ACD Systems Releases ACDSEE 8

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.acdsystems.com/products/acdsee/index' target='_blank'>http://www.acdsystems.com/products/acdsee/index</a><br /><br /></div><i>"You're not the average Joe. You've got more pictures. Your photo collection is growing daily. Family pictures, travel pictures, pet pictures, pictures of your home and garden – with so many photos to look through, how will you find and organize your best ones? Well, it's easy if you have a good photo management software. But if you don't, your valuable memories will end up getting lost in the clutter. That's why you need photo software that helps you find and organize your photos quickly, reliably, and frustration free. ACDSee 8 Photo Manager's razor-sharp search tools help you sift through thousands of pictures effortlessly, find the best ones, and sort them into common sense categories that make them easy to find later. Wouldn't it be nice to organize your photos like an expert, without having to spend tons of time and money learning complicated digital photo software? That's exactly what ACDSee 8 can do for you."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/acdsee8-main.jpg" /><br /><br />Marketing pep-talk aside, the new features in version 8 look decent enough: quick search bar, video slideshows, one-click red-eye fixing, IPTC metadata editing, text additions to photos, improved HTML albums, batch EXIF data editing, photo folder sync for backups, and enhanced screensaver creation. I've been an ACDSEE user since version three, and the new versions get better and better. I'm disappointed to see that product activation is still part of the package, because it's a hassle that only causes problems for legitimate users and likely does nothing to stop determined software pirates.<br /><br />One feature I'd love to see? A way to mass-edit the last modified stamp based on the drag and drop order of photos. I find that as I use different tools to edit my photos, some will preserve the last modified date, some will not. It's very important for me to have my photos in a certain order, especially vacation photos where you're taking a journey of sorts. One solution I use is to mass-edit the last modified date back to the EXIF creation date, but that only works if the creation date is the data point you want. Sometimes I'll take a picture on vacation when I'm leaving a location that I really want to be at the beginning of the photo shoot, and the only way to get it that way is to hack the EXIF data and the last modified data. I'd love to see an easier way to do this! If you're an ACDSEE user, what sorts of features would you like to see?

[Vincent Ferrari]

The only thing I want is the one thing none of these programs offer ("these" being Acdsee, Paintshop Album, Photoshop Album, Compupic Pro, etc.) is integration with the shell's "Send To" function.

I've stuck to using Picasa, because it's free. It may not support the shell "send to" but at least I don't have to pay for it. If ACDSEE 7 did it, I would've bought it, but alas they don't. C'est la vie.

If anyone tries a good photo-managing program that does support it, please let me know!

[Jason Kravitz]

I'm in the process of changing my photo work-flo to a mac and the one tool I miss the most is ACDSee. I still have not found a quick way to take photos from the card and view/delete/categorize them.

iPhoto trys to convert RAW files on the fly when importing and takes forever not to mention I don't really like how it puts all my photos into a directory structure based on date (I like to categorize on the file system as well as through keywords).

ACDSee is views images (I hope 8 is quicker on RAW) so fast and it's nice to be able to use the mouse wheel to quickly scroll back and forth. The delete key actually deletes the image (ok that's a rant on how the mac handles the delete key vs. windows but it is annoying).

I've tried the free CocoView program and it is closer than iPhoto for reviewing new photos but still not optimal.

I wish I had a cross platform program that categorizes images (keyword system), allows me to keep them in my own directory structure and not a propietary database and is quick... any suggestions??

[Jason Dunn]

The only thing I want is the one thing none of these programs offer ("these" being Acdsee, Paintshop Album, Photoshop Album, Compupic Pro, etc.) is integration with the shell's "Send To" function.

Interesting. So a "Send To" for editing? Or a "Send To" to view it? I have to be honest, I don't really grasp how you'd use this. Tell me more...

[marlof]

I wish I had a cross platform program that categorizes images (keyword system), allows me to keep them in my own directory structure and not a propietary database and is quick... any suggestions??

Try iView Media Pro. It's expensive, but other than Adobe (bah!) it lets you use the same key on both Mac and WinXP boxes. It uses IPTC keywords, which means that they're attached to the files so you can use those keywords in any IPTC compatible application. It does have its own database (which is good, thumbnails wise), but if you transfer the files, IPTC guarantees that your keywords etc. will be transfered as well. Also, you can create specific catalogues with everything in it, that people can view when you include the free Viewer (runs both on Mac and Win).

To me, IPTC support was important, and I was happy to read that ACDSee finally went that way. But I don't really like the way they've implemented it. They still give preference to their own database and keywording, and IPTC looks like the afterthought it probably is. I think there should be a setting that would turn all IPTC keywords into ACDSee keywords and vice versa, no matter where you inserted them. So far, I didn't find that...