IrfanView

Recently been quite impressed with IrfanView. The first time I saw it, I didn't see a need for it, but now I'm using a lot of its features:

• Firstly, it recognises photo orientation, something the default Windows photo viewer doesn't do
• It's highly customisable. By default it will browse all the file types it can open in a folder, but you can change this. I don't want mine to open video files. You can even set it to a) browse all the file types it's associated with b) browse a specific list of file types, regardless of what it's associated with. I haven't quite set it as my default, so the option b) is very impressive and useful.
• It's not quite Photoshop, but that's a good thing sometimes because it's much faster. I use it if I'm only going to crop/resize.
• It has a multitude of settings, e.g. when saving jpgs you can choose to disable chroma color subsampling (increases file size and quality when checked, not checked by default)
• Most interestingly, I realised it can save a list of selected files as a text file, something I've been looking for. Now, you can do this with a batch file. But it can also RESTORE THAT LIST. This feature isn't perfect - it only works with full file paths meaning the files have to be in the same place, and it doesn't warn you of missing files, but it's a start.