Here are my three favorite photo/imaging tools, all for free:
1. Irfanview
If you try out just one free tool, this is the one. It’s the best free image viewing tool in the world. Period. Viewing images, printing, converting them between different formats, slide shows, minor adjustments, thumbnails, image organizing – all of these can be done fast and easily. There’s hardly an image format that is not supported by Irfanview. It’s not an image editor, though.
I’ve been using Irfanview since the mid 1990’s and it’s my default application for file extensions such as JPG and TIF. It’s one of the first applications that get installed whenever I get a new PC. Try it out and I bet it will stick. Sorry, Windows only. Available in many languages.
2. Pixmantec Raw Shooter Essentials
Although Pixmantec was bought by Adobe least year and its Raw Shooter engine is now part of the new Adobe Photoshop Lightroom product, you can still google it to find copies on the net. If you bought a Digital SLR in 2006, chances are that Raw Shooter Essentials (RSE) supports its RAW format. In short, RSE is a full-featured software package to convert RAW images to TIFFs or JPEGs and it does a great job of doing so. Intuitive interface, easy adjustment capabilities and superb image processing make this a great value. Personally, I use the Premium (RSP) version, but I used RSE before RSP came out. It’s by far the best free RAW converter. Again, Windows only.
3. GIMP
Not ready to shell out hundreds of dollars for Adobe Photoshop, but still want Photoshop-like functionality? Try the GIMP, an open-source image editor. While its functionality is a bit short of Photoshop’s, it still offers way more than most other free “image editors”. Plus, it’s available on Windows, Mac and Linux/Unix. It would be my image editor of choice, if I would go the free route!
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