It is already a short vacation, you come home with 200 or more pictures in the digital camera. Quickly copied to the PC, then the everyday life – until the day you want to view your pictures. Because you are looking for one or the other image to make it a paper photo. Or because you just want to browse through your picture archive. Freeware image viewers are a great help here: they display pictures simply and flexibly directly, as an overview or even as a slide show – and often also offer some extras.
Picture gallery
IrfanView is one of the best image viewers: it combines many functions with a somewhat brittle operation. If desired, it can be combined with the graphic files of your choice: A simple double-click on a JPG photo is enough to open the image in IrfanView. The photo tool runs on all Windows version from 9x to Vista. IrfanView has only one drawback: single image rendering and image preview browser are strictly separated, this is not always ideal.
Installation: When installing, it is recommended to choose or deselect the Google Toolbar installation. Download and install the IrfanView plug-ins to view more formats with IrfanView. The program will start in English: If necessary, press the [P] key after the start, to switch to the American language in the settings.
Formats: The photo viewer IrfanView knows (with installed plugins) numerous graphics and image formats - it would be easier to enumerate only what IrfanView can not display. JPG, TIF, GIF and PNG are definitely present, but also HDR pictures, FLV flash videos and many RAW formats. Not so many formats support IrfanView when converting and saving - but here too, all important formats are represented.
Frame: Use the LEFT button to scroll to the next image, press the Backspace button to return. Use [+] and [-] to zoom in and out. The file menu contains options such as copying and moving - these always apply to the current image. You can also define target directories to quickly sort images with IrfanView. Use [I] to display information about the image, [E] the EXIF information (type of digital camera, settings for shooting). Use [Shift H] to display the histogram of the image. The [W] key starts the slideshow.
Image processing: Images can be changed and improved in the single view via the menu image and many shortcuts. To rotate a photo using the L and R buttons on the left or right, or press [Shift] to open the lossless rotation options. The image size can be adjusted with [Ctrl R], the colors with [Shift G].
Overview: Press the T button in the image viewer, switches IrfanView to the thumbnail view, and displays small preview images in an overview. There you can select multiple or all images, rotate or otherwise edit them. In the thumbnail window, you can change the size of thumbnail images by choosing Change Options / Thumbnail Options
Cool extras: You can use the [W] button to open the slideshow settings, where you can even create your own screen saver. To do this, first select the images you want to include in the slideshow. Then click Save as EXE / SCR in the lower-left corner and save the images as an SCR file. This can use Windows directly as a Screensaver, simply by copying it into the Windows directory. HTML galleries can also be saved from the thumbnail browser.
Other features: The image viewer IrfanView is also suitable for converting multiple images at once from one format to another, for automatic renaming or for changing settings such as color and size in batch mode (key [B]). Use [F12] to paint in picture markers. Use Options / Preferences / Other 3 to specify up to three "real" image manipulations, which you can start from IrfanView with a keystroke.
Conclusion: IrfanView is one of the best and most flexible image viewers with basic editing features and interesting extras like screen sorter export from slide shows.
The next step is to use the IrfanView alternatives XnView and Imagine on the next page.
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