I've been using it for a long time! What I found useful
is its batch conversion of my digicam pictures into
smaller sizes for my website albums! Comes which
sharpening too. Works fast.
Indeed. Even with the whole set of plugins installed,
it's still ultra-quick and does everything you want and
(just as important) nothing more.
An annoying thing in WindowsXP is its insistence on
adding the Preview action to image files to link them to
XP's built-in Image Viewer - which is decent, but no
more. The problem is that IrfanView knows how to set the
Open action to itself, but Preview remains the default
action. Some manual action in the Folder Options is
necessary, which is always a drag.
I've used a number of different photo managers over the
past years, including JASC, Adobe, ACDSystems and Irfan.
Irfan is great as a free image viewer/converter on my
work PC, but I must say that my new favorite is Adobe's
Photo Album 2.0 package. The three things that I like
most:
- It uses the EXIF standard to capture notes and to
organize images. With EXIF, you can create web albums
that pull the image info (notes, date, etc.) without the
need for a separate data source (DB, XML, or
proprietary).
- It has a really neat calendar inferface. You can look
at a month view and see a thumb nail on each day that
you have pictures from.
- Best part, it integrates with HotMail so now, my wife
can send her own pictures from Photo Album and have them
resized and attached to HotMail without any help from
me!
Of course, I had been using JASC products for a long
time so I bought their album product at Christmas
without giving Adobe Photo Album much of a preview. Once
I gave it a real try, it was a no-brainer.
I agree with Dejan, I prefer XnView.
Maybe viewer is not as fast as Irfanview's one (anyway
faster that ACDSee), but includes lots of features, and
an amazing file browser.