ACDSee Pro Photo Manager

Acdsee started out as a shareware jpeg decoder/viewer, bundled with Mosaic in the mid 1990s.

According to the manufacturers, this incarnation is aimed at professional photographers and advanced amateurs.

It does a lot more than just organise photos; users can control the entire photo-editing process from cataloguing to publishing and archiving.

What's more, it claims to do this faster than any competitor.

Acdsee Pro processes Raw files non-destructively, pretty much as effectively as Adobe Photoshop's Camera Raw tool but for a fraction of the price.

The latest version also recognises most strains of Adobe's public Raw format - Digital Negative (DNG).

Batching is even better. It now supports Raw files, as many as 10 edits and can even set metadata information. The professional emphasis is underscored by support for ICC and ICM colour profiles.

Acdsee Pro's interface is relatively cluttered and even could even be described as clunky when compared with its competitors (for example, Adobe Lightroom, which is currently in Beta) but it's highly functional.

And although wizards are always useful, Acdsee seems to have gone a little overboard with them.

As with previous versions, it's loaded with organisational features (categories/ratings, filters, sorts and detailed searches) and includes an inbuilt calendar.

However, it's now possible to customise your browser layout and then save the result as a workspace for later retrieval.

Numerous keyboard shortcuts are provided as standard, but you can now change these or create your own. You can also tag photos visually, which makes sorting a lot easier.

Acdsee Pro also retains its own photo-editor providing access to tools that, while they're not in Photoshop's league, are still wide-ranging.

Enhancements include lens correction capabilities, highlight and shadow adjustment and the ability to add watermarks.

Quick and easy to use, Acdsee Pro Photo Manager remains the most complete Windows workflow software for professional photographers.

It's just a pity the interface isn't more visually appealing.

System requirements:
Pentium III or higher
256MB of Ram
100MB hard disk
Windows 2000/XP

See also:

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Death before glory for graphics suite's living Chameleon logo  18 Jan 2006

Corel ships Wordperfect Office X3

New email client added as Corel fights for market share  17 Jan 2006

Buyers' Guide: Digital Image-Editing Software

We point out what to look for when shopping for image editing software  05 Jan 2006

Ulead Photoimpact 10

Borrowing some features from Photoshop, Ulead's latest image editor is great value  03 Mar 2005

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