ACDSee Pro 5 and ACDSee Photo Manager 14 Release Announcement

This is a brief inspection of the latest release of the two ACDSee photo management solutions ACDSee Pro 5 and ACDSee Photo Manager 14. ACD Systems keep releasing new versions of their photo management software in several month long periods. This is simultaneously nice since it helps providing new features over a short space of time and a bit frustrating because the fans of ACDSee software are in a situation to update their products too often. For good or for bad, below are the new features included in both of the ACDSee photo editing software products.

ACDSee Pro 5 photo management and photo editing software

• Split-toning - with this feature you can tone differently parts of your picture, for example, add a tinted color to shadows and another one to highlights.
• Smarter Sharpening - allows you to focus the sharpening effect on edges and textures of the photograph rather than editing non-textured areas.
• Drawing Tools - with drawing tools you can add shapes/lines as circles, squares, arrows, etc. to attract attention to particular elements in the image. (You can also adjust the width, feathering and blending of the brush to create subtle or dramatic drawing effects.)
• Dodge and Burn - this tool allows you to target highlights, midtones or shadows for lightening or darkening and gives you the possibility to add vibrance selectively and to saturate or desaturate areas.
• Special Effects - the Special Effects palette allows you to apply and fine-tune the following new effects: Lomo effect for applying an edgy, retro feel to the images; Orton effect to make your pictures look pastel-like and ethereal; Collage effect to turn your photos into a collage of prints.
• Remove Metadata tool - provides an opportunity to protect the details related to your camera settings, locations and equipment by editing EXIF and IPTC metadata information out of your files.
• Batch Export tool - allows you to make presets for exporting groups of images to specified folders, formats, file names, color spaces and dimensions.
• Color Labels - offer the possibility to group and organize your photos without separating them in different folders by assigning a particular color to a particular stage of your workflow process (available also in ACDSee 14).

ACDSee Photo Manager 14

• Map view and Geotagging Support - this feature comes from the previous version of ACD Systems' professional photo management software ACDSee Pro 4 and allows you to organize or find your pictures by location. You can use the location of photos coming from GPS-enabled cameras or add location info yourself. You are able to use the map for zooming in and finding all of the photos taken at a certain location.
• Special Effects - the new pre-set special effects here are the already mentioned ones above (in ACDSee Pro 5 section): Collage effect, Lomo effect and Orton effect.
• Custom Metadata Panel - allows you to use custom views in order to see only the metadata that is meaningful to you.
• Color labels - allow you to tag your images with colors in order to mark their stage in the workflow process (like in ACDSee Pro 5).
• Drawing Tools - with these you can draw by hand or select from a predefined lines and shapes in order to draw attention to specific part of your images.
• Online features - ACDSee online features now make it possible to post photo albums on Facebook, email albums and tweet links to albums. RAW format images can be shared too.

For a full product description or if you want to get a free trial copy or directly to buy ACDSee Photo Manager 14 or ACD Systems' professional photo management software in the face of ACDSee Pro 5, visit ACDSee's website.

ACDSee Pro 4: Professional Photo Management Software

Note: As of October, 2011 ACDSee Pro 5 and ACDSee Photo Manager 14 have been released.

ACDSee Pro 4 has become already available on the market so here is a short introduction of the product. ACDSee Pro 4 is full-featured photo management software for professionals and advanced photography users. According to its manufacturer, the software combines the best characteristics of ACDSee Pro 3 with a variety of new features and it brings together all the tools you need to treat your digital photos in the best possible way. You can view, manage, process, edit and publish your images online by using just one photo management software application. You are able to organize your photos, improve them with stunning visual effects for best perception results and achieve all you want with ease and quickly.

ACD Systems International Inc. has been one of the leading photo management software providers for both, amateur and professional photographers, since 1993. The company has won multiple awards for products like ACDSee Photo Manager, ACDSee Photo Editor, FotoSlate Photo Print Studio, etc. ACD Systems gained a loyal following offering one of the first shareware software products and a very good JPEG decoder in the 1990's. They have offices in the USA and Canada and a really large user base including millions of customers. So here is some more information on their new product (you can read about its previous reincarnation ACDSee Pro3 and ACDSee Photo Manager 12 here).

Some of the new features of ACDSee Pro 4 include:

• Geotagging and map view support;
• Creation of custom metadata views;
• Creation of metadata presets;
• Customizable access to your external editing software;
• Correction of fringing and chromatic aberration (see the picture on the left);
• Vingnette correction;
• Automatic upload of your photos to ACDSee online account.

Some of the improved features of ACDSee Pro 4 according to ACD Systems International Inc. are:

• Performing of high-quality RAW image decoding;
• Organizing and controlling your photos flexibly using file folders, metadata, ratings, keywords and custom categories;
• Adding and modifying IPTC 1.1 info to groups of images;
• Process RAW, JPEG and other format images in a non-destructive way in order to perfect color, exposure, geometry and clarity, while always having the possibility to adjust settings;
• Processing of RAW images while having complete control and precision;
• Creating slide shows and screen savers from your photos.

ACDSee Pro 4 photo manager is advertised like being the latest in DSLR photography management and it seems like a good professional photo management software that could be used by advanced amateur photographers as well. If its price is a little bit too high then you can consider buying ACDSee Photo Manager 12 which is more targeted towards amateur users. Either application is a good option but it's better first to think what your particular requirements are and make your decision based on them. And if it happens you are a Mac user, have in mind there is a Pro version for Mac too.

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ACDSee Photo Management Software

You are welcome to read this article but have in mind that ACDSee Pro 5 and ACDSee Photo Manager 14 have been released as of October, 2011. You can find information about the new versions here.

It was more than 10 years ago, when I first used ASDsee software. I still have some good memories of the pleasant experience I've had with it so when I recently saw an advert of ACDSee Pro 3, I decided to write a few words about this digital photo management software product and its little brother ACDSee Photo Manager 12.

As "Pro" in its name suggests, ACDSee Pro 3 (ACDSee Pro 4 is available as of April, 2011) is more advanced product compared to ACDSee 12 photo management software and the first offers more features orientated towards professional photographers or photo enthusiasts with more needs. Both products are compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 and both have many characteristics in common. Some of them concerning viewing capabilities include: supporting of over 100 image, video and audio formats; browsing photos at lightning fast speed; full screen viewing; comparison of several images at once; tagging photos for further processing.

In regard to organizing capabilities, there are again some shared features between ACDSee Pro3 and ACDSee 12. You may automatically import, categorize and rename digital photos whenever a storage device or a camera is connected to your PC. You may organize photos using combination of keywords, metadata, file folders, ratings and custom categories. You may create and save various detailed searches by keywords, file names, captions, etc.

Of course, everyone wants to tweak a picture now and then. So, both photo management software products offer again some common basic features in photo editing field. You may easily adjust exposure, edit selected area's saturation and color, apply simple effects like blur or choose among 20 filters to use. You may easily fix flaws as red-eye, unwanted objects or blemishes, reduce noise or convert photos to black and white. At the end you may add a custom border, edge effect or drop shadow.

Apart from the aforementioned, both ACDSee Photo Manager 12 and ACDSee Pro 3 offer some publishing and archiving capabilities like creating screen savers or slide shows of pictures; uploading to FTP managed spaces; various e-mailing and printing features; uploading photos to Facebook, flickr, etc. as well as storing images on ACDSee online website where you may create private and public albums. You may also burn your digital photos to DVD/CD and automatically synchronize your drives with either of these photo management software products.

In addition to all those capabilities, ACDSee Pro 3 has some more to offer (in order to justify its Pro name and higher price). Here is what one gets additionally with it. You may perform high-quality decoding of RAW format images. You may customize and save file sort orders and workspace layouts. You may create your Properties pane to display file information conveniently or edit IPTC info of group of photos. The next are some more substantial features also missing in ACDSee 12 photo management software: processing of RAW pictures with full precision and control; fixing pincushion, barrel, fish-eye lens and perspective distortions; processing images to improve color, exposure, geometry and clarity; real-time preview of made adjustments; adjusting the contrast and brightness of different tone bands; boosting saturation without skin tone affecting; simulating HDR results with a single exposure; adjusting brightness, saturation and hue on a color by color basis; performing up to 13 various edits like rotate, resize, convert file type, etc. on multiple photos simultaneously; using ICC profiles to improve color matching among devices; watermarking photos to protect your intellectual property before sharing them; uploading images to Zenfolio.

So, both ACDSee 12 and ACDSee Pro3 are good digital photo management software products and each of them could be helpful in your photography related work. If you want to buy one of them you may visit their corresponding pages on ACDSee's website. There is also over 40% discount of ACDSee Pro 3 price valid through February 18, 2011. And if you are a Mac user, there is an ACDSee Pro for Mac version.

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