Web Design's Swiss Army Knife

Is there a "Swiss Army Knife" of web design? The real Swiss Army Knife is well known as a versatile tool with a thousand uses. It can open a can, uncork a wine bottle, be a screwdriver, cut a cord and so much more. Well, there is a free software that is the web designer's equivalent of the Swiss Army Knife . . . the IRFANVIEW GRAPHIC VIEWER!

I have used Irfanview for over four years as a 'sidekick' to my standard graphic tool Photoshop. Irfanview is fast, and great for quick screen grabs, and image conversions (the image above is a screengrab made with Irfanview). I always have it running in the background as I work, ready for a quick task with web graphics. However, the latest version has a breadth of features that make it so much more useful. Here is a list of some of the features and capabilities:

• Many supported image formats
• Thumbnail/preview option
• Slideshow (save slideshow as EXE/SCR or burn it to CD)
• Fast directory view (moving through directory)
• Batch conversion (with image processing)
• Multimedia player
• Print option
• Change color depth
• Scan (batch scan) support
• Cut/crop
• Effects (Sharpen, Blur, Photoshop filter factory)
• Screen Captures
• Extract icons from EXE/DLL/ICLs
• Lossless JPG rotation
• Many command line options
• Many plugins

Keep in mind that this is just a partial list! What is even more amazing is that the software is less than 1 megabyte in size. It is small, fast and extremely useful. This amazing tool is absolutely free, although I encourage you to make a small donation if you find it useful. The author of this product is from Bosnia and deserves compensation for providing a truly capable, useful and polished product.

Click here for IRFANVIEW GRAPHIC VIEWER

Donald Peterson