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Despite its name, FastStone Image Viewer is more than just a program for viewing images. It's also capable of performing a fairly significant number of editing functions, which come packaged in an innovative interface. It's no Photoshop replacement, but we think it's a good choice if you need a way to view images and perform basic editing and correction tasks.
At first glance, the program's interface is a bit cluttered; there are toolbars with lots of buttons across the top, and there are panes where you can navigate to particular directories, view thumbnails of the contents, and view larger previews of individual images. The cool part of FastStone Image Viewer appears when you enter full-screen mode; the image is displayed by itself, but moving your mouse to the edges of the screen brings up a variety of tools and options.
Mouse to the right and the image's metadata appears; to the left, a menu appears with tools for rotating, resizing, and adding text, as well as adjusting colors and adding special effects. Mousing to the top of the screen brings down a thumbnail preview of the current directory, making it easy to select a different image, while at the bottom of the screen there's a toolbar with some of the most basic editing options. We especially liked the program's slideshow feature, which makes it easy to create custom slideshows using your own music.
Although most users should be able to figure FastStone's features out without much assistance, there's a 95-page PDF Help file that offers plenty of guidance. Overall, we were impressed with the variety of features that FastStone Image Viewer combines in an easy-to-use package, and we recommend the program to anyone seeking a basic but well-stocked image editor.
FastStone Image Viewer installs a desktop icon without asking but uninstalls cleanly.
FastStone Image Viewer - View, edit, and manage images - Download Video Previews:Publisher's Description
From FastStone Soft:
FastStone Image Viewer is a fast, stable, user-friendly image browser, converter and editor. It has a nice array of features that include image viewing, management, comparison, red-eye removal, e-mailing, resizing, cropping and color adjustments. Its innovative but intuitive full-screen mode provides quick access to EXIF information, thumbnail browser and major functionalities via hidden toolbars that pop up when your mouse touch the four edges of the screen. Other features include a high quality magnifier and a musical slideshow with 150+ transitional effects, as well as lossless JPEG transitions, drop shadow effects, image annotation, scanner support, histogram... It supports all major graphic formats including BMP, JPEG, JPEG 2000, GIF, PNG, PCX, TIFF, WMF, ICO and TGA.
What's new in this version: Version 4.6 has improved the "Acquire Images from Scanner" tool.
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All versions:
4.6 starsout of 1,620 votes
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Current version:
4.5 starsout of 105 votes
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My rating:
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"I used this for some batch processing and it worked."
Version: FastStone Image Viewer 4.6
Pros
It worked for what I needed it for. I recommend giving it a shot.
Cons
Hmmm... none that I recall... hey, it was free and it worked.
Summary
Recommended.
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"great photo viewer and light photo editor"
Version: FastStone Image Viewer 4.6
Pros
it can crop a series of photos, the viewing of each photo is easy to manange.
Cons
doesn't handle photoshop plugins.
Summary
If you're looking for a simple photo viewer, that can manage, crop and do simple photo adjusting, this is for you.
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"Not Perfect, but Pretty Nice Overall"
Version: FastStone Image Viewer 4.6
Pros
Full range of image-editing functions.
Uses Windows Explorer-like file browser.
Monitors image degradation, if any.
Excellent image-orientation capability.Cons
There's no option to set a default resolution for resizing, so resizing images to a standard resolution takes at least FIVE CLICKS per file!
After saving a file as *changed filename*, all previous mods to the original file are wiped out; one can't go back through the undo process in the original file or continue editing it where one left off.Summary
A very nice, versatile and serviceable image editor. I wish I could use it at work but some functions, e.g. resizing to a standard res., are just too laborious for me.
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"Wow! Awesome! Amazing!"
Version: FastStone Image Viewer 4.6
Pros
Just what I needed. I was looking for a batch image converter to convert wmf to jpg and I had over 1,000 files. It was taking me a long time doing one at a time in Paint, so I looked on here and found this program that is perfect! It took just a minute to convert all those files.
Cons
None that I can see.
Summary
Great software for free, works for what I needed it for.
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"Quick and Easy"
Version: FastStone Image Viewer 4.6
Pros
I needed a slideshow with music in about 20 minutes. Worked great and the slideshow was setup with music and transitions. It was really cool and everyone wanted a copy.
Cons
Had to download the tutorial separately, but it was no big deal.
Summary
Give it a try... its free, but I'm going to donate. I never review software... unless its very special.
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"Basic Editing"
Version: FastStone Image Viewer 4.6
Pros
Free and fast
Cons
Doesn't allow you to set transparent backgrounds.
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"Perfect for me"
Version: FastStone Image Viewer 4.6
Pros
Quick even on my minimal system
Cons
None found
Summary
I like the look and feel and it runs smoothly on my netbook (Intel Atom, Win7 Starter, 1gig RAM).
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"Great file manager / reader."
Version: FastStone Image Viewer 4.6
Pros
Fast easy to use, full functioning, and still free.
Cons
can't remember any.
Summary
Have used it trouble free for years.
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"aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"
Version: FastStone Image Viewer 4.6
Pros
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Cons
I wish you could join the real world. I spend all day on the internet at my office (which means that I can't use their computers to work on my photos). I want to buy a program so that when I am on vacation, i.e. away from the internet, I can work on my photos. Please tell me that I can buy a real disk and not download anything.
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"A must have!"
Version: FastStone Image Viewer 4.6
Pros
- Free alternative to ACDSEE.
- Fast, stable and with no bugs (I haven't noticed any).
- Excellent features (does exactly what it's supposed to do and not "a little bit of everything").
Possibly the best free picture viewer available.Cons
The only thing that bothers me is that thumbnail sizes are predefined. However this is a matter of personal taste.
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