IrfanView is an excellent freeware image viewer that provides the most important features: browser, slide show and editor.
IrfanView is a small and compact graphic viewer for Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista. In addition to the support for over 60 graphics, audio and video formats, it also can support animated GIFs. This free software integrates a converter, image processing and a scanning control function.
On many forums and articles I saw people who tried to replace IrfanView with another viewer, but they returned every time back. The truth is that IrfanView is a great program: fast as a viewer, strong as a medium photo editor and compatible with almost all the existing graphic files. Why then replace it with something else? One reason would be the looks. The interface is not really a design model. Even if it were, who would want to see an editor window instead of family and friends pictures? Somehow it spoils all the charm. Happily we can get rid of this draw back with ease using the Properties dialog.
It is enough to choose the red marked option above in the Start/Exit section (“Start in full screen mode…”). The images will now be open directly in full screen and you can exit (with ESC) without even seeing the program. Of course, you need to know a few keyboard commands for navigation:
- Space and right arrow for next image
- Backspace and left arrow for previous image
- Enter to exit the full screen into the interface
- Use the mouse scroll for fast browsing
- Plus and minus or Ctrl and mouse scroll alternatively for zooming
To have a more enjoyable experience, customize the full screen section. In the picture above you can see selected the resampling option for full screen and zoom, that leads to a better image quality. The loading speed warning is over passed for any decent running computer. You can choose the alpha blending option if you want a gradual transition from an image to another. The effect is nice, but for me it seems that is too slow. Finally, it might be advisable to hide the mouse cursor and the overlapping text over the picture. However, think about changing these settings to accommodate with your preferences. If you want to give commands (for example delete) from full screen, or if the name of the pictures matter to you, it might be better to leave them alone.
You can download the latest version from here.
