IrfanView is a unique and innovative image viewer, converter, editor, and manager for Vista 7, 8, 10, 11, and Windows XP. It is a fast and compact freeware perfect for beginners and professionals.
The tool equips you with all advanced capabilities, fundamentals, and functions for manipulating photos of all kinds in different ways.
The significant benefits you enjoy while using IrfanView include the platform’s extra features and functionalities and its fundamental responsibility of handling photos.
IrfanView is one of the world’s first windows graphic viewers that support multiple animated GIFs, ICO support, and Multipage TIF.
The list of good things about IrfanView is long, but that doesn’t make it a perfect tool. Unlike many photo viewers, IrfanView does not have a slider, and some users feel the platform is outdated.
Also, IrfanView is natively unavailable on Mac, another reason which might prompt you to look for replacements.
In this article, I will discuss some of the best IrfanView alternatives. This will help you find a suitable alternative for your needs.
Let’s get started.
Best IrfanView Alternatives
1. PhotoScape
PhotoScape is a straightforward and effective tool for altering, viewing, and organizing images. It is an excellent alternative to IrfanView because it’s fun and easy and lets you quickly fix and enhance photos.
This tool is richer in features than IrfanView, and it is constantly upgrading to offer you a better photo viewing experience. Its complex features help you modify and improve the quality of photos, and it is considered one of the most sophisticated image editors and processors.
PhotoScape handles images of the same type to produce the same outcomes. The tool also uses advanced technology to help you save time through bulk editing.
What will make you choose PhotoScape over IrfanView is its ability to let you manage GIF and animated files the same way you’d manage images.
In addition, the tool can mix pictures in various formats and leaves you with the option to print images once you edit and process them directly.
The only drawback to this tool is that it does not open eps files. Overall, it can be an excellent replacement for IrfanView with a simple user interface that enables you to seamlessly perform photo enhancements of your choice.
PhotoScape is free. However, you can show appreciation and support for PhotoScape through voluntary donations of at least $10.
2. MAGIX Photo Manager
MAGIX Photo Manager is another alternative to IrfanView that is worth considering. MAGIX is a photo organization platform that lets you transform your favorite videos and photos into an exciting photo story.
This tool offers the most vivid way to share experiences by enabling you to edit, organize, and sort your photos. Unlike IrfanView, MAGIX Photo Manager allows you to create outstanding animated slideshows using its multiple transitions, cutting-edge features, and creative animations.
With MAGIX Photo Manager, you can create a collection of precious moments and personalize experiences you treasure with a photo story. You can quickly browse through memories from the gallery and find the right photos or videos for your current project.
One feature that you’ll find interesting with this tool is the MAGIX travel maps for vivid stories for your travel. The feature showcases photos from the places they were taken using an animated map.
The tool immerses you in various locations with breathtaking camera zooms and tracking shots that take you on a journey.
MAGIX Photo Manager offers a free trial and a selection of paid versions. Try it for free, or select a paid version that suits your needs from as low as $2.99 per month.
3. FastStone Image Viewer
FastStone Image Viewer is another exciting IrfanView substitute that is fast, reliable, and user-friendly. Like IrfanView, FastStone has many features, including image management, image viewing, comparison, red-eye removal, cropping, color adjustments, and emailing.
The tool is sophisticated yet practical and is one photo management solution beyond basic image editing.
FastStone Image Viewer is ahead of IrfanView, thanks to its screen capture capabilities and ability to convert photos to different file formats. It is a solution that is thought to satisfy its users’ needs for photos.
It is also packed with technological features such as potent photo editing tools, a full-screen viewing system, customizable image manager, tagging capability, and a drag-and-drop system.
This tool is free. However, you can help continue its development through donations.
4. XnView
XnView is a multi-functional image processing platform whose functions are similar to IrfanView.
The best thing about XnView that would convince you to choose it over IrfanView is that it supports all major image formats, including JPEG, PNG, WEBP, PSD, TIFF, and PDF, among others.
The tool is feature-rich and goes beyond image editing and image management to give you options for batch conversion and conversion of a single photo.
XnView is excellent software for displaying, reading, and manipulating images. Unlike IrfanView, it is compatible with Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X.
XnView has unequaled compatibility, enhanced performance, batch conversion, and a host of outstanding attributes among the tool’s unique technical qualities.
XnView is free.
Check out the best alternatives to XnView in this post.
5. ACDSee
ACDSee is a great IrfanView alternative that allows digital image manipulation and evaluation.
This tool will enable you to manage your photographs with their management mode, and you can choose to post your photos or download them directly from the platform and arrange them however you like.
ACDSee is a more powerful tool than IrfanView as it provides means to manage the privacy of your image data. The tool allows you to share your images with friends and family.
With ACDSee, you can also categorize your images based on their different types using the tool’s categories system.
Its editing mode gives you various capabilities, including a selection of tools, exposure correction, lighting and color adjustment, and essential drawing tools, among others.
You can also learn to harness the power of the software through their free online workshops for all skill levels.
ACDSee offers a 30-day free trial on its full version, giving you access to its rich features and vast capabilities.
6. Zoner Photo Studio
Zoner Photo Studio is one of the best IrfanView alternatives primarily designed for pros, though beginners can also use it.
Unlike IrfanView, Zoner Photo Studio is a picture processor and editor that gives artistic outcomes and boasts a user base of over 100,000 photography lovers in the United States.
Zoner Photo Studio was founded in 1993 as a small group for photography enthusiasts. The platform has innovatively grown into one of the top photo management software with great features for editing and organizing your photos.
It is a complete toolkit that enables photo corrections, workflow, effects, online galleries, and print orders. The good thing about this tool is that it gives you online storage and allows you to combine Photoshop layer editing and LightRoom in a single program.
The program runs on Windows 8.1 and 10, and like IrfanView, Zoner Photo Studio is not available on Mac.
Zoner Photo Studio is available for free download. The free version allows you to explore its outstanding features for 30 days. You can also purchase a Zoner Photo Studio X license for $5.99 per month or $59 per year.
7. Phototheca
Phototheca is a photo manager for Windows that allows you to manage your images easily. With Phototheca, you can view, organize, edit, and share several digital videos and photos on your PC.
Unlike IrfanView, Phototheca conducts more functions aside from photo editing. The tool helps you import photos from sources such as memory cards, NAS, drives, and smartphones.
It removes duplicate photos, arranges pictures in albums, recognizes and tags faces and shares images on the web.
It is an excellent software with robust features to help you bring photos to life. The platform is available in several languages, including English, Italian, Deutsch, Spanish, Polski, and French.
You’ll love its cutting-edge AI technology that allows for facial recognition. This technology enables the tool to gather all photos of the same person and organize them into an album. Its search feature helps you search and tag pictures and videos using keywords.
Phototheca offers three plans. Phototheca Pro, at a one-time payment of $49.95, allows you to work on 100,000 photos and supports one PC. Its Premium plan costs a one-time price of $64.95 and supports 500,000 images.
If you prefer working on unlimited photos, the Phototheca X plan is the best choice at $55 per year and works on five PCs.
8. Corel AfterShot Pro
If you are looking for an IrfanView alternative that can help you uncover the pro secret to time-saving photo editing, then Corel AfterShot Pro is the tool to look for. Corel AfterShot Pro is more sophisticated than IrfanView and does better editing, viewing, and managing images.
Corel AfterShot Pro is faster than IrfanView and unleashes your true creative potential. The tool offers non-destructive photo editing and photo management features on multiple platforms including Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.
It is one of the best photo editors and managers available. Its photo organizing system is strong enough to help you search images by date, rating, tag, or name.
Another thing that makes this tool more outstanding than IrfanView is that it integrates well with Photoshop.
Through this integration, you can quickly process raw photos, and once you are ready for more detailed editing, you can turn to Photoshop by clicking on “Edit with External Editor.”
Corel AfterShot Pro offers a 30-day free trial for its fully-functional version. The free trial enables you to sort, organize, and view photos, save time with its ultra-fast workflow, and edit thousands of photos to perfection.
Its full version is available at a discounted price of $39.99 at this time of writing.
9. LightZone
Another excellent editor with powerful editing capabilities is LightZone. While its functionalities are similar to IrfanView, LightZone is primarily designed to manage various RAW photos.
LightZone offers crucial photo management features, including editing, browsing, viewing, printing, styles, and regions in a single dashboard.
The good thing about this tool is that it is practically compatible with multiple scanners and printers. Hence, you don’t need to install another image processing tool when using LightZone.
LightZone’s sharing mechanism allows you to share photos with friends and family and quickly convert your images from one format to another.
It is a comprehensive solution with all the answers you need to unlock the secrets of quality photo editing, and it is available for Windows and Mac.
It requires less storage than IrfanView and is most downloaded in the US, Canada, and the Netherlands. LightZone is only available in English.
LightZone is available for download for free.
10. Polarr
Polarr is a sophisticated yet effective photo processor and editor that enables you to handle photos in a manner that suits your needs. It is one of the best photo processing tools whose design is more intuitive and accessible than IrfanView and most photo editors.
The most impressive thing about this tool is that it is a personalized program for editors to enjoy their capabilities at a professional level. Polarr is straightforward and incorporates all your demands for any photo editing. It is available for Windows, Mac, IOS, and Android.
Polarr’s primary functions include batch processing and export, photo editing, personalized filters, and local adjusting. The only drawback to this tool is that it cannot open a hefty file of 16-bit, and you are only limited to editing JPEG files of 8-bit.
However, this does not make it a bad alternative to IrfanView because the tool will deliver outstanding end products as long as the JPEG quality is high. It is ideal for editing images on the web and online tabs, and no big downloads are required.
Polarr offers limited features for free. To access its robust features in full range, consider subscribing to Polarr Pro for $7.99 per month or $3.99 per month when billed annually.
11. Corel PaintShop Pro
Corel PaintShop Pro is a professional-level photo editor that offers an excellent way to convert ordinary photos into gorgeous art pieces. Unlike IrfanView, Corel PaintShop Pro offers a complete guide to photo editing from primary, professional, and advanced levels.
In addition, it’s a host of innovative tools and features for anyone looking for extraordinary photos. With this tool, you can carry out RAW editing, correct images, and use its sophisticated filter tool to attain one-click photo fixes.
The best thing about Corel PaintShop Pro is that it supports 4K files and gives you access to all the colors and brightness you have been missing.
It also offers intelligent image editing solutions to allow you to blur or change image backgrounds using AI technology, enlarge a photo using AI up sampling, and develop styled images with AI style transfer.
PaintShop Pro offers free trials featuring limited features for photo editing and designing. You may choose one of its plans to access more features for a better experience, preferably the new PaintShop Pro Ultimate worth $110.
12. Microsoft Photos
Another photo viewing and editing platform like IrfanView that is worth considering is Microsoft Photos. It gives you an experience that empowers you to do more with your videos and pictures.
With this tool, you can easily view, compare, edit, and create albums or even movies for your memorable moments.
One feature that makes Microsoft Photos unique and a better choice over IrfanView is its Filmstrip feature. The filmstrip shows items from the exact location and lets you jump from one photo to another while still immersed in the experience.
Microsoft Photos toolbar helps you edit, mark up photos, add favorites and metadata, and gives you access to third-party editors.
It gives you a distraction-free experience, and whether you visit the tool to only view or edit photos, you’ll still have an intuitive and seamless photo experience on Windows 11.
It is the most accessible platform to help you organize photographs in one location and share digital memories with others.
Microsoft Photos is free.
13. JPEGView
JPEGView is a multimedia application and an image viewer/editor that works with images in all formats. David Kleiner developed this tool to help you adjust pictures immediately after you open them on JPEGView.
It works like IrfanView but has a better range of functions than rotation and zoom. JPEG View allows you to perform perspective correction, display EXIF information, and enhance the image.
In addition, it gives you multiple options that you can efficiently perform by moving your cursor. On the downside, its photo editing features are limited to basic capabilities.
One more thing that will make you prefer JPEGView over IrfanView is its flexibility. The tool allows you to use it as it best suits your needs and effortlessly manage and edit photos in different formats.
Features that stand out with JPEGView include integration with fundamental photo processing tools, user-friendliness, configuration, real-time processing, movie mode to play images in JPEG format, and an advanced degree of resampling filter, among others.
JPEGView is available for free download and use.
14. ImageGlass
ImageGlass is a lightweight and versatile image viewer with essential functions and a gorgeous minimal and modern user interface.
This open-source tool can be an excellent replacement for IrfanView, and as long as you have enough photo enhancement skills, you can mold it to your liking.
ImageGlass is ahead of IrfanView as the tool supports over 80 image formats and works excellently with SVG, GIF, HEIC, and RAW formats. It has a portable design for those who cannot install it, and its files are seamlessly displayed even when you zoom them in and out.
You’ll also be fascinated with its configuration options, including choosing whether to save the image in its rotated state, what the scroll wheel does, and what program should open once you right-click an image in ImageGlass.
This tool loads images faster than IrfanView thanks to its feature that uses RAM to preload your following photos. ImageGlass has a visual theme editor and a collection of stock light and dark themes. The tool allows you to resize and reorient pictures in the main display quickly.
Its layout is clean and convenient and is a more useful tool than IrfanView, especially with its zoom-in and zoom-out capabilities with greater minimum and maximum limits.
Its toolbar is customizable and allows you to select which icons to display and the order in which those icons should be displayed. ImageGlass is safe and does not harvest personal data when you use it.
ImageGlass is a free, open-source, and ad-free image viewer. But since developing and maintaining the platform is not free, the tool asks for support from its users through monthly or one-time sponsorship through GitHub.
15. Veneta Viewer
Veneta Viewer is an excellent image player and manager that allows you to interact with images in the best way you see fit. It is an advanced image editing level linked to a hardware image sequence player.
Unlike IrfanView, Veneta Viewer allows you to play your image like a movie in full-screen mode. Additionally, this tool supports all picture formats and is rich in one of the most vital features.
Veneta Viewer is skilled at dealing with RAW photos. If you are looking for an IrfanView replacement that will give you answers to all your image management questions, look no further than Veneta Viewer.
It is an exciting image viewer for windows, and while it might not be as fast as IrfanView, it is packed with extra features that will make your photo editing experience worthwhile. The tool offers a modern feel to browsing images and will be a solid choice if you pick it.
Veneta Viewer is free.
Final Thoughts
There you have it! Fifteen amazing options to choose from whenever you are looking for a better image enhancer and image manager. While these tools seem to have similar functionalities, each one of them is novel in its own way.
Before making a choice, ensure that you scrutinize each tool’s unique traits and only settle for a tool whose characteristics and functionalities align with your needs.
If you are looking for a tool rich in features and straightforward yet fun to use, I recommend you go for PhotoScape. PhotoScape is a universal and intuitive program with excellent optimization and the ability to maintain image quality.
Scott L. Macarthur is a marketing consultant and an online author. He is mostly engaged in providing his expertise to startups and SMBs. He is also an author on TheNextWeb.