Image Badger Deluxe
Reviewed November, 2008
WHAT'S IT DO?
Image Badger Deluxe converts between 70-some image formats with a simple
right click on the images and batch processes thousands of files,
applying filters, resizing, cropping, or contrast. It provides 40+ image
filters from color and DPI resolution to Hue and Gaussian blur. The
right-click menu can be customized to add or remove image formats and
filter profiles, and it allows the user to preview images, save and load
image lists, copy images to the clipboard, extract each frame of
animated/multi-page images, customize image format options, and
customize the output folder and filename for processed images. It
supports command line calls to, for example, enable automated tasks or
apply a set of filters on every new file in a directory.
DOES IT DO WHAT IT PROMISES?
Reviewer 1:
Yes. Image Badger is an easy-to-use graphic image program to quickly
resize, reformat, convert and apply filters to several photos at the
same time. It supports over 140 image formats such as JPEG, BMP, PNG,
GIF, etc. and offers over 40 filters ranging from simple sepia tone to
the more complex and highly stylized.
Reviewer 2: ImageBadger Deluxe performs
advanced image editing and batch imaging as promised. Its performance is
limited by weaknesses in its interface and a lack of relevant user
guidance.
Reviewer 3: Yes, ImageBadger provides an
easy, time saving way to apply many photo editing functions to one or
many photos.
Reviewer 4: Yes, it does. The main thrust of
ImageBadger is easy access to conversions from one image format to
another, largely, although not exclusively, through Explorer's
right-click Context Menu. In addition, there are 43 "filters", some of
which are quite sophisticated, which allow one to manipulate, edit and
change photos and images,. Although the major photo-processing programs
on the market will allow greater depth and control of the details of
image editing, the functions in ImageBadger, with some exceptions, will
meet the photo-editing needs of most people.
Reviewer 5: Yes, it is a
simple way to perform various operations on groups of photos as a batch
rather than one at a time.
WAS IT EASY TO INSTALL?
Reviewer 1: Yes. It is a very
straightforward, simple, and relatively small 8.06 MB download that only
requires a modest 25 MB hard drive space. It installs quickly using a
standard Installation Wizard and places no unnecessary icons. It does
require a reboot if using the right click context menu options. The
program offers one of the most simple and easily understood EULA’s (End
User License Agreement) I have seen. It is clear, intelligible, and
written in plain English. It is also less restrictive than many,
allowing the program to be moved from computer to computer as long as it
is on only one computer at a time. The developers get kudos for this
EULA! It should be noted that the program did not uninstall as cleanly
as it installed. See below for more details.
Reviewer 2: Installation
was fast and easy. The license allows installation on an unlimited
number of computers provided that it is not used on more than one
computer at a given time. This policy is refreshingly reasonable.
Reviewer 3: Yes, the 8.59
MB downloaded exe file installed without any problems or conflicts with
other graphic programs I already had installed.
Reviewer 4: Yes. It was a
standard Windows installation procedure which allowed me to place the
program files in the folder of my choice. The registration is done with
a simple copy and paste. An icon to the program is placed on the desktop
and in the start menu with the choice of adding it to the Explorer
right-click menu.
Reviewer 5: Yes, it
installed quickly. The total installed size of the ImageBadger folder is
only 7.23 MB with a total of 18 files., not at all too large for a photo
manipulation program.
GOOD POINTS?
Reviewer 1: Okay, so Image
Badger is not Adobe Photoshop but neither does it try to be. Its main
purpose is to simply allow converting several images at once, enhancing
with filters if wanted, and doing so with productivity and ease of use
in mind. And it is ease of use which is Image Badger’s real virtue. The
GUI is very simple and extremely intuitive (even though a bit childish
in appearance!) and the program really is virtually idiot-proof,
offering drag and drop support to further simplify its use. It makes it
easy to select images, resize them, compress them, and convert them
among popular formats—over 140 formats in fact. I was able to adjust
brightness, gamma, tint, and contrast as well as crop; and there are 40
filters to select from (and gradients of each as well) which can be
applied. It’s easy to adjust the color, equalize the brightness or the
entire image, or convert it to grayscale or sepia tone, even make a
photo look like an oil painting or a charcoal sketch. One can crop,
rotate and flip as well, and Image Badger does an excellent and quite
intuitive resizing of photos as well as offering very powerful
compression settings (there are, for example, seven different
compression formats for JPEG images). One of the more interesting
features it offers is the ability to turn images into icons--something
few competing programs offer. Best of all, it does this all using the
Windows Explorer right-click functionality. Plus, it does things really
fast (I processed 35 photos in 10 seconds) with a minimum of computer
resources and with the resulting images quite good. Throughout the photo
editing process, the user is in total control. The program used minimal
resources and in fact this might be an excellent program for an older
system as it system requirements are minimal, requiring only 64MB
RAM--highly unusual for any graphics editing tool. There is a help
function from within the program as well as excellent tutorials, help,
and online documentation on the Web site that can be viewed before
purchasing the software to help you with one’s decision.. Support is
free (as are updates) for the life of the program and is available
through an online FAQ as well as form/email with a promised turn-around
time of “within 24 hours.” My “test” questions were each answered within
24 hours and were answered thoroughly and in a manner that was quite
clear and understandable. While there are many competing products on the
market at varying prices, I can easily recommend Image Badger, if for no
other reason than its ease of use. And again, thanks to its low system
requirements and low use of resources, it may be the single best choice
for an older or less powerful system.
Reviewer 2: ImageBadger has
a wide variety of image editing tools that can be applied to a broad
range of image formats. It has most of the tools one would expect to see
for image processing as well as a number of artistic enhancements to
create special effects. It can be used in three modes: from the classic
program interface, from the right click menu while using Windows
Explorer, and a command line interface. The process when working from
the classic program interface is straightforward once oriented to what
the icons do. Select the files to edit, from either individual files or
entire folders and subfolders, then select the filter(s) to apply to
those images. The original image and a preview of the edited version can
optionally be displayed. This is essential in my opinion, but its
usefulness is severely limited by the small size of the images displayed
on the screen. The right click menu is a convenient shortcut to quickly
convert one or more files. The menu options can be customized to include
more or fewer file output formats.
Reviewer 3: The first thing
that impressed me about ImageBadger was the simple interface with the
1,2,3, Go steps and the cute badger with its balloon help comments.
Usually I read all the instructions and tutorials before using a new
program, but the easy user interface made me decide to try to see just
how much I could do before I needed to read the help files.
Surprisingly, I was able to accomplish many editing feats before having
to read or watch a tutorial video. I think this speaks well of any
program as being user friendly when one can accomplish tasks by just
what appears on the user interface.
ImageBadger performs a wide variety of editing functions, many of which
will have no functional use for the average user except in unique
situations. Most of the important basic photo editing functions are
contained in what ImageBadger calls “filters.” Many of these same
editing functions can be found in other photo editing programs, but what
makes ImageBadger unique is the number of photo editing functions in one
program at a very reasonable cost and how it applies these functions.
Most filters when selected will display a customization window that
allows the user to select the amount of the editing feature to use. The
selection can be done by either a slider bar or a numerical manual
input. This dual selection came in very handy when I was using the
Rotate filter and wanted to rotate my photos exactly 90º. I couldn’t get
the slider bar to stop on exactly 90º, but manual entry did allow the
exact rotation I desired. This is a nice feature that is not available
in some other photo editing programs I have used. Another nice feature
of these filter customization windows is real time before-and-after
views to demonstrate the effect the filter has on the photo allowing the
user to adjust the settings of the filter to obtain the desired results.
Some of the filters don’t have settings to adjust as they are a on or
off type edit effect. I tested all the filters and found that the photo
editing functions that would need adjustment based upon the particular
photo being edited does have settings to adjust for the current photo.
The number photo editing filters, the user control of most of these
filters, the preview of the filter effect before applying, and the
simple interface to access these functions would make ImagerBadger a
good photo editing program; but how ImageBadger applies these photo
editing functions is where it really excels and makes it unique in a
very large field of photo editing software. ImageBadger can apply one
editing function to one photo or one editing function to many photos or
many editing functions to one photo or many editing functions to many
photos. Anyone that has done photo editing and faced the task of
performing the same editing function to each photo one at a time can
easily see the time saved by be able to apply that function to all the
photos at the same time. This time-saving function alone would justify
the cost of the program, but it does a whole lot more. I take numerous
photos with my digital camera before I upload them to my PC. When I
upload, all the photos are transferred to a single folder. I take a lot
of photos rotated 90º in order to get the shot in the frame. ImageBadger
will load all the photos in this folder into ImageBadger with name and
thumbnails of all photos. I can select the photos I don’t want to edit
and remove from the list. I apply the Rotate filter to the photos left
in the list and in one click I have all my photos rotated to the proper
viewing angle. ImageBadger is indeed a time saver when many photos need
the same editing effect, but it also allows editing that one photo that
needs brightness added and sharpening on a custom level.
When the user finds that the same photo editing function is needed on a
regular basis to different photos, ImageBadger has a really nice feature
for this. ImageBadger is added to the context menu (right click menu)
and only appears in the context menu when graphic files are right
clicked, thus not taking up your context menu space when not needed. The
customized filter can be added to the Profile Manager and accessed
through the context menu so that edit can be applied without having to
open ImageBadger.
I especially like the auto numbering to allow easy identification of
separate edit and save actions.
Reviewer 4: Although I do
have some criticism of the main screen of ImageBadger, the underlying
design is well-conceived and effective. It seems that the developers
have spent some time looking at image processing from the point of view
of the new user and the novice. This is not to say that the program is
only for novices and professionals could also find it useful; but, many
of the image programs that I have tried out are very technical, and
overwhelm anyone outside the professional or the dedicated amateur from
understanding what they are doing, or what different effects mean.
The large and clear text in the tip balloons is much easier to read than
the tip balloons that Windows and other programs usually provide.
Developing this approach further are the descriptions, accompanied by
images, which appear in the filters that you can be applied. Also, there
are hidden tricks that I did not actually see documented in the Help
file. For example, double-clicking on thumbnails of images loaded into
the "pre-processed" stage will produce a full-sized image.
The Help file is complete, and complementary to the examples that are
built into the program itself. The language is simple for a quick
understanding of some of the more technical terminology. The Web site
contains three short tutorials to assist in getting started with the
program.
One of the more interesting features of ImageBadger is the ability to
create "profiles," a set of filters that one may often want to apply to
photos. As many profiles can be made as desired, and the one can be
selected that is most appropriate to at any particular time.
I also like the ability to customize the ImageBadger section of
Explorer’s right-click menu. Here 140 conversions can be selected from
the drop-down menu rather than having to rely on the default set. The
Profile manager allows setting up of a default profile.
Reviewer 5: ImageBadger
Deluxe provides a simple, intuitive interface, lots of filters (40), and
image conversion (150 formats), It allows conversion of images to icons
and thumbnails. With shell integration with Windows Explorer, it adds a
menu item to the right-click window so one can simply right click an
image in Explorer and choose to convert, make a thumbnail, copy to
clipboard or open it directly in ImageBadger. I found it to be very
flexible. While using the filter list, the order can be set in which the
filters are applied, move them up and down the list, add or remove
filters and select filter options. A useful feature is the ability to
set up a “Filter Profile” that can be re-used again. There is also the
option of “logging” the activity to a file so that one can go back and
see what was done. As for saving the output, there are several choices;
delete original, overwrite the original, use original path to store the
converted file or “always use <specified path> and add this path to
image data. Custom file names can be added either before or after the
original filename, or a numbering format can be used as well.
WEAK POINTS?
Reviewer 1: I have used this
software for the past three months for personal photographs as well as
more complicated business/professional graphics. I have yet to find a
serious flaw. And while I still have not gotten used to or over the
silly, annoying, and juvenile cartoon badger which is a worse
distraction than Microsoft’s “Clippy”, it does exactly what it says it
will do and it does it quite well. That said, there are some weaknesses
in the program which need to be addressed. The greatest weakness I found
was the small size of the thumbnail image for previewing and the photo
frame is too small to work without repeated clicking to bring the frame
up to full size with no zoom in or out function. One must shut the
viewer down, return to the thumbnail, and start all over again opening
the photo frame to a larger size each time it is desired to adjust one
of the filters used on the image. This is unnecessarily time consuming.
Another change I would like to see would be the ability to right click
on a folder and apply all changes to the contents of the folder without
needing to first select all of the individual files. Again, this is
inconvenient and time consuming. I did find that the program did not
install cleanly, in part because it writes .dll’s to the Windows
System32 folder. Upon uninstalling I found that there remained over 100
.dll’s in my System32 folder; 63 remnants in my Registry; and, two
miscellaneous files. This is not the mark of clean programming code and
does need to be addressed. I am concerned that at $49.95 for the Deluxe
version, the program may be a bit overpriced and therefore not
competitive as there are free programs such as Irfanview and Faststone
that come close to matching the features and abilities of Image Badger.
There is a Standard version available at $19.95 which does not offer all
of the filters but which may better suit the needs of more users.
Reviewer 2: ImageBadger’s
interface uses about a quarter of my available screen space. A larger
screen would be helpful when previewing images as well as making the
text larger and easier to read, yet this option is not available. Each
filter screen would benefit from having an embedded “help” button which
would link to the relevant section of the help menu, giving you the
functions, abilities, and limitations of that filter. As the program is
currently configured, there is no such button and the user is required
to exit the filter to return to the main screen, select help, and then
manually scroll through the help menu to find the relevant information
for that filter. At the help section for a filter, there is information
about the filter’s technical parameters, but very little in plain
English beyond a single descriptive sentence. There is a strong need to
help the user determine the details about what that filter does, when
the filter should be applied, what the individual controls do, and
when/why/how they should be used. There are some aspects of the filter
controls that introduce needless complexity and confusion. For example,
the gamma controls menu shows separate controls for the red, blue, and
green channels. To change the value of one of the color channels, one
will find that all of the other channels change by the same amount and
that they cannot be independently changed. If this is the case, then why
not have one single gamma control rather than three which all do the
same thing? While filters are being applied to images, the program
interface locks up but there is no visual indication, not even the
Windows hourglass, that processing is taking place and no indication of
how far along the process is. During a batch process, it does indicate
how many images have been processed. Each added image has to be
“registered” when it is added to the image list for processing. This
takes a couple of seconds per image, but brings the program to a halt
for minutes when batch processing a large folder’s contents. The program
also halts to pre-process images when adding more than one filter. This
significantly interrupts the workflow. The program boasts of over 140
supported file formats, but many of them are obscure. While a large
number of image types are supported, the one I use the most, Nikon’s raw
.NEF format, was not among them. I was disappointed not to see the
option for resizing .JPG images on the right-click menu since this is
one of the more common editing tasks. The images I edited generally came
out well but the process was hampered by the interface and support.
Reviewer 3: While
ImageBadger allows the selection of a single photo file to be added to
the Image list, the window opening for the selection of the file does
not provide the preview function that is available in Explorer. With
numerous files in a folder with file names denoted by a numbering system
(default method for most upload photos from a digital camera) a preview
of the highlighted file would be of great help and a time saving
feature. I would also suggest to the makers of ImageBadger that the
default folder opening displayed in the Browse for folder window be a
user defined function rather than ImageBadger folder in the Programs
folder.
Reviewer 4: I prefer the
programs I use to focus on function more than appearance. I am not sure
why the name Image “Badger” was chosen, and why a comic strip
representation of a badger is so integrated into the program’s main
screen, sample pictures, and help file. It seems to make the program
frivolous and more for kids or gamers than being a serious program.
Some of the filters are almost useless. For example, I have often used
the "Crop" feature in screen capture programs and other photo editors.
Generally, the mouse can select the region of the screen to be cropped
and that specific portion can be saved to disk. In ImageBadger,
selecting "Crop" presents a set of numbers which must be completed to
represent the axes of the part of the picture to be selected. Then the
user must go through a series of trials and errors before being able to
crop the part of the image desired. Although there is a "before" and
"after" window in the program, I found this particular function to be
very frustrating, and eventually gave up on it.
There are also a couple of very common functions that are absent from
ImageBadger. One of the most frequent spoilers of otherwise good photos
is "red-eye." I also did not find an easy way to have ImageBadger change
the almost nonsensical names that digital cameras usually give sets of
photos. The lack of these two features mean that I have to rely on other
tools instead of being able to deal with them all in one package.
Reviewer 5: The only thing
I really missed was the ability to “full screen” the application window.
I like to toggle between full sized windows with “Alt-Tab” rather than
used “tiled windows mode”. The window mode was usable and not having it
was not a deal killer.
OTHER COMMENTS?
Reviewer 1: Kristanix
Software, the developers of Image Badger, is a highly respected
Norwegian company that has been developing software for nearly ten years
with a reputation for being very consumer-oriented. This, plus the fact
that their programs such as Image Badger seem to be in constant
development with regular updates, lead me to believe this is a company
that can be trusted and is offering software that can be relied upon.
Reviewer 2: To perform
simple editing tasks such as resizing images, this is program may be the
right one; however, to create a digital masterpiece, other programs, or
perhaps future versions of this program, will do the job with much
better guidance and greater control of the output. In my use of the
program, most of the functions seemed to perform the actual image
editing well. It is unfortunate that the program interface and the lack
of functional guidance negated this. It is fortunate, however, that
these deficiencies should be relatively easy to remedy in future
versions.
While ImageBadger allows the selection of a single photo file to be
added to the Image list, the window opening for the selection of the
file does not provide the preview function that is available in
Explorer. With numerous files in a folder with file names denoted by a
numbering system (default method for most upload photos from a digital
camera) a preview of highlighted file would be of great help and a time
saving feature. I would also suggest to the makers of ImageBadger that
the default folder opening displayed in the Browse for folder window be
a user defined function rather than ImageBadger folder in the Programs
folder.
Reviewer 3: None.
Reviewer 4: I was actually
very impressed with the EULA (End User License Agreement) that comes
with ImageBadger. Most EULA are standard dense legalese and jargon, and
generally difficult to decipher. The ImageBadger EULA is uncomplicated,
readable, and quite straightforward with the reader. A trial version is
available, along with two paid versions: The Standard Version is much
less expensive, but provides the full range of file conversions;
however, it has only two of the imaging filters available on the Deluxe
version.
Reviewer 5: There are lots
of “cool” features and filters included in this application. Personally,
I don’t usually find the need for batch operations all that often. I’m
not into the “one size fits all” solution in most cases. Of course,
there are exceptions to this and this program at least gives the option
to do that if needed. I did find it useful for doing a number of edits
on one photo at the same time as a batch process for use on a Web page.
Also, the image format conversion features is useful for Web page work.
WILL YOU CONTINUE USING IT?
Reviewer 1: No, but not due
to any weakness in the program rather simply due to the fact that I do
not use a batch tool that often; and, I already have several other
programs to take care of my graphic editing needs. If or when I find
that I do have a need for the capabilities of this program, I would not
hesitate to reinstall it on my system.
Reviewer 2: No, but I would
consider using a future version if the interface and help are improved.
Reviewer 3: Yes, I will
depend upon it to perform many of my basic photo editing needs.
Reviewer 4: Yes, I like the
easy access to file conversions, as well as the ability to create and
use profiles.
Reviewer 5: I will keep
this one in the toolbox. It is something needed every day but nice to
have now and then.
OPERATING SYSTEMS USED IN THIS REVIEW
Windows XP Pro, XP Home, XP Media Center
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