IrfanView
Encyclopedia : I : IR : IRF : IrfanView
IrfanView is a popular freeware (not free software) image viewer that can view, edit, and convert image files of dozens of image formats and play over a dozen video/audio formats (see [IrfanView Formats]) (when downloaded from its homesite, TUCOWS, or other choices with all the plugins - available in a single download). It does not have extensive image creation and painting capabilities like Adobe Photoshop or GNU's GIMP. Rather, IrfanView is designed to be a lightweight viewer/player.
The program is named for its creator, Irfan Skiljan of Bosnia, and is pronounced "EAR-fan-view" [link]. IrfanView works under all modern versions of Microsoft Windows (i.e, Windows 95 and later). It supports many dozens of file formats including: image formats such as BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, non-image media files such as Flash, Ogg Vorbis, MPEG, MP3, and even text files. Whilst Irfanview (3.98) handles RGB image files well, it is not a colour-managed viewer, so CMYK profiles are not used and as a result CMYK images will not display correctly.
The program is incredibly small; the latest version 3.98 is about 900 Kb in size only. Still Irfanview is a very fast and powerful software. However, it should be noted that a five-megabyte plugin is necessary in order to view many file formats. Apart from converting file formats one can create screensavers using his or her own favorite images by Irfanview. These screensavers can even be exported to other computers and run even if Irfanview is not installed in that computer. It can also create icons by converting common graphic files into '.ico' format.
IrfanView's image editing capabilities, while lacking a freehand drawing mode, can still accomplish a wide variety of editing tasks. The program has built-in TWAIN support for retrieving images from scanners; it also has extended support for taking screenshots. It can crop, resize, and rotate images. Image colors can be adjusted by modifying the brightness, contrast, tint, and so forth. Many of these changes can be applied to multiple images in one operation, using batch processing.
Since version 3.92, the installer can choose to also install an eBay toolbar in order to support the developer. In version 3.92, the toolbar is checked by default (hence was being criticized as spyware). The option is unchecked in version 3.97, and replaced with an option to install Google Desktop Search in 3.98.
See also
External links
- [IrfanView]
- [IrfanView forgets settings: fix] - Describes the LUA (Limited User Access) bug in Irfanview and gives a better solution compared to the IrfanView FAQ.
- [IrfanView English language Forum]
- [Tutorial on IrfanView, with links to many others]
- [Some tutorials on Irfanview]
- [Yahoo! Group on IrfanView]
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.