Recommendations for image browsers

[sparhawk]

Currently I'm using Graphics Workshop Professional, because I purchased a copy some years ago, but I'm not 100% happy with it's interface, so I'm looking for some alternatives. What it can do really well is that it supports a lot of formats and can convert from one into the other including scaling and various other transformations. I wonder whether there are some other image browsers which will run a bit more intuitively. What annoys me is that I can not simply look into a folder and browse images there. I always have to make thumbnails of them, before you can see them inside the browser. Obviously, I would like something where this is an option, but not a requirement, and of course it should also be able to support and convert as many formats as possible.

[oDDity]

I've been using irfanview since I first started using computers, and I do a lot of image browsing. It's very convenient.

You can open almost any format, though you can't convert to all formats, but I'm sure you can get plenty of plugins for it for extra formats etc, and you can do all the things you mention like resizing, plus there are image filters etc.

[sparhawk]

Hah! Thanks! I knew Irfanview, but I didn't know that it had this browsing option as well. I only knew that big mainwindow. Maybe the directory browser was later added. Anyway, it's free and does what I want now.

[Komag]

I'll second Irfanview. It's one of those programs that I have on my list of "must install" whenever I get a new computer

[oDDity]

The nice thing about it is that it's still freeware after all this time (10 years)

Considering it has hundreds of millions of regular users, many people would at least have sold advertising banners or something in it by now, but he's kept it clean.

OF course the guy who started it is not American, so that goes some way toward explaining it.