best free photo view / edit software?

i'm down with this whole "berkeley the man" setup on my 7 year old laptop. so far i'm using AVG Free, Firefox, and OpenOffice.org. now i need a photo view / edit software and of course i want free and open.

what are y'all using, and do you recommend it to others?

thanks, PC

I use IrfanView - http://www.irfanview.com/

Works fine, but I mainly use it to convert between formats and to resize images.

Try GIMP (open source photoshop knockoff) and Picasa (a google app of some kind. Haven't used it, but I've heard good things.)

+1 for Gimp

I also assume you've dumped microsoft windows?

picasa is great for minor edits and is not photoshop like but works great.

I just downloaded Paint.net and used it make our Christmas card. Very powerful considering it's free. I also use Irfanview, but Paint.net was better for the editing I needed (has layers, etc).

Tim Baxter wrote: Try GIMP (open source photoshop knockoff) and Picasa (a google app of some kind. Haven't used it, but I've heard good things.)

Gar! GIMP's not a "knockoff". It's its own beastie.

++ on GIMP - I don't do much if any photo editing (and when I do it's on the Mac) but GIMP works very well on my son's 5-year-old laptop with 1 gig of RAM, and is very powerful.

ReverendDexter wrote:

Tim Baxter wrote: Try GIMP (open source photoshop knockoff) and Picasa (a google app of some kind. Haven't used it, but I've heard good things.)

Gar! GIMP's not a "knockoff". It's its own beastie.

I was being generous.

Just don't do the OpenOffice Draw. It won't save anything but its own format; no jpeg, bmp, or gif. It will open any of the above, but won't save it in any common formats.

I got so frustrated with it that I just loaded an old version of Photoshop on mine. Photoshop is so common (and relatively powerful) that its basically free. Borrow it from a friend. I'm running a tweaked version of XP.

Never used GIMP but paint.net is great, sometimes I prefer it to photoshop for ease of use.

I use Gimp.

If by "editing" you mean actually changing the content of the image then GIMP is or Paint.net is your tool. GIMP is very powerful and so has a steep learning curve like Photoshop. You can do everything that the pros do with Photoshop.

If by editing you mean cropping, changing the size, rotating, etc, then Irfanview can't be beat. It's powerful in its own way but it's scope is limited. It can manipulate photos but it doesn't allow you to add or modify the actual content other than cutting and pasting. But for resizing and rotating and such it can't be beat. It's tiny, fast, and super flexible. You can do batch file format conversions, renames, even resizing. It's really an amazing tool once you dig into it.

A good photo toolbox contains both types of tools - loading GIMP to resize a picture is like using an impact wrench to put your valve stem cap on.

Holy Thread from the Dead

Dammit, I fell for a zombie canoe.

Sorry. I sank the boat earlier this morning. Maybe I should have posted a warning.