Faststone Image Viewer is a tool you can use to browse for pictures, view, edit and convert them, whether you are a novice or experienced user.
The program supports many common image formats, such as JPEG, BMP, GIF, PNG, TIFF, and PSD, and it can also save images in Portable Document Format.
Once the quick installation finishes, you can meet the Windows Explorer-based interface, so navigating in Faststone Image Viewer is easily accomplished.
When you locate a folder with images, you can quickly glance at its content in the form of thumbnails and double-clicking automatically opens them in full screen. Here you receive a useful tip that says you can access various features by moving the mouse cursor to each edge of the screen.
In the lower part of the GUI you can find the control bar and use an image navigator as well as perform quick actions (e.g. resize, crop, clone and heal, adjust lighting, rotate, screen capture).
The right border of the screen grants you access to file properties, such as EXIF metadata, histogram, and general information.
The top margin enables a thumbnail browser window in order to offer you quick access to other images found in the same folder, but you can also use other functions (e.g. create a slideshow).
Finally, in the left border of the screen, a panel pops up, where you can quickly access file and image editing functions, such as rotation, resize and text (e.g. red eye removal), colors (e.g. auto-adjust, adjust curves, sharpen or blur), and effects (e.g. frame mask, border effects, bump map, oil painting).
Furthermore, if you hold down the left button of the mouse on the image, its size changes to full mode and you can easily move inside it.
All these functions are also accessible from the main interface. Additionally, Faststone Image Viewer supports file tagging, creating and organizing favorites, building or splitting files with multiple pages of images (in PDF, TIFF or animated GIF), batch-converting images, and more.
We have not encountered problems while testing it. The software uses a small amount of system memory so the conclusion is that Faststone Image Viewer certainly deserves at least a try.
Limitations:
· Provided as freeware for private (non-commercial) or educational (including non-profit organization) use. In these cases, you are granted the right to use and to make an unlimited number of copies of these programs. However, for commercial use, it is required to purchase a license.
What's New in This Release:
· Added a Minimize button (hidden at the top-right corner of the screen) to full screen mode. Now you can minimize the application to taskbar without exiting the full screen mode
· Added two Mouse Click options to use left/right clicks for previous/next images
· Improved the Draw Board. Now it is possible to draw curved lines
· Improved the Print dialog
· Other improvements and bug fixes