Photography on a Shoe String Budget:
Irfan View

If you have read, or even looked at, a photography magazine or website, it would be hard to escape hearing about Photoshop or some other program that allows you manipulate your photos in a variety of ways. And if you've looked in more detail, you may have developed a serious case of sticker shock.

There are a variety of less-expensive alternatives. One of the better-known is Photoshop Elements, a “light” version of Photoshop. At about a quarter of the price of the “full” Photoshop, it's worth considering if you need some serious control but don't want to get into the price and complexity of the full version.

But what if you don’t need (or want) everything Photoshop offers? Maybe you have an older computer that doesn’t like Photoshop. Maybe you want something that you can use quickly and get some pictures out while you’re on the road—and maybe, even put it on a flash drive and take it with you instead of lugging a computer around? Or what if you’re just plain cheap, or broke? There are several alternatives which fit our shoe-string theme very well: FREE.

Even if you’re not on a shoe-string budget, it’s well worth looking at Irfan View. It’s a free download (http://www.irfanview.com/), although only available for Windows. I use it quite often, even though I have Photoshop. It’s faster to load, and has quick access to the sort of features I most often need.

Irfan View allows you to crop your image. As you outline the crop area, you can see the dimensions and proportions as you go. It also allows quick resizing, including changing the resolution while you’re at it. I use this a lot; there’s no need to e-mail a picture that someone will view on-screen at anything more than 72 dpi. So I change it to fill the screen and use the lower resolution, and it doesn’t overload anyone’s mailbox.

Several frequently-used adjustments are easy to make: exposure, color balance, and fine rotation (in case you aren’t quite level) are among these. Recent versions have added cloning, some touch-ups, and text insertion capabilities. One thing you can’t do is paste an image or portion into an existing one.

You can also do what Irfan View’s name comes from: view images in just about any format and save them as another. This now includes a variety of video formats.

A short note: if you need a program with capabilities more like Photoshop, look into GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Program)--something I’ll cover later on.