Program information 
- Softonic Rating:
- License:
- Free
- Added:
- August 3, 2005
- Updated:
- July 21, 2008
- Publisher:
- Website
- File size:
- 1.2 MB
- Downloads:
- 2,913
“Try a fast and flexible image viewer and editor”
In these days where most things have been commercialised to the hilt, it’s always refreshing to come across a free piece of software that performs as well as its pricey rivals. Irfanview has long been a shining example of such a program, and I’ve been using the app for some time for perusing and managing my ever-growing photo collection.
Amazingly, since Bosnian developer Irfan Skiljan released the image viewer back in 1996, he’s generously kept it free of charge in spite of its massive popularity. Perhaps even more incredibly, the app still stands at just over 1Mb, bucking the trend of programs that swell immensely as the feature updates go by. In fact, it’s Irfanview’s slimline qualities that are its greatest asset, helping to make it the fastest image viewer in the West. Images load almost instantaneously when you click on them and you get rapid-fire results when cycling through a directory of photos using the Back and Forward buttons. It’s only when you’re flicking through vast amounts of images using the thumbnail viewer that things get a bit slow, which could easily be remedied do with an improved caching function.
Another of Irfanview’s crowd-pleasing talents is its ability to handle an enormous range of different file formats, including g, somewhat rarely, icon (.ico) files. Unlike many of its rival tools, Irfanview doesn’t try to impose itself as the default viewer for all image types, giving you the option to specify the formats you wish to associate with it for yourself.
The program’s functionality can be expanded by installing plug-ins that allow Irfanview to open other file types, such as movies and audio – again a unique feature among photo viewers. You also get a smattering of basic editing features such as crop, rotate, flip and resize, along with some bread-and-butter effects like blur and sharpen, plus a smart crop function.
Upon first try, many users might be put off by the somewhat basic interface and the fact that it loads new images externally, rather than within the GUI itself. Nevertheless this is a small sacrifice to pay for a program that proves to be probably the quickest way to view images on your PC.
Languages:
English
Recent changes in IrfanView:
- New PlugIn: Paint (Edit menu, Hotkey: F12, thanks to Matteo Italia!)
- It allows IrfanView to paint lines, circles, arrows, straighten image etc.
- Support for embedded color profiles in JPG/TIF (Properties->Viewing)
- LCMS PlugIn, thanks to Marti Maria
- New command line option: /advancedbatch (Apply advanced batch options to image)
- Allows many image operations, add text etc.
- Lossless JPG Crop added (Menu: Options or Thumbnails (batch mode))
- Added option to tag/mark files during browsing (window or fullscreen mode):
- Hotkeys: X = tag file, SHIFT+X = untag file, SHIFT+Q: show tagged files in Thumbnails
- Support for FLV format (Flash PlugIn, thanks to Remio)
- Histogram feature added (Menu: Image, Hotkey: SHIFT+H)
- Zoom calculation changed: relative, based on previous zoom value
- Auto adjust colors works with selections (Thanks to Andras Horvath, www.log69.com)
- Option to save values from "Enhance Colors" dialog
- New effects added: Green and Yellow eye reduction (Effects browser dialog)
- Option to keep current scroll position for the next image (Menu: View)
- Support for HDP/WDP format (Microsoft HD Photo, PlugIn)
- Save support for JNG format (Thanks to Pavel Demchuk)
- New GUI for batch/slideshow dialogs
- Custom selection dialog uses current selection at start, if available
- New compression options in PDF export (Thanks to ComSquare AG)
- New loading options for normal RAW files (Thanks to Sergey Fokin)
- Fullscreen options can be changed during fullscreen mode
- Browsing: if CTRL pressed, the file index increases/decreases by 5 (default: 1)
- 3 external editors are possible now (Properties->Misc 3)
- New option for Import palette: Use nearest color (Properties->Misc 3)
- Changes in print option Scale (original image size is used as input)
- New print option for multipage images: Print odd or even pages
- Some changes/optimizations in HTML templates
- CTRL+A selects the whole image in the main window
- Several PlugIns are changed/updated, please install the newest versions
- http://www.irfanview.com/plugins.htm
- Some bugs fixed (IFF/PCX/JP2 loading, GIF animations, Palette import)
OS requirements for IrfanView:
- OS: Win95/98/Me/2000/NT/XP/2003/Vista
- Handles a huge range of different image formats
- Displays images very, very quickly
- Doesn’t try to take over your consume many PC resources
- Viewing images externally can prove a little cumbersome at first
- Thumbnail caching could do with some improvement
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Posts about IrfanView in our blog
- IrfanView 4 improves image browsing by James Thornton
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