Another shot of Bandai’s MMMGQ Sword Impulse Gundam.
(In case you’re wondering, “MMMGQ” is short for “a ridiculously long designation which is frequently abbreviated because it really is ridiculously long.”)
I used Photoshop Elements to edit this photo and I’m once again impressed. Compare the above with the version edited in IrfanView.
JPEGs compressed with Photoshop Elements don’t have as many artifacts as photos compressed with IrfanView. For instance, take a look at the red portion of the shield. You’ll see a lot of compression-caused splotches in the IrfanView version.
Another major difference is the ability to tweak selective areas of the photo. IrfanView doesn’t allow you to, say, selectively tweak the brightness or contrast of a small area of the photo. It’s all or nothing. The original photo had a distracting shadow in the bottom right-hand corner which I easily removed with the aid of Photoshop Elements’ Magic Wand selection tool.
But this isn’t a fair comparison. IrfanView is primarily an image viewer which can be extended somewhat while Photoshop Elements (though watered-down) is still a photo editing powerhouse. If you’re looking for a better freeware solution for editing photos, you could try the GIMP.
