IrfanView is now at version 3.90
Yet more wholesomeness and goodness.
IrfanView home page
Thanks John, I’m a big fan of IrfanView thanks to you.
Three cheers for Irfan View. In my opinions, one of the most useful free programs out there. I’m excited to try the new version.
John,
Thanks for the update. Since you seem to be a power user of Irfanview I hope you can answer a few questions I have.
I currently have version 3.80. I use it mainly for its batch capabilities, but for best results many things are done better in other programs (I think). One gripe that I have in particular, with 3.80 at least, is the resizing (smaller) of photos which seems crude, as if it doesn’t resample but just takes the nearest pixel. Can I improve this by setting a parameter I haven’t discovered, or is 3.80 not capable of doing this? Has it been solved in 3.90?
Another thing that I quite often do to pictures is what Photo Editor (part of Windows 2000) calls Autobalance. It changes the brightness and contrast such that the histogram spans the whole range. Can Irfanview do this in batch? I haven’t found it but it would be supernice. It would be even nicer if it could adjust the gamma to lighten up pictures that (even after Autobalance) are still too dark in the shadows - as I find is often the case. Ideally this should be done in batch based on the picture’s histogram (i.e. if it is skewed) but this is almost certainly asking too much.
Thanks,
Klaas Bil
IrfanView can do resampling when shrinking or enlarging images. IrfanView gives you a choice of either resampling the image or doing a resize with no resampling.
In interactive mode go Image >> Resize/Resample. That will pop up a dialog box where you can choose the method used to shrink or enlarge the image.
In batch mode go File >> Batch Conversion/Rename. That will pop up the batch dialog box. Check the checkbox for “Use advanced options”. Click the “Set advanced options” button to bring up a dialog box with all of the advanced batch features. In the advanced features dialog you can choose to use the resampling when shrinking or enlarging the image.
IrfanView also lets you adjust the gamma, brightness, contrast, and color balance. In interactive mode go Image >> Enhance colors. That will pop up the dialog box with gamma correction and other options. Unfortunately IrfanView does not display a histogram.
In batch mode go to the advanced batch features dialog and you’ll see the options to adjust gamma, brightness, contrast, and other settings.
IrfanView can load and use some Adobe Photoshop filters. It can load the 8BF style filters. There is probably a filter out there that will display the histogram along with adjustments for gamma, contrast, color balance, etc. I have never looked for such a filter, but I’m sure one is out there and there may even be a free one. A filter that does automatic color adjustments based on balancing out the histogram would be cool.
When I want to mess with the histogram or do something that IrfanView doesn’t do I load up The Gimp. That pretty much covers everything I need for image manipulation.
John,
Thanks for the elaborative answer even if belated (my thanks, that is).
> IrfanView can do resampling when shrinking or enlarging images.
> IrfanView gives you a choice of either resampling the image or doing a
> resize with no resampling.
I don’t understand how I can have missed that! I was under the impression that I tried both and got the same results. I’m probably mixed up with some other software. Anyway this is useful, there’s even various resampling methods to try.
> IrfanView also lets you adjust the gamma, brightness, contrast, and
> color balance.
It does that but you set ‘fixed’ values, whereas the Autobalance function of Photo Editor bases the values on the particular histogram. I am seeking that functionality in a batch mode. I have never played with IrfanView plugin filters, so I don’t know if there’s one that does what I want.
> When I want to mess with the histogram or do something that IrfanView
> doesn’t do I load up The Gimp <http://www.gimp.org/>. That pretty much
> covers everything I need for image manipulation.
GIMP looks difficult to install (and to use). It probably isn’t though. I would do it if it has the adaptive histogram balancing in batch mode but I doubt it.
Klaas Bil
John,
How does The Gimp compare with Photoshop? I’ve got an old version of Photoshop, but I’d like to come over to a free program. What are your impressions? I’ve been looking at The Gimp, and it seems like a nice program, but I’d like to know what you like and dislike about it.
I have never used Photoshop so I can’t compare. The only things I’ve done with The Gimp is simple things like removing red eye and correcting color balance. I’m no power user. One of these days I’ll have to learn how to do the fancier stuff. Do a Google search for The-Gimp tutorial and you’ll be able to see the things that it can do. Most (all?) of the tutorials are for version 1 since version 2 is so new. Hopefully they’ll be getting tutorials for version 2 up soon.
I have to use tutorials to do anything with The Gimp. I just follow a tutorial for a specific task and hope it all works. There are lots of tutorials on the web for doing different tasks with The Gimp. They’ve been pretty easy for me to follow. The Gimp did a great job of removing red eye and did a much better job than the quick red eye removal tools.
What I don’t like about The Gimp is the Unix like interface. It’s not very “Windows”. The dialogs and interface really shows its Unix roots. Unix interfaces seem so kludgy compared to native Windows aps. But it all works.
The Gimp is now up to version 2. I just installed version 2 but haven’t used it yet. I had been using version 1 before.
Installing on Windows is easy. You need to install GTK + 2 For Windows first before installing The Gimp. The Windows install files are here. The install is all automatic. The only problem I had with the install is that The Gimp would complain at startup that it couldn’t create a temp file. The fix was to go to File >> Preferences >> Folders and change the temp file location and swap file location to a directory that really existed (C:\TEMP). Other than that, it all seems to be working.
Thanks John. I just downloaded it and haven’t figured it out much yet, but it seems to be pretty good. It is similar to photoshop, and is pretty powerful. Thanks for cluing me in to it!
IrfanView gives you too many choices for resampling methods. The multiple choices makes you wonder “Which one should I use?”. The difference between them isn’t obvious and I haven’t taken the time to take a detailed look at them to see what the visual differences are in their results.
[B]
See my response to Paco about installing The Gimp.
The Gimp has auto balancing. It’s under Layer >> Colors >> Auto >> Equalize. The Gimp also has full scripting using a language called Script-Fu. I would be very surprised if the process of doing the Auto-Balance Equalize couldn’t be automated to do every file in a directory.
Unfortunately, Script-Fu is based on a programming language called LISP or Scheme. LISP is a weird language. It’s not at all like BASIC or C or any of the other standard programming languages. LISP is a functional programming language and stands for LISt Processing. LISP operates on lists of things. It’s a different way of thinking compared to BASIC, FORTRAN, C, or Java. But it isn’t all bad. LISP is similar to LOGO (or is it LOGO is similar to LISP?). LOGO is a neat little interactive language whose big claim to fame was turtle graphics with a little turtle drawing lines on the screen.
Anyways, If you’re not familiar with LISP or LOGO it may take some time to get the hang of Script-Fu.