IrfanView is a freeware image viewer for Microsoft Windows that can view, edit, and convert image files and play video/audio formats. It does not have extensive image creation and painting capabilities like Adobe Photoshop or GNU's GIMP. Rather, IrfanView is designed to be a lightweight viewer/player which is noted for its speed, ease of use, and ability to handle a wide variety of graphic file formats.

The program is named for its creator, Irfan Skiljan of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and is pronounced /iːr.fæn.vjuː/.. IrfanView works under all modern versions of Microsoft Windows (i.e. Windows 95 to Vista; Microsoft tested version 3.98, which was on the official Vista software list). It supports numerous file formats including: image formats such as BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, non-image media files such as Flash, (Ogg)Vorbis, MPEG, MP3, and text files.

After version 3.92, the installer could choose to also install an eBay toolbar in order to support the developer. In version 3.92, adding the toolbar was selected at installation by default, and the program was criticized by some as containing spyware. The option was not selected in version 3.97, and was replaced with an option to install Google Desktop Search from 3.98.

Logo / Mascot

The IrfanView logo and mascot is a flattened roadkill cat. The 16px icon has tire tread marks across the caricature; the 32px icon is this "non tire tread" version; and the 48px icon has a gradient across the cat's body. The author of the software does stress, however, that he resembles no ill will towards cats. In fact, the IrfanView website pictures him holding a cat.

Features

IrfanView displaying a screenshot of Wikipedia

The program is compact: the latest version is less than 1200 kB in size, although several megabytes of plugins are available to support numerous other file formats and features. In addition to extensive viewing capabilities and file conversion options, IrfanView can also create screensavers and slide shows from collections of images with optional accompanying mp3 audio. These screensavers and slide shows can be created as “stand-alone” executables that will run on computers which do not have IrfanView installed.

Irfanview can be downloaded directly to a U3 compatible device.

IrfanView can also be used to create icons by converting common graphic files into .ico format. It also supports Adobe-compatible 8bf image processing filters, including many freely downloadable ones, though its ability to apply them to portions of an image is limited compared to full-scale image editors.

The program has built-in TWAIN support for retrieving images from scanners; it also has extended support for taking screenshots.

It can crop, resize, and rotate images. Images can be adjusted by modifying the brightness, contrast, tint, Gamma level, and so forth, and by converting them between formats. Many of these changes can be applied to multiple images in one operation, using batch processing.

IrfanView can direct the active image to open in an external graphics editor (Adobe PhotoShop, for example), if the user has one installed.

In English by default, the program is internationalized in over twenty languages.

IrfanView thumbnails

This function displays thumbnail file previews, allowing picture organizing and management. The program can be set to display the thumbnails at a wide range of sizes, from very small (50 x 50 pixels) to very large (600 x 600 pixels). The user can select single or multiple thumbnails, then perform the usual Copy/Move/Delete operations on them. Selected thumbnails can also be sent directly to IrfanView's Batch Processing module or opened with an external program such as Adobe Photoshop.

Limitations

Though IrfanView handles many RGB image file types, it is not a color-managed viewer, so CMYK profiles are not used and as a result CMYK images will not display correctly.