Can I Trust Irfanview

  пятница 10 апреля
      82

I have worked for a company that specialized computer security. I still do virus removal as a consultant. The single best free antivirus for catching unknown viruses in the wild in the last 10 years has been Avast. AV Labs data.

FreewareAddict Rating: 8/10 Fantastic.

General Overview:
True as what the name of the software says, Irfanview can view any photo file format, including one of the best photo file format – .CR2 (RAW format. This file format is recognised as the digital copy of the film negatives- the purest photo that your camera can capture.)

Biggest plus for this freeware is the ability to handle .CR2 file format and other similar quality photo formats. Probably, the next freeware able to do likewise would be the free pirated copy of the adobe photoshop. (Not advisable to use – say NO to piracy) Photo editing capabilities-wise, Irfanview is packed with all the basic functions: crop, text, resize, brightness/contrast control and colour control.

Details:

  • Able to edit most of the photo formats and most of the commonly used picture file format (e.g. .JPG, .GIF and .BMP).
  • Able to watch videos and listen to music. One software to handle all the camera’s videos and photos.
  • Very user-friendly (Honestly, I still dont know where is the “help” in this software. Anyway, I didnt need it for the testing and probably will not in the future.)
  • Music and Video playback ability
  • Expansible – plugins are available for free download or you can come out with your own plugins.

Closing comments:
If the photo is a tad imperfect, Irfanview is all you need but if you need a better photo-editing software, I would seriously advise you to retake the photo or simply delete it.
It is better (less traumatising) to forget the ugly photo and remember that particular beautiful scene in your mind. Get your hands on this software and you will love the slanted bear as much as I do when I take a tad imperfect photo.

Supports
Windows 2000 / XP / Vista Washington pa dmv road test route.

Official Site ( v4.23)
www.irfanview.com (1.4mb)

Direct Download Link
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=560MZB0Y

Photo Comparisons

Unedited photo

Edited Photo using Irfanview

Trust
Probably the most important measurement for ANY Image Viewer or Image Converter is its RELIABILITY, i.e. that images are displayed 100% accurately and that losless conversions are indeed 100% losless/accurate.
I was therefore very concerned, when I came across this problem:
Original image file (JPEG):
Image after losless conversion to PNG with IrfanView 4.20:
I used Photoshop to examine the differences. Open one image and add the second image as a new layer over it with blend mode = difference. Use magic wand tool, with tolerance=zero. Expected results: entirely black image. Actual esults (white filled selection):
Merge both layers, invert the colors and you see the differences between the images. I applied a curves adjustment to exaggerate the differences:
Again, this time you should see an entirely white image, if both images were identical.
It seems as though there were a problem with IrfanView's conversion. Any idea what happened ?