IrfanView is one of the Top 10 Freeware Software Nobody Knows About - But Should, and how! This little app is quite the useful tool for basic image manipulation, and conversion, despite it’s speed and ease of use.
Sure, its hard to take an app that uses a roadkill cat as a logo very seriously. But believe you me - it’s one app that can prove very useful.
If you read below, you will find out just what you are missing.
It is primarily a freeware viewer much like a free ACDSee, but can be used as an image converter, image resizer, and picture rotater. You can do gamma correction, brightness, contrast and tint to name a few. There are also filters available for it to make those special effects. You can even do these image manipulations by batch.
What sets IrfanView apart from the same software in its genre (like Microsoft PhotoEditor, ACDSee, etc) is the wide range of files and devices that it is able to manipulate. It can open and edit pictures from the scanner, camera, JPG/JPEG, GIF, 8BF, etc. This author uses it to create ICO files for sofware logos and markings - all coming from JPG files. One can even make a screensaver from the pictures you select (with optional background music) which you can give away to your friends without IrfanView, therefore making it a lightweight screensaver compiler.
It’s speed and ease of use is also of note.
Of course no software is perfect: IrfanView cannot be used to open CYMK files properly because it is primarily an RGB file editor because it does not allow for color-managed viewing.
Then again, it packs all this punch in a 1.37 Mb executable. Oh and did I mention that it is free? Get your copy at http://www.irfanview.com/
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