IrfanView – Tiny Yet Powerful
Image Editor & Viewer
If you
go to some popular software download archive, you’ll see that IrfanView is
taking the leading position in the category “Photo editors” alongside with Photoscape.
However, photo editing in IrfanView is far behind Photoscape’s possibilities.
Irfanview is rather an advanced photo viewer with basic editing features. Still
it doesn’t prevent it from winning hearts of millions of users
worldwide.
We asked IrfanView
creator and the only developer Irfan
Skiljan the most exciting questions about his tool. Read
the interview and our detailed review of IrfanView program below.
SEE ALSO:5 Best Slideshow Makers for Windows
IRFANVIEW PRICE
IrfanView
was created in 1996 and have always been free. On IrfanView site it’s written that the software is free
for non-commercial use only, either at home or educational
institutions. If you intend to use the software for business or for
commercial purposes, please contact the developer by
email to get the
information about prices, discounts and payment methods.
Freemake: You created
Irfanview in 1996, why did you decide to do this?
Irfan: It was my student
project. Back in 1996 there was no 235 picture viewers (like now), specially
not many viewers which were fast and easy to use, so I created my own JPG
viewer. My friends liked it and they wanted always more features and formats,
this was the start of IrfanView.
You can download IrfanView in 32 or 64-bit versions for Windows
OS.
During the installation, you’ll be offer to install Amazon
button – a kind of partnership offer to monetize the software. Decline the
offer, if you don’t need it.
Freemake: Is Irfanview
rather a hobby or a business for you?
Irfan: Both … it started
as hobby and now it is my primary job/project. It makes a lot of fun when a
job/business was started as hobby.
The whole program is very compact, it take only 2.44 MB of
hard drive space. It’s clear why: there are third-party components, weighty
fonts, frames or effects.
There
also many plugins for IrfanView, which are also free and available for download
on MajorGeeks. The
plugins provide additional features, such as reading filenames with Unicode
characters, burning files to CD/DVD/BD, reading original camera files, etc.
IRFANVIEW INTERFACE
To tell the truth, IrfanView doesn’t care much about design. The
interface is plain and utiliarian. It seems that it was not updated since the
first release of the software. This way it looks on the start:
Freemake: Your software is
often blamed for user-unfriendly, too plain interface. Are you planning to
upade it?
Irfan: Probably this is a
point of view of the users who think that every new Windows version/GUI is
the “best” in PC history and all programs which look different are “bad” and
“not modern” or whatever. This can’t be logically true, some GUIs come back
again, see Win8 metro discussions. I don’t like OSs and programs with
extreme GUI changes, so I don’t add changes to IrfanView GUI according to hypes. IrfanView
GUI changes happen slowly, old users like it like that.
The author offers several skins for the main toolbar made
by software fans, but they look amateur as well.
IrfanView
has a standard for all the editors menu at the top with File, Edit, Options, Image, View and Helpsections cluttered
with options. All the widgets and menus inside the tool are tunable. For
example, you can call for Paint menu (F12 or Edit > Show Paint dialog) with
brushtool, eraser, and other options for digital painting.
All the habitual
Photoshop effects and tools are available in the Image unit. So, here you are welcome to
create an empty canvas or change the existing image, flip or rotate in a custom
way, add frames and overlay styles.
IMAGE VIEWING
IrfanView
can open and read almost any exiting graphic format: JPG, PNG, GIF, TIF, BMP,
RAW, PDF, B3D, CAM, ICO, JP2, JLS, HDR, PMB, etc. The full list is
available here. For
opening some formats, may require to istall the plugin pack.
If you have several images in you folder, you may easily switch
between them by simple scrolling.
It’s also very convenient to adjust viewing options, so you can
fit images to window width or vice versa.
As to the output, the software can save files in BMP, DIP, ECW,
EMF, EXR, GIF, ICO, JP2, JPG/JPEG, JLS, JPM, PBM, PCX, PDF, PGM, PNG, PPM, TGA,
TIF, WebP.
Besides images, IrfanView can open audio and video files: MP3,
OGG, WAV, AVI, MKV, MOV, MP4, WEBM, TS, MTS, WMV, WMA, MPEG. The video player
looks very plain. Beside the timeline, there are only Play/Pause and Previous
buttons. Editing options for video and audio aren’t available.
PHOTO EDITING
IrfanView is trying to be simple for beginners and powerful
for professionals.
Freemake: How will you
describe the typical Irfanview user?
Irfan: There is no
typical user, everyone uses IrfanView. I receive emails from 13 years old guys
or from 90+ year old guys from all over the world. All kind of people use it,
beginners and IT experts. The software is designed for all and I am happy about
that.
Here are lots of photo editing options. Let’s review the most
used ones and see how perform them.
1.
Resize large images
Go to Image >Resize/Resample. Set the new size and click OK.
Don’t forget to save the file.
2.
Crop pictures
Open your image and use the mouse cursor to select the area you
want to save. Then in the Edit tab choose “Crop selection”.
3.
Create panorama
Open Image > Create Panorama image. Choose horizontal or
vertical orientation. Add images from which you want to create a panorama and
set space “0” between them. The tool will combine your photos into one
panorama.
4.
Flip or rotate image
Add your picture and go to the Image tab. Choose “Rotate Right”,
“Rotate left”, “Vertical Flip” or “Horizontal Flip”.
5.
Make a screenshot
While IrfanView is running, you can make a screenshot using the
shortcut “C”. Alternatively, go to Options > Capture/Screenshot.
6. Add a
watermark
Go to Edit > Insert overlay/watermark.
Choose a corner for the
watermark and add a picture. By default, the watermark will have 33% overlay
transparecy.
MORE OPTIONS
IrfanView offers more editing and other types of features:
·
Slideshow creation (with the posibility to save a slideshow as
EXE/SCR or burn it to CD);
·
Batch image conversion (with advanced image processing);
·
Screen capturing;
·
Effects overlay (Sharpen, Blur, Adobe 8BF, Filter Factory,
Filters Unlimited, etc.);
·
Changing of colors depth;
·
Print, scan and email support;
·
Lossles JPG rotation and much more.
In case
you can’t figure out how to use IrfanView to perform this or that option,
address to IrfanView FAQ or email the developer.
WHAT’S ON THE ROADMAP?
We have found out that Irfan isn’t going to adjust IrfanView for
mobile platforms and other operating systems.
Freemake: Today iOS photo
editors are as popular as desktop editors. Have you ever thought about ajusting
Irfanview for iOS users?
Irfan: Maybe … there are
many different OSs and Apple iOS is just one of them. A port to another
OS/platform is a very complex project, specially for a single developer.
I like the direct
contact with the users (email, no forum) and I try add features based on (many)
user wishes and suggestions.
So good luck, Irfan! We hope that your tiny but powerful
software has already fulfilled the mission it was created for and will
remain in users’ list of favorites for a long time.