All I wanted to do was crop a few photos taken by a cellphone camera. There was a time when any photo editor would have made the task simple, but not anymore.

Windows Live Photogallery – a freebie

I found out how to set the crop area, but could find no way to save it.. Tried a simple cut and re-paste into a new screen.

Result = FAIL

Irfanview – a freebie

The crop area defaulted to the top right of the photo and I couldn’t move it to the area I wanted to keep.

Result = FAIL

XNView – a freebie

Select crop icon on the toolbar, pull out to capture area required, right click on the selected area and select ‘crop’. Save the new photo.

Result = SUCCESS

Snag-It 10 – $$

Opened the photo, selected the area which scrolled nicely to where I wanted the border. Cut and re-pasted into a new screen, then saved the cropped photo.

Result = SUCCESS

Microsoft Office Picture Manager – part of MS Office $$$$

Opened the photo, selected the area.. Cut and re-pasted into a new screen, then saved the cropped photo.

Result = SUCCESS

Conclusion

Two of the freebies did very badly. XNview made it simple.

Crop and save should be really simple and one should not have to resort to help files for instructions. Irfanview will be removed from the list on my website of recommended free programs. XNview is already on the list and is a definite keeper.