There are not many times that I describe a program saying how beautiful, indispensable, useful, light, fast, exceptional and so on, but with Irfanview I have to say this and more. IrfanView is an ultra compact image and graphics viewer for Windows and, in one of the first articles I wrote on Navigaweb, I described it as the best for browsing images and photos on a PC.
It is small in size, fast, free, ad-free and with an incredible amount of features.
This wonderful program has some basic features, including multi-language support which also includes Italian, a large number of supported file formats, options for editing, resizing, selections, conversions, ability to browse photos by pressing the bar on the keyboard, the slideshow function and much more.
The application can then be further enhanced with the installation of a myriad of plugins for IrfanView that can be installed all together from a single package.
The IrfanView plugins are available in 4 different .zip packs, then included in a complete package that can be installed with a click on the executable .exe.
Among these plugins for Irfanview, the best, most useful and specific to enhance the image viewer are :
1. SLIDESHOW to save photo slideshows as .Exe or .Scr files (to make a screensaver) or to burn them onto a CD.
As mentioned above, IrfanView is able to show the photos in a slideshow, that is, in a presentation in which the photos slide by themselves.
To set up a presentation, you must go to the File -> Slideshow menu and configure the various options including: whether or not to put background music, full screen, hide the mouse, set the time between one photo and the other and others what's this.
There are also some interesting buttons that allow you to upload photos into the presentation by putting the names of the files in a .txt file, to save the slideshow as .Exe or .Scr and to burn it to a CD.
2) EXIF : view the JPG image data
The EXIFs would be the internal information of an image where, for example, the settings of the camera used to take the photo can be written.
The plugin makes this EXIF information for JPG images viewable by going to the image menu -> Information -> EXIF button.
The IPTC button, on the other hand, displays information about the creator, copyright and all hidden information used to identify a photo or image.
IPTC can be changed in its fields.
3) FILTERS_UNLIMITED : Use Photoshop and 8BF Adobe filters
Photoshop is the famous paid program for editing and creating digital images.
On Irfanview you can use its filters, in case you have Photoshop installed.
From the Image menu -> Effects -> Unlimited Filters.
Otherwise you will have to settle for standard filters, which include different colors, sepia, negative and others.
4) MPG : Extract frames from a video file of any format.
Using this plugin, it is possible to extract images from an Mpeg or AVI movie, which will be saved in BMP format.
When you play a video, you press on Options -> Extract all frames.
BMPs can then be converted to JPeg with Irfanview's internal format converter.
5) FORMATS : extend support for rarer and less common image formats .
In addition to the standard formats such as JPG, PNG, GIF or TIF, the following can also be opened in IrfanView: PSP, G3, RAS, IFF / LBM, BioRad, Mosaico, XBM, XPM, GEM-IMG, SGI, RLE, WBMP, TTF, FITS, PIC, HDR, MAG, WAD, WAL, DNG, EEF, NEF, ORF, RAF, MRW, DCR, SRF / ARW, PEF, X3F, CAM, SFW, YUV, PVR, SIF.
Some other IrfanView plugins, such as IV_PLAYER, include support for other types of files such as Quicktime videos, MP3 files and SWF or FLV flash movies.
In the Options menu you can start the multimedia player which is a small video and music player.
6) PNGOUT is a plugin that allows you to save PNG images, widely used in the development of websites for logos or buttons, maintaining transparency and compressing the file in order to optimize it for the web.
All images can then be saved for publication on websites with a special button from the File menu.
7) RIOT is another plugin for optimally saving JPG, GIF and PNG files .
8) JPG_TRANSFORM : Rotation and Cropping of JPG images without losing quality; is in the Options menu.
9) REGIONCAPTURE allows you to save an image of a part of the screen with a screenshot.
The capture tool can be started from the options menu.
10) VIDEO allows you to play movies and videos in IrfanView from AVI, MPG / MPEG, WAV, MOV, MID / RMI, AIF, AU / SND, WMA, WMV formats.
These are only 10 of the functions available in IrfanView, a program that I have always used as the default image viewer on all the computers I have had and with all Windows.
