FastStone Image Viewer (updated November, 2009), is one of my favorite photo applications, with good reason. It’s not just a viewer, but an image browser, converter, and an editor as well. You’ll find the interface intuitive and very easy to use.
This program is loaded with features including, renaming, cropping, color adjustments, lossless JPEG transformation, drop shadow effects, image frames, scanner support, histogram and much more.
With FastStone installed you’ll have support for all major graphic formats including (BMP, JPEG, JPEG 2000, animated GIF, PNG, PCX, TIFF, WMF, ICO and TGA) and popular digital camera RAW formats (CRW, CR2, NEF, PEF, RAF, MRW, ORF, SRF and DNG).
Quick Facts:
True Full Screen viewer with image zoom support and unique fly-out menu panels
Crystal-clear and customizable one-click image magnifier
Superior Red-Eye effect removal/reduction with completely natural looking end result
Image modification tools: Resize/resample, rotate/flip, crop, sharpen/blur, brightness/contrast, etc.
Eleven resampling algorithms to choose from when resizing images
Image color effects: gray scale, sepia, negative, Red/Green/Blue adjustment
Image special effects: watermark, annotation, drop shadow, framing, bump map, lens, morph, waves
Draw texts, lines, highlights, rectangles, ovals and callout objects on images
Multi-level Undo/Redo capability
One-touch best fit/actual size image display support
Image management, including tagging capability, with drag-and-drop and Copy To/Move To Folder support
Histogram display with color counter feature
Compare images side-by-side (up to 4 at a time) to easily cull those forgettable shots
Image EXIF metadata support (plus comment editing for JPEGs)
Configurable batch processing to convert/rename large or small collections of images
Slideshow creation with 150+ transition effects and music support (MP3, WMA, WAV…)
Create efficient image attachment(s) for emailing to family and friends
Print images with full page-layout control
Create fully configurable Contact Sheets – just like the pros (and save $$$ on ink)
Create memorable artistic image montages from your family photos for personalized desktop wallpapers (Wallpaper Anywhere)
Acquire images from a scanner
Versatile screen capture capability
Powerful Save As interface to compare image quality and control generated file size
Run favorite programs with one keystroke from within Image Viewer
Offer portable version of the program which can be run from a removable storage device
Configurable mouse wheel support
Support multiple program skins
Support dual-monitor configurations
System requirements: 32 bit Windows – XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7
Download at: Download.com
This really is an incredible application and I often wonder why it’s still free. The author does ask for a donation, if you find the application useful. This is an application that’s worth supporting so please, consider doing so.
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Bill Mullins' Weblog - Tech Thoughts 
Hi Bill,
I’ve been using Irfanview which you recommended last year.
This one looks very interesting – think I’ll give it a try.
Liam
Liam,
I still use Irfanview frequently, but this application is definitely worth trying.
Thanks for visiting.
Bill
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I found you on Twitter and added you :^)
Hi Bill
I used to use IrfanView as my default image viewer until I discovered FastStone. It’s the bees knees! I started using it as an image viewer, then discovered all the other functionality. Wonderful product.
Dave K
Hey Dave,
This app can do so much more than Irfanview, as you discovered.
Bill