FastStone Image Viewer is a free desktop photo viewer and editor developed by FastStone Soft on Nov. 25, 2004, that allows users to edit their photos using different tools.
The graphical interface consists of a column of folders on the left hand side, different rows of folders on the right and a photo preview below the column of folders.
The preview of the photo can also be to the right or it can appear as a window depending what layout is selected. There is also a toolbar that allows users to change the way the photo is shown in the preview.
One of the features of this toolbar is playing a slideshow.
Before the show, users can change the way the photos will be played during the show, such as background color, smooth image rendering and transition effects.
The toolbar allows them to resize their photos. The width and height for the number of pixels, percentage and print size can be resized. There is also an option to preserve the aspect ratio for the resolution of their photos.
Additionally, the toolbar allows photos to be rotated. The application can rotate JPEG files losslessly, meaning that the quality of the photo will remain the same after it has been rotated. Rotation can change the orientation of the photo from landscape to portrait or vice versa.
Aside from the toolbar, the application features a menu that contains different photo editing options. The menu is divided into different tabs, such as color and effects.
There are different ways that people can adjust the color of photos. The brightness, contrast or saturation can be adjusted by moving the sliders left or right.
Filters can also be applied to photos, such as grayscale and negative.
There is also an option for applying certain effects onto photos, such as border and watermark.
Border effects change the way the frame looks on the photos while watermark adds the name “FastStone” to the photo, as well as the link to the application’s home page, “http://www.faststone.org.”
The program does not have that many differences with Adobe Photoshop. Photoshop has lots of features so there is barely any difference between these two programs.
One difference between FastStone Image Viewer and Adobe Photoshop is that Image Viewer is free while Photoshop requires users to pay a monthly subscription.
Aside from payments, another difference is that Image Viewer does not allow color spaces to be changed while Photoshop allows users to do that.
For example, Image Viewer does not allow users to change the color space of their photos from RGB to CMYK or grayscale while Photoshop allows that by using a drop down menu.
Additionally, Image Viewer does not allow users to add captions to their photos, but in Photoshop students can embed captions into their photos by adding it in the description field of the photos’ file info.
There are other editing tools that Image Viewer has, such as zooming and image shuffling. FastStone Image Viewer can be used by people who need to edit their photos for free and cannot afford to pay for Adobe Photoshop.