Magnify10

One of the pillars that support a solid user experience remains accessibility, and while most operating systems include increasingly advanced scaling options, sometimes a quick zoom on a certain part of the screen may be the right way of noticing minute details when editing various images, which is where a lightweight utility known as Magnifier10 comes into play.

Once downloaded, double-clicking on the program’s executable launches its background process meant to listen for users’ inputs and respond accordingly, alongside a dedicated system tray icon that users can simply click on to terminate it, in order to avoid possible clashes with another utility running in the foreground that happens to have similar keyboard shortcuts. The overall interaction is carried out by holding the Windows button and releasing multiple keys, thus avoiding the need for an on-screen widget overlay that the OS’s native magnifier possesses.

What sets this app apart from others is how the screen portion is magnified through a rectangular overlay that follows the cursor around, instead of zooming in on an area and dragging the mouse to the edges in order to reveal more content. This particular way of execution can be more useful for those who want to compare the differences in quality between two similar images with different sizes. The intensity of the magnification process can be increased dramatically to let you preview an image’s edges when trying to make pixel-perfect adjustments.

The lens size itself can also be augmented to match your display’s resolution, which may come in handy for PowerPoint presentations with text that appears smaller than expected on the video-projector. Finally, while the keyboard shortcuts are not customizable, a nifty scripting language known as AutoHotKey can be used to remap those combinations to single keystrokes, such as the function or numpad rows that may be underutilized by many in their styles of workflows.

If Windows’ built-in magnification tool does not suit your preferences, and you would find better use in a tool that mimics a digital version of a lens, then Magnifier10 may be the right program for you, given its portable and lightweight form factor that lets you carry it on-the-go for use on both personal and work-oriented devices.