FreeVimager is different

The PC world has more than its share of image viewers, which makes it difficult for any one product to stand out from the crowd. FreeVimager is a rare exception, though, winning you over by its sheer weight of features and functionality.

You get the core viewer basics, of course. The program can associate itself with individual file types (AVI and some audio formats as well as basic images), or open entire folders to display them as a slideshow. And there’s a decent set of image editing options: resize, rotate or crop tools; sharpen and soften filters; brightness, contrast and colour adjustments, a red-eye remover and more.

But as you explore these options, you’ll find far more versatility than you might expect.

So FreeVimager doesn’t just display slideshows; it can also burn them to disc. Some editing options are surprisingly capable (the rotation dialog has “lossless” and “anti-aliasing” settings). And there are tools here which you won’t always find even in full-strength image editors, such as lossless JPEG cropping, or the ability to add, update or remove an EXIF thumbnail.

Explore the menus and you’ll also find plenty of bonus features. The program can save the currently open image as a PDF file, for instance. It’s able to scan multiple pages, saving them as a PDF or TIFF file. While a batch processing dialog will help you to convert or rename a folder full of images to suit your needs.

And there are thoughtful touches here, too, wherever you look. Take slideshow navigation, for instance. FreeVimager doesn’t just have “last image”, “next image” arrows to click: you can also use the left/ right cursor keys, up/ down, even use touch screen gestures.

To be fair, there are limitations in a few areas. Image file format support is rather basic (bmp, emf, gif, jpg, pcx, png, tiff), for instance, and there’s no thumbnail browser.

On balance FreeVimager is still an excellent image viewer, though, an easy-to-use, portable, open-source program which runs happily on anything from Windows 95 through to 8.

Photo Credit: Eastimages/Shutterstock