drag and drop support, fast directory view, print support, TWAIN support, slideshow view, batch conversion, color depth and more.
The Main menu of the utility has 6 options: File, Edit, Image, Options, View and Help.
The option File opens File Dialog. The File Dialog popup menu is very elaborate and has many options gathered in separate groups. Many options of the File Dialog has associated with them function keys. The first such group includes standard options of opening files Open, Reopen, Open with external editor, Open As. The option Reopen allows for yet another opening of yhe last opened file. The option Open with external editor allows for the opening of the selected image with the help of the other image editor if such external image editor is written in preferences. The option Open As allows for th1e opening of the image in specific formats ASCII, HEX and RAW.
The standalone option Thumbnails allows for opening of images by selecting and choosing thumbnails in a directory tree.
The option Slideshow allows you to open slideshows. The option Batch conversion/Rename… allows for conversion image format of a selected group of files. It opens a window of built-in image converter. In this window you can define a file group for conversion (optionally including subdirectories), an output image format, an output directory and path, and much more. You can also set some specific options of the selected output format.
There is also the group of standard options of dealing with files in the File Dialog: Rename File…, Move File…, Copy File…, Delete File…. These options allows for working in IrfanView as in any file browser.
The option group Save and Save As allows for saving of the selected image in a chosen image format.
The standalone option Print allows for printing of the selected image. It opens the Print window in which you can set various properties of printing and actually start the printing process.
Then there is the group of options dealing with image hardware: Select TWAIN source…, Acquire/Batch scanning… and Copy Shop….
The standalone option MRUDs opens the popup of recently opened image directories.
The standalone option Exit cancels program execution.
The option Edit opens Edit Dialog popup which comprises various editing options mainly to deal with selections in the selected image. It allows undoing recent actions, and clearing the whole picture and the Clipboard, and inserting texts in the current selection.
The option Image opens the Image Dialog popup containing yet another group of image editing options - mainly various special effects. As usual there are, of course, rotating and flipping of the image, resizing the image and/or the canvas, color changing, negation of the color and converting it into greyscale, and more. The option Information opens the information window which contain extensive data about the current image.
The option Options opens the Options popup allowing for setting of various options and preferences of the application. Some of the options (Start Multimedia Player and JPG Lossless Operations…) require external plug-ins which can be downloaded from the website of the developer. The option Capture/Screenshot let you make screen captures.
The option Change language… deserves special mentioning. It allows changing of the program interface. In the basic configuration two variants are envisaged: English and German (Deutsch). But you can select one of the two dozen plus European and Asiatic languages if you download the corresponding language support file from the web-site of the developer. You can see there the list of currently supported languages. It includes Russian :). Apparently, the languages support DLLs are developed by the programmers community. At least, the Russian language DLL is developed by some guy from Zelenograd, Russia. The multilanguage support is exceptionally strong feature of IrfanView. It’s very rare in other FreeWare applications.
The option View of the Main menu opens the popup of view options. Here you can set showing/hiding of application tools (the taskbar, the toolbar, the meny bar), select full-screen or window mode, select an option of fitting the selected image or no fitting at all. You can also change the current image in the editor by scanning the current image directory (options Next/Previous/First/Last/Random File in Directory), or even set an automatic view of the current image directory (the option
Start/Stop automatic viewing). There are options of zooming in and out, or returning to actual size of the image (the option Original size). There is also and option of viewing the HEX-content of the image file (Show HEX view). And you can view multipage images with the option Multipage images or even create them (but creating of such images require an extenal plug-in - except TIF format).
The option Help opens a Help popup. There are context-dependent help in the Microsoft Help formay, the FAQ list, the Keyboard Shortcuts explanation and options of various info about the program and its developer. The is the option
Registration… for customer registering. Registered customers can receive technical support.
Under the Main menu bar of the application there is the taskbar containing buttons for various most often usable actions in the applications. In the taskbar there is a small window for selected the current image directly by specifying its directory index. You can see in the window on-line tip about the number of image files in the current directory. The current selected file is indicated in the format The Index Number Of File-Slash-The Number Of Image Files In Directory.
At the lower edge of the Main window there is the status bar of the application. The status bar contains information about bits per pixel of the image, its directory index, the file size, the date and time of its creation.
Here are some reviews about the application from the Web:
Reviewed By: Richard Weil
I’ve been using this viewer for years and wouldn’t use anything else. I’ve tried others and remove them and return to Irfan View exclusivly. This freeware program is probably as good or better than most viewer software. Adding the available plug-ins makes it even better. It can view any type graphic file you desire. It’s the best!
Reviewed By: Jamie
This tiny software is wonderful! You can resize pictures, touch them up change the color and view all types of gif, jpg, bmp and tons of other extensions
Reviewed By: Sven
It is small, fast and has all functions it needs. And it’s free!
Downloading of the application is available via download page
http://www.sofotex.com/downloads/d59.html
Topics: Computers & Software |