FastStone MaxView 3.1

FastStone MaxView is a simple but full-featured image viewer that allows you to enjoy your image files and photos in full detail. In addition, it also allows you to apply some effects and basic editing functions to your images, and includes some extra tools designed to make your experience as rich as possible, so that this program goes far beyond simple image viewing.

Its user interface allows you to open an image or photo in any of the multiple supported formats, and then you can navigate through the rest of the images on the same folder by simply using your arrow keys. FastStone MaxView supports practically all known image file formats including JPEG, BMP, GIF, PNG, TGA, PCX, ICO, CUR, WMF, PSD and many more, plus multiple raw formats belonging to the most famous camera manufactures worldwide. One of the most helpful features of the program is, undoubtedly, its capability of opening archive files in ZIP, RAR or 7Z formats and browsing their internal images, even if they are password-protected (in which case you will need to provide the right password, of course).

As for the editing functions, this program can resize, crop, rotate and sharpen/blur your currently browsing image, as well as adjust its lighting and colors balance, add texts, lines, arrows, shapes and apply some other effects to it. In addition, FastStone MaxView includes functions to directly download the photos from your connected camera and to acquire images from your scanner. On top of that, the program can print your images and send them by e-mail, though this function requires an e-mail client installed on your system.

Finally, as it couldn't be otherwise, the program includes some special functions to make your image viewing experience the best. One of them is the so-called "Magnifying Glass" that you can use to appreciate any portion of your image at full resolution. Also, you can enable the full-screen view that takes full advantage of your screen resolution to display a photo. Finally, the slideshow function allows you to configure some basic parameters to instantly create a slideshow with all the images in your current folder, that you can enjoy even with background music.

In a nutshell, FastStone MaxView is a powerful and comprehensive tool you can use not only to enjoy your images and photos, but also to edit them in multiple ways with easy. Unfortunately, batch image editing is not yet supported by this program, so you can only edit one image at a time. Other than that, this is nearly a perfect tool for the mentioned purposes. You can try it for 30 days before needing to buy a license to continue using it.