Opensource Image Viewer / Editor

[vlada]

Hello,
already quite a long time I'm looking for a free image viewer + simple editor. I'm currently using XnView, but unfortunately it is not free for commercial use. I'm wondering why there is no good opensource viewer for Windows. There are some, but they are either unmaintained or difficult to use.
I believe it wouldn't take a lot of work to make one, because you can use filters from other opensource programs like GIMP, ImageMagick or even VirtualDub and AviSynth. Also there are opensource libraries for reading a writing most commont file formats. So all you have to do is make a good GUI "only". I believe a lot of people would be interesting in programming such a viewer, so I'm wondering why nobody started yet.
What are your opinions? What image browsers/viewers/editors do you use? Btw. is there a site similar to Doom9 and HydrogenAudio concentrating on computer graphics?

Regards,
Vlada

[Tuesday]

http://www.irfanview.com/ not opensource, but it is freeware :) There is also a windows port of GIMP

[vlada]

I know IrfanView, it is quite good program, but not as good as XnView or FastStone Viewer. But the main problem with all 3 softwares is, that they are free for non commercial use only. So I can't use them at work.

[dragongodz]

for image editing theres things like
http://www.gimp.org/ - Gimp
http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/ - Paint.NET

for an image viewer you could try
http://imgv.sourceforge.net/

[vlada]

Any new ideas for a free viewer/editor. I really like XnView, but it is not free for commercial use, so I can't use it at work. GIMP is great, but it can't do JPEG transformations AFAIK and is quite slow for simple editing. IMGV is only a viewer and it has very strange UI and control.

I'm wondering why nobody took some time to put together all the great opensource libraries and command-line tools to build a perfect ACDSee replacement. We have fast ImageMagick (http://www.imagemagick.org/script/index.php), JpegCrop (http://sylvana.net/jpegcrop/) for lossless JPEG transformations, Developer's Image Library (http://sourceforge.net/projects/openil), Filters (http://filters.sourceforge.net/), FreeImage (http://freeimage.sourceforge.net/) and libiptcdata (http://libiptcdata.sourceforge.net/). I think some code (or maybe whole plugins) can be used from GIMP, imgv or GQView.

I was thinking about starting such project myself, but unfortunately I have no experience with C programming and I think it is too difficult for a beginner to start such a project. What's your opinion?

[feedback]

I really like XnView, but it is not free for commercial use, so I can't use it at work.
Thanks for the heads up on XnView I just downloaded it and it seems to be quite a versatile app.

Seems to read about ever format ever made.:)

Commercial use is not authorized without agreement or ordering. This message is indicated on the website. I don't suppose you could work out an agreement with the developer for your commercial use. If you are a small enough company maybe the financial hit would not be to bad.

Good Luck,

[ricardo.santos]

What about Picasa?

I personally dont use it just for the simple reason i cant deactivate the auto search/index pics function.

its a editor and viewer

I use Xnview

[Sirber]

Simple: XnView, looks like ACDSee.
Advanced: GIMP ;)

[foxyshadis]

xnview was my top until I found FastStone (http://www.faststone.org/), partly because I didn't have to extensively reconfigure it, unlike xnview, and its awesome full-screen pop-ups (like the filmstrip). It's slower than xnview with large pngs & jp2s though, and doesn't have all the image editing features (if you use those).

Same issue with commercial use though - I'm not sure whether commercial means using it for a business purpose or includes viewing personal files on a business machine though, that's something you have to ask the folks who make it.

There are open source viewers - but none of them have good UIs. >.> Sort of a dealbeaker when many free but closed software exist with such good UIs (but that means it usually doesn't exist outside windows).