FastStone Image Viewer 5.5

FastStone Image Viewer won’t simply allow you to enjoy viewing your digital photos in thumbnail or full-screen mode on your PC or laptop. This free app comes with all the tools you need to correct, enhance, edit, and organize your photo collection in a simple and intuitive way. All well-known image file formats are well supported, including the most common RAW formats from all the most famous camera makes.

With this tool, you won’t need to rely on expensive and complicated image editors to manage your image collection. Starting with downloading your newest photos from your digital camera and ending with creating pro-looking slideshows with your favorite soundtracks, FastStone Image Viewer can do almost anything. When importing your images, the program will offer you the possibility of organizing them in folders and subfolders (classified by creation date) and of renaming them in batches using your own templates. Your images will then be displayed as thumbnails for quicker and easier identification. The program will also scan your drives looking for any set of images already stored on your computer, helping you to keep them also organized.

Now you can start editing, correcting, and enhancing your pictures. The possibilities are manifold, and I won’t be listing them all here. Suffice it to say that not many so-called “photo editors” will offer you the wide array of tools, filters, and effects that you will find here. Color adjustments, red-eye effect removal, cropping tools, watermarking, frames and masks, photo comparison, you name it. Add to these other management-related tools, such as the possibility of changing your photos’ timestamp or of removing their EXIF data altogether, and you will have a clearer idea of how powerful this free application can be.

The final products that it offers are equally interesting. You can create, save, and print your own contact sheets of the folders or the pictures of your choice. Slideshows can also be produced without requiring any third-party application – stunning and high-quality slideshows, complete with an extensive choice of transitions and with your favorite soundtrack, can be created and shared in minutes.

FastStone Image Viewer will most certainly surprise you. Not only for the high quality of its output and the long list of features it provides for free, but also for its ease of use and the high versatility and flexibility of all its utilities.