On Windows, I've been using IrfanView as my image viewer of choice for about 15 years. I use it for things like resizing, cropping, flipping and rotating images; converting between different formats; and also certain effects such as blurring or obfuscating part of an image where there is sensitive data.
On Kubuntu 19.10 I've got Gwenview as the default image viewer. It caters for most of my use cases above, but I haven't yet found a way to obfuscate an area of an image.
I've also tried running IrfanView itself under Wine, but the problem there is that it can't see the Linux filesystem, making it pretty useless. I also don't know how to get it into an Open with… context menu when I right-click an image.
I had also written my own cross-platform alternative to IrfanView a few years back, but although it supports some nice image transformations, it still lacks some basic features such as copy & paste as well as area selection.
So basically, what's the easiest way to have a lightweight image viewer with simple editing functions and filters that works as closely to the Swiss army knife that is IrfanView as possible, and be able to obfuscate parts of images with it? (I'm looking for specific features, not just for any alternative.)
Possible solutions that would be acceptable:
- Some way for Gwenview to obfuscate parts of an image
- Other software that can cover all the features I need
- Getting IrfanView under Wine to be able to see images on the Linux filesystem
Best Answer
I'm running Ubuntu Studio 19.10 and installed a (wine) snap of Irfanview using the provided GUI "Software". A link to the executable appears in my menu tree in the photography section.
I'm able to open, modify and save files to/from my home directory path using Irfanview, it can use my entire 4K screen, no errors reported.