Power Downloader, file format master

Click, drag'n'drop, and click again is all it takes to convert image formats in XnView.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Power Downloader tries his best to help all, but recently his friend Francois Foto approached him with a tricky problem: is there a way to easily convert photos from one format to another? ''Ze emphasees,'' said Francois, ''eez on easy.'' Power had a simple solution, a freeware program called XnView.

XnView is a robust program, an image browser and viewer as well as a converter. For conversions, though, it can handle more than 400 formats from Camera RAW, JPG, GIF, TIFF, and other still image formats all the way through AVI, MOV, MPEG, and a multitude of movie formats. Metadata EXIF and IPTC formats are also supported, ensuring that you don't lose any location or shooting data. Setting up a conversion was so basic that even Francois, who's far more proficient with cameras than he is with computers, was able to figure it out.

On the Toolbar, click on the red arrow button. A window will open--simply drag and drop your files or folders into the open text field, select the output directory, format you want to convert to, and tweak the other settings, and then you're good to go. Francois' workflow has now simplified considerably, since converting from RAW to JPG for Web publication takes no more than a few minutes, and Power Downloader can rest easy that another computer crisis has been averted.