I’ve used a few image viewers such as Broderbund’s Photo Organizer, Greenstreet’s Picture Browser, and HijaakPro for Windows 3.1. I use the following image editors: MS Photo Editor, MGI Photo Suite 4, Ulead’s PhotoImpact SE, Presto! ImageFolio LE, Metafile Companion, and Broderbund’s American Greetings CreataCard Platinum 5.

Download and Installation
To download the program files visit the web site’s Download page. It has links to major download sites such as Tucows. Choose a site; download iview370.exe (only 764KB) and all_plugins.exe (3,148KB). You can download the plug-ins in parts if necessary.
Simply click on iview370.exe to install IrfanView then click on all_plugins.exe to install the plug-ins. You chose the program location and everything gets installed there (no changes to the registry).

IrfanView is free to non-commercial users (home, schools & universities, and humanitarian organizations). If you want to support further development, you can send Irfan Skiljan $10 in cash. One commercial license is $10. If you need more than one license, you can contact him via e-mail for pricing.

Running the Program
IrfanView displays images faster than any other image viewer I’ve used. If you have very large scanned images (5 to 30 MB images), they do take a while to display and to turn into thumbnails. In fact, it’s so fast you don’t really need image browsers in which you have to create thumbnail albums.

If you’ve installed all the filters, you can use one program instead of four or five to view/listen to your media files. It handles Microsoft Media Player files such as AVI, DAT (Video CD), MID/RMI, MOV, MP3, MPG/MPEG, and WAV. It also handles Apple QuickTime: formats such as MOV, QTIF, Mac PICT, and FLI/FLC. It can display or run over 50 types of files so I’m not going to list them all.

Unlike most image editors, IrfanView allows you to view and edit WMF files. Figure 1 shows a bunny WMF with the explosion filter applied in the process of gamma correction to darken its color.

You can view your icon files and your animated GIFs in action. You can even view TXT files. I know of no other image browser that does that.

Thumbnails open in a separate window. You can display the directory tree structure to easily navigate from folder to folder. The thumbnails update automatically. This window allows you to create a slide show although I couldn’t save the ones I created. You can also create and save contact sheets and save selected thumbnails as an image. You can use either one of these to make your own printed catalog of images on your system.

I’ve only touched on the capabilities of IrfanView in this short review. Check out the web site. While you’re there visit the Grafix page for wonderful photos and great animated GIFs.

System Requirements 
Operating system: Win9x/NT, Windows 2000, and Windows XP, Free disk space: 5.2 MB, more required for additional filters and other add-ons plus Thumbnail Contact Sheets and images, 
Soundcard to hear sound files.

Vital Statistics

IrfanView Home page 

To register the program, send your cash payment of $10 US or EUR 10 to: 

Irfan Skiljan
Postfach 48
2700 Wiener Neustadt, Austria, Europe.