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The Two Leading Applications – An Overview, Comparative Evaluation and Guide for the IS Community

Julian M. Scher [email protected] Department of Information Systems New Jersey Institute of Technology Newark, NJ 07102 USA

Abstract

Information Systems professionals/instructors/students often have a need to include digital images in their formal class presentations and writings, including photographic images, and there is often a need to perform some editing of these digital images, ranging from simple image cropping, or placement of text on the image, to more sophisticated lighting modifica- tions. While commercial image editing software, such as , represent the titles of choice for professional graphic designers, they are often “overkill” for the IS profession- al/instructor/student, who likely will simply prefer ease of use over sophistication, in order to expeditiously edit their images, and at nil cost. We explore the two leading freeware pro- grams for image editing, Irfanview and Photoscape, both of which are from international sources, and describe and compare some of their functionalities, with a recommendation that both freeware titles belong in the library of every IS professional, though each has its strengths and weaknesses.

Keywords: freeware, image editing, photographic images, Irfanview, Photoscape

1. IMAGES AND IMAGE EDITORS FOR unwanted area, to advanced image editing INFORMATION SYSTEMS TEACHING activities which represent a higher level of AND PRESENTATIONS sophistication, such as cloning an area of the image or adjusting its tone and saturation. The Information Systems community, in- cluding instructors and students, will often As an illustration of this, the author was re- have a need to include digital images in their cently updating his Powerpoint slides and presentations and writings. The IS instruc- lecture notes for a database systems design tor might wish to embed figures from the course which utilizes the eighth edition of course textbook into a Powerpoint presenta- the database textbook by Rob and Coronel tion, or there might be a need to include (Rob, Coronel, 2009). The publisher tradi- digital photographic images into a report. tionally provides to the instructor a file for Concurrently, there will be a need to edit each of the textbook images, in format. these digital images, be it something as An example of such is the ERD image given simple as an instructor adding some expla- in Figure 1 of the Appendix. All of the sup- natory text to the image, or cropping out an plied images of figures in the textbook con-

Proc CONISAR 2009, v2 (Washington DC): §4134 (refereed) c 2009 EDSIG, page 1 Scher Sun, Nov 8, 9:00 - 9:25, Crystal 3 tain, as part of the image, the “Figure num- freeware authors, and, as discussed in ber” as published in the textbook. In future (Scher, 2009), many freeware authors have editions of the textbook, if additional or re- purely altruistic goals, seeking to return placement content is included in a chapter, something to the community from which this will often mean that while some images they have derived much excitement, know- of figures will be re-used, the figure num- ledge and careers. Freeware titles often bers of these associated images may have comparable functionality to commer- change, and thus the instructor will be re- cially available software, and, in numerous quired to replace the entire image in his/her cases, represent the creative passion of the presentation, since the figure number from freeware author, who may have created the prior edition may no longer be valid. To functionality which, in fact, may not be rea- save the IS instructor from the unnecessary dily available in their commercial counter- labor of updating the image, we would rec- parts. ommend that he/she be sure to NOT include in the presentation a figure number with the The two leading freeware image editing pro- associated image. This would be accom- grams, as given by CNET plished by “cropping out” the Figure number (http://tinyurl.com/d4oely ), are IrfanView with an image editing program, as we have (http://www.irfanview.com/ ) and Photos- done in Figure 2, where we cropped out the cape (http://tinyurl.com/yu5ns3 ). As of this “Figure 4.35” number from the image. date, the freeware IrfanView has had a total of about 44.6 million downloads, and is the For a professional graphic designer, the second most downloaded image editor on product of choice for image editing is gener- the Internet, Irfanview is the work of one ally something on the order of Adobe Photo- extremely dedicated individual who began shop CS4, but for the IS community, this this effort while still a college student, and product of choice for professional graphic its development has continue intensely for designers represents a costly “overkill.” The over 14 years. Irfanview is currently number IS community would generally be seeking 21 on the CNET list of the most popular ease of use as a primary attribute of any downloads (those in the top 15 are typically image editing software, where a steep learn- antivirus and anti-spyware utilities). The ing curve is to be avoided, and the desire is number two downloaded image editor is to expeditiously edit one’s digital images at Photoscape, which has had a total of over nil cost, where cost includes both monetary 6.5 million downloads and is currently num- expenditures as well as the time commodity. ber 18 on the CNET list of downloaded soft- ware titles. Irfanview is currently averaging There are numerous other instances where over 163,000 downloads per week, while the IS instructor would need to do image Photoscape is currently averaging about editing of images in his/her presentation. 167,000 downloads per week. (While there And while he/she likely would not require are other downloadable image editors, their the power and sophistication of Photoshop popularity is nowhere as great at Irfanview CS4, and possibly might not even be able to and Photoscape – the third most popular afford this expensive piece of software, yet freeware image editor (Paint.net) only has they would still seek an image editing appli- about 34,000 downloads per week, and so cation which has a moderate degree of pow- we focus in this paper on the top two. er. We will be describing in this paper two freeware image editing applications which Though Irfanview is the established leader in should satisfy the requirements of the IS freeware image editing, having been availa- instructor. ble for approximately 14 years and having had over 44 million downloads, Photoscape, the “new kid on the block,” being available 2. FREEWARE for only about 3 years, has this year sur- Freeware, as described by (Scher, 2009) “is passed Irfanview as being the most down- defined as computer software which has loaded image editor. been made available by the authors of the freeware titles to the general public, without any charge, registration fees or license fees.” There are numerous motivations for

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3. OVERVIEW OF IRFANVIEW AND ogies for image processing, and also mobile PHOTOSCAPE services. Mooiitech has been developing the Photoscape image editing product since IrfanView is an extremely fast and intuitive 2005, and it became freely available in and image editor, designed for 2007, and is currently in version 3.3, and is the Windows operating environ- the fastest growing image editor. ment, and is named after its designer, Irfan Skiljan from Bosnia, and is a graduate of the Photoscape provides a user interface com- Vienna Institute of Technology. IrfanView is pletely different from other image editing freeware for those using it for private and tools. Users are welcomed on the initial main non-commercial use, but commercial users screen by a default circular navigator (Figure need to pay a modest registration fee. In- 5 in the Appendix) complemented by some itially released in 1996, Irfan Skiljan has equivalent tabs on the top of the main been diligently working on enhancements to screen. (The Options on the upper right his software, and currently the product is in menu bar provides an option to replace the version 4.25. circular menu with a rectangular menu.) Most Photoscape features are accessible Irfanview is characterized by exceptional from either navigator mode. The icons in the speed and ease-of-use, and its renowned circular arrangement provide easily accessi- capability for handling nearly every graphics ble functionality for the many powerful fea- format. In the age of bloated image editors, tures present in Photoscape, with the Editor IrfanView has remained remarkably com- module being the primary module of interest pact, and the current base version of Irfan- for the IS professional seeking to perform view is about 1200 KB in size. IrfanView, as image editing. a premiere host application, allows for plug- ins, and third-party developers have re- The Editor contains the bulk of the functio- sponded by developing specialized software nality of Photoscape. Photoscape contains a which interfaces with the host application, wealth of adjustments and effects which and allows for enhanced formats, media may be applied to one’s digital images. players, and special effects and filters. There are numerous color and tone adjust- ments, frames and filter effects to spruce up Although we shall focus on the image-editing a digital image, as well as resizing, bright- capabilities of IrfanView, the program is ac- ness adjustments, decoloring, backlight cor- tually very robust, and contains the functio- rection, balloons, mosaic mode, adding text, nality to support many other multimedia drawing pictures, cropping, filters, red eye files. It will play audio files (in file formats removal and blooming. Figure 6 displays the such as WAV, Midi, MP3, and WMA), videos Editor screen which consists of four adjusta- (in file formats such as AVI, MPG, SWF and ble panels, where the file navigation panel is Apple Quick Time), and has built-in TWAIN on the upper left hand side with a thumbnail support to import images from scanners. preview of the photographic images in the panel below, and clicking on a particular im- The default screen for IrfanView, displaying age enlarges the image into the main work- both the menu bar and the tool bar, is given space panel on the right hand side, while the in Figure 3 of the Appendix, where we have bottom right adjustment panel contains the opened a photographic image. As per Figure editing tabs (Menu, Object, Crop and Re- 3, the user can navigate through IrfanView gion) of supported tools to edit the photo- by either using the top menu, or the tool bar graphic image. or the numerous keyboard shortcuts for the menu selections which are available through 4. COMPARATIVE FUNCTIONALITY OF IrfanView, and indicated on each submenu IRFANVIEW AND PHOTOSCAPE (such as given in Fig. 4 in the Appendix for the Image menu). In this section we shall compare some of the functionality of Irfanview and Photoscape in Photoscape is a freeware image editor de- terms of their capabilities for performing signed by Mooiitech, Ltd. a software devel- tasks normally desired by an IS instructor opment company founded in 2001 in Seoul, seeking an image editor. A chart summariz- South Korea. Moiitech specializes in technol- ing this comparative functionality is pre-

Proc CONISAR 2009, v2 (Washington DC): §4134 (refereed) c 2009 EDSIG, page 3 Scher Sun, Nov 8, 9:00 - 9:25, Crystal 3 sented as Figure 7 in the Appendix. ness and gamma corrections, using some predefined intelligent algorithms. Available Resize, Crop, Rotate, Flip Functionality also in the Image menu is a one-click con- version to gray-scale, as well as the capabili- Irfanview provides, through its “Image” ty to decrease the color depth to any num- menu, the capability to perform a left (coun- ber of colors from above 2 colors terclockwise) and right (clockwise) rotation (black/white) to below 250 colors. of 90 degrees, a customized fine rotation allowing the user to specify any number of From its “Home” tab in the Photoscape Im- degrees between -360 and +360 degrees, age Editor, the user may choose from a with the option to specify the background “Bright,Color” drop down box to customize color of the space remaining from the rota- the brightness and colors. The user may tion. Flips may be done both horizontally and choose from 3 levels of contrast enhance- vertically, creating “mirror images” of the ment, and 3 levels each to deepen, brighten image. Cropping is done directly on the im- or darken the colors, or choose from 10 le- age by dragging the mouse, and the user vels to decolor (incrementally remove col- may save either the selected cropped area, ors) from the image. There are also “Photo- or the area outside of the cropped area. shop-like” Color Curves, Saturation Curves and Luminance Curves for the more sophis- Photoscape similarly provides a one-click ticated IS instructor who might wish to ad- access in its Editing screen to perform left just the image colors, saturation and lumin- (counterclockwise) and right (clockwise) ro- ance. Also available is a separate Sharpen tations of 90 degrees, and its customized button with 10 levels to sharpen the image, fine rotation is accomplished by using a slid- as well as one-click access to grayscale con- er bar (or specifying the degrees), but its version and sepia conversion. Sophisticated rotation is limited from -15 degrees to +15 features include a Backlight Correction but- degrees, though this may be repeated to ton as well as the ability to deal with white achieve higher degree rotations. There is balance issues. also a one-click access to Flips on the Editing screen, and flips may be done both horizon- Undo tally and vertically, creating “mirror images” of the image. Cropping is done through a Irfanview provides an Undo operation from separate tab in the Editor, and is done di- the Edit menu, which will undo the last im- rectly on the image by dragging the mouse, age editing operation (but will not “undo” but the user is provided an option to crop any edits before the last). The user may, either normally through a rectangular crop, effectively, undo all of the editing operations or roundly, and, if roundly, the user may and regain the original image by choosing to specify the color of the remaining blank “reopen” the original image from the File area. This rounding cropping is an added menu (or associated shortcut keys). There is bonus, not found in Irfanview. In both rec- no “redo” option. tangular and round cropping, the user may Photoscape, in all tabs from the Editor, pro- save the cropped area, but there is no op- vides a one-click access to undo the last op- tion to save the area external to the cropped eration, and the “Undo” may be repeated, so segment. that the user may sequentially undo each of his/her previous editing tasks. If the user Brightness, Contrast, Gamma Correc- wishes to “undo” ALL of his/her image edits tion, Sharpness, Hue, Satura- (and thereby regain the original image), tion,Grayscale there is a one-click access to the “Undo All” button. Lastly, the user may choose to se- From its Image menu choice of “Color Cor- quentially “redo” the previous “undone” op- rection,” the Irfanview user is provided with erations, and may do so in a one-by-one slider bars and a preview window, and the manner. user may readily adjust the brightness, RGB color balance, contrast, gamma correction Filters and saturation of an image. There is also an “Auto Adjust Colors” which, for the neo- Referred to as “Effects” in Irfanview, from phyte, will ‘automatically’ adjust the bright- the “Effects” choice in the Irfanview Image

Proc CONISAR 2009, v2 (Washington DC): §4134 (refereed) c 2009 EDSIG, page 4 Scher Sun, Nov 8, 9:00 - 9:25, Crystal 3 menu, the user may invoke the Effects ties of arrows and lines to the image. One Browser to preview any of the standard 36 may also specify the opacity, thickness and filters, and use a slider bar to fine-tune the outline color for these. effect. The effects range from cylindrical, metallic, fish-eye, to sepia, rain drops and Cloning and Layers radial blur, and are supplemented by freely downloadable plug-ins for additional filters, Cloning allows the user to replicate a speci- including Adobe Photoshop filters and oth- fied area of an image to another area, and ers, to greatly expand the filtering capabili- represents a useful and advanced image ties. editing tool. Layers are also an advanced feature for image editing, and one can view The Photoscape editor includes a Filter but- a layer as a sheet of transparent film, and ton which, when opened, provides access to when you “paint” on one portion of a layer, 25 powerful filters, including filters to do you can still see the “unpainted” part of the vignetting (having the edges of an image layer – one can edit separately each layer, fade off gradually), and creating film effects and combine/stack layers to create new im- and distortions. There is no ability to add ages. Alas, neither Irfanview nor Photos- plug-ins for additional filters. cape support this sophisticated editing tool, though likely it will not be needed by the IS Adding Text and Drawing Tools instructor.

IS instructors will often need to insert text Irfanview (but not Photoscape) supports into a presentation or workbook image in cloning. The cloning in Irfanview is accom- order to clarify concepts for a class. Irfan- plished through the Paint dialogue box (ac- view allows the user to add text to an im- cessed through the Edit menu choice “Show age, though the user is first required to se- Paint Dialogue”). After selecting the clone lect the area of the image where the text will tool in the Paint Dialogue box, the user be located. Addition of text in Irfanview is merely right clicks to select the source to be accomplished through the “Insert Text Into replicated, and left clicks and drags in order Selection…” choice in the Image menu, to brush paint from the source area to the which, as the command name implies, re- place where it is to be replicated (the width quires that the user first “select” as area of of the painting “brush” is to be first set in the image where the text will be located. the Paint dialogue box). Users have the typical choices of font selec- tion, size, color, alignment, and background Frames color, though once the text is placed in the image, it may not be freely moved. The Both Irfanview and Photoscape support “Show Paint” dialogue in the Edit menu drawing of frames around the image, allow- enables the user to add arrows and geome- ing the user to select the border color as tric shapes to the image. Right-clicking on well as the dimensions (in pixels) of each the arrow allows the user to set the proper- side of the border/frame. In Irfanview, this ties of the object. feature is somewhat disguised, as it appears as an edit choice of “Change canvas size” in Photoscape enables the text addition func- the Image menu. The Photoscape product tionality through the Object tab in the Edi- provides over 150 choices to frame an im- tor, where the user would choose the “T” age, and allows the user to quickly preview icon, and a dialogue box enables entry of the each frame applied to the image . Frames in text to be inserted into the image, along Photoscape are chosen through a drop-down with the desired font, size, color, alignment, box in the Home tab, and the user can and background color. Once chosen, the choose the color, thickness, roundness, desired text appears in a movable and rotat- margin, opacity and type for each frame able box on the image, which may be freely added to the image. moved at the discretion of the user, and the text may be dynamically changed by the user. Also in the Object tab are one-click access buttons to add geometric objects, as well the capability to add 11 different varie-

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Embedding Images Into An Existing library an image editor for the editing of dig- Image ital images, and being able to embed these edited images into their class presentations In addition to embedding text into an exist- and professional writings. Some of the basic ing image, the IS professional might have functionalities of the two leading freeware occasion to embed additional images and applications for image editing are discussed, objects into an image. While Irfanview relies and we have compared the two freeware on the traditional “copy/paste” functionality, image editing applications with regard to and the “pasted” image is not capable of nine different functionalities. being manipulated, Photoscape fully sup- ports the embedding of images through the For traditional image editing tasks of crop- Object tab in the Editor, where the user ping, resizing, rotating and flipping, both would choose the “Insert object” icon to in- applications provide equivalent power. For sert into the working image any other image adjusting colors, brightness, contrast, gam- present on either the hard drive or the clip- ma correction, sharpness, hue and satura- board, and may also choose from several tion, and the application of filters, we do ex- hundred predefined categorized images. press a slight preference for one of the ap- Once the inserted image appears on the plications over the other. working image, the user may move it, rotate it, and adjust its properties. For dealing with issues like file formats and cloning specific areas of an image, Irfanview Image Types and Conversions shines in comparison to Photoscape, while when dealing with embedding text and im- Images may appear in different formats, and ages and adding border frames, and utilizing after editing an image, one might wish to color adjustment tools such as the Photo- save it in a specific image file format. Pho- shop-like Curves, Photoscape provides more toscape supports only the basic file formats, power and ease of use. Irfanview provides and thus a Photoscape-edited image may reasonably good documentation of all its only be saved in JPG, PNG, GIF and BMP functionality within the program’s “Help” formats. Irfanview is far more robust in files, while Photoscape is somewhat limited terms of the images it can import, and saves to several videos describing some of the to well over 20 image file formats, including functionality. (It should be noted that the not only the traditional formats of JPG, PNG, author of this paper seeks to remedy the GIF and BMP, but also more specialized Photoscape documentation issue in a manu- ones. The freeware Irfanview is well known script which is nearing completion, and deals for its ability to deal with image and video with the leading freeware titles for image files of many different file formats. editing and photographic video design.)

Miscellaneous We feel that there is no need to choose one of these freeware titles over the other’ In- Both Irfanview and Photoscape are extreme- deed, the prudent IS instructor is encour- ly rich freeware titles, and have many more aged to utilize BOTH Irfanview and Photos- additional features – indeed, we have only cape, and to maintain each as necessary literally touched the ‘tip of the iceberg’ in tools in their image editing library, since this paper, seeking to extract and compare both are freeware for academic use. Com- the basic image editing functionality which bined, these tools approximate much of the likely would be used by the IS professional functionality of Photoshop, with the excep- in his/her writings and presentations. More- tion of support for layers, and will likely sa- over, both of these titles are actively being tisfy all the image editing needs of the IS developed and new and enhanced features professional. will appear in forthcoming versions.

6. REFERENCES 5.CONCLUSIONS Scher, Julian M., (2009), “Open Source and We have succinctly presented to IS instruc- Freeware – Strategic Resources for IS Peda- tors the need to have in their application gogical Endeavors.” Information Systems

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Education Journal, 7 (69). Rob, Peter and Carlos Coronel (2009), Data- http://isedj.org/7/69/.ISSN:1545-679X base Systems: Design, Implementation and Management, Eighth Edition, Course Tech- nology – Boston, MA

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Figure 1: An ERD, with the Figure number on top

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Figure 2: The same ERD, but with the Figure number cropped out

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Figure 3: Irfanview Default Screen With The Menubar and Toolbar

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Figure 4: The Image Menu in IrfanView With Keyboard Shortcuts

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Figure 5: The Photoscape Main Screen

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Figure 6: The Photoscape Editor Screen

Proc CONISAR 2009, v2 (Washington DC): §4134 (refereed) c 2009 EDSIG, page 13 FunctionalityScher Irfanview Sun, Nov 8, 9:00Photoscape - 9:25, Crystal 3 Resize, Crop, Provides excellent functionality Provides excellent functionality Rotate, Flip for these features, including cus- for these features, including crop- tomized fine rotations ping roundly Brightness, Contrast, Gamma Provides very good functionality to support these features, includ- Correction, Provides good functionality to sup- ing “Photoshop-like” Color port these features Sharpness, Curves, Saturation Curves and Hue, Satura- Luminance Curves tion, Grays- cale Undo May sequentially ‘undo’ each Will ‘undo’ the last image editing previous ‘undo’ task, provides a operation, but will not ‘undo’ any one-click access to ‘Undo All” and edits before the last one may sequentially ‘redo’ the previous ‘undone’ operations Provides some powerful filters, in- Filters Referred to as “Effects” provides cluding vignetting (having the edges a wealth of filters, via download- of an image fade off gradually), but able “plug-ins” including Photo- no support for added plug-ins for shop filters additional filters Adding Text User may insert text into an im- – Drawing User may insert text into an image, age, define text attributes, and Tools define text attributes, but text text movement is fully supported, movement is not supported. Draw- and text may be dynamically ing tools available through the changed. The Object tab provides “Paint” dialogue. one click access to adding geome- tric objects and shapes Supports ‘cloning’ through the Cloning No support Paint dialogue box Frames Supports frames (disguised as Supports frames and frame “Change Canvas Size”) with capa- attributes, and provides a wealth bility to specify the attributes of the of easily accessible predefined frame. frames Using the “Insert Object” icon in Embedding Relies on “copy/paste” Windows the Editor’s Object tab, the user Images Into functionality, and the pasted image may easily insert objects and An Existing is not capable of being directly move, rotate and adjust the prop- edited Image erties of the inserted image Image Types Supports well over 20 image and Conver- formats for viewing and saving, Supports only the basic image for- sions going well beyond the traditional mats favored image types

Figure 7: Comparative Functionality of Irfanview and Photoscape, With Preferred Product Bolded for Each Specified Functionality Proc CONISAR 2009, v2 (Washington DC): §4134 (refereed) c 2009 EDSIG, page 14