Customer Reviews

ACDsee 8.0

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

ACDSee 8 is a great file-level manager, and easily surpasses most, if not all, of its competitors at the file-level manipulation and organizational functions that are the basis for creating an efficiently structured and effectively manageable digital photograph library of thousands of photographs in size, and larger. ACDSee 8 also sports a basic image editor, a slideshow and screensaver module, and a backup module. Compared to Corel Photo Album 6, ACDSee is missing a creative projects module, which ACDSystems sells in a separate product, as PhotoSlate 4. ACDsee is a great choice for those who need to manipulate a massive number of files regularly. However, ACDSee 8's cumbersome implementation of metadata management features -- the meat of a digital photograph manager -- makes the program difficult to recommend the program to mainstream users.

What makes metadata support so important? A photograph may be worth a thousand words, but not always. Without aid, the casual viewer may not understand or remember a picture's content or context. (E.g., When and where was this picture taken? What is this a picture of? Who are these people? Why did I take this picture?) Even the photographer himself may not remember these things one or five years later. In an analog photograph, one could write a description on back of the print itself. With digital photos, this sort of information is kept as metadata. Without metadata, that interesting digital photograph (Holiday Party 2005: Roy and Ciara with Mayor Mike. Unbeknownst to Mayor Mike, Roy and Ciara rose to power by wasting hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars.) is just another anonymous picture. It is metadata that imbues digital photographs with their context and meaning, and that enables digital photograph collections to be quickly organized or synthesized in a wide variety of ways - by timeline, event, location, person, etc.

ACDSee 8 uses three separately maintained subsystems to support image metadata - a proprietary internal database that stores thumbnail images, ratings and category information; and two other subsystems to support the EXIF and IPTC metadata standards. IPTC is the preferred standard for storing picture descriptions; EXIF is the standard for camera information (picture timestamp, exposure settings, etc.). Support for EXIF and IPTC metadata is important, because these two standards enable photograph descriptions (complete memory = photograph + metadata) to be accessible seamlessly:
- outside of ACDSee, relegating product lock-in to the past;
- across online photo sharing sites (such as Fokti and Flickr);
- by family, friends, or other users who don't use ACDSee;
- by posterity, if ACDSee were ever to be discontinued.

While ACDSee 8 has the most complete metadata support of any consumer-grade digital image manager, it is quite cumbersome to use. Searching for a picture or music file? It isn't easy to do in ACDSee. ACDSee has Google-like simplicity only when searching for information in its internal database. To look for data stored in EXIF, IPTC, or ID3 (for music files) metadata, you'll need to specify the field(s) to search, a Boolean condition for the search (is, starts with, contains, etc.), and the data you're looking for. It's as painful as it sounds.

ACDSee's IPTC metadata subsystem is new to Version 8, and is not as developed as the ACDSee internal database and EXIF subsystems. While the program supports batch operations (working on multiple files simultaneously, e.g., assigning the description Grandpa's Birthday to a collection of photographs) for ACDSee's internal database and EXIF subsystems, batch operations are not supported for IPTC metadata. IPTC metadata entries must be painstakingly made on a per picture basis in ACDSee. Experienced users may look to PixVue, a free Windows Explorer extension, for a full IPTC/XMP metadata editor that supports batch operations, so at worst ACDSee users will find it burdensome to transfer information from ACDSee's internal database or EXIF metadata subsystem to IPTC. ACDSee does not support Unicode, so foreign language support (for recording foreign toponyms and friends in your photographs without the need for Romanize them) is limited.

ACDSee 8 continues to be a great file-level digital image library manager, best for those with thousands of pictures and those who don't care about metadata. With improvements to its search and IPTC metadata features, ACDSee could be a standout product for everyone. Interestingly, since ACDSee 8 supports searching through ID3 metadata (albeit painfully), future versions of ACDSee may potentially be good music managers, too.

Without any warning words that I can find on the box this company limits home users with activation. With desk, laptop, wife and child computers I am looking at $200 to upgrade for the sole purpose of being able to finally add captions in a portable data format that I can take to other photo management software when this company falters. (For a discussion of portable data formats see `Half Great', a Nov. 3, 2005 review.)

I downloaded version 8 in October 2005 to finally get the IPTC format that is in other photo management software but not in what has been my favorite software up to now.

Invited to spend $50 to make my free demo copy permanent I had found the software so buggy that I realized I better wait for the first update. Now it is February 2006. There is still no update offered for version 8. It appears that the company is working on other new products. Perhaps that has taken priority over fixing the problems of early purchasers.

Impatient to get on with making portable captions I got version 8 in a box. Mistake. Still no update on the site but a stealth activation feature. For a family with several computers for historic and convenience reasons, but whose total hours of use is slight, this is bad. It is also bad if your idea of how to remove a virus or worm is to save your data and roll in a system image from last month. Software that requires activation creates a phone hassle.

I have uninstalled ACDSee 8, written it off as a waste of money, and have decided to see how much I can accomplish with Google's free Picasa software. Google built it from the start with IPTC so the captions and searching are portable. The captions I entered in my photos with the ACDSee 8 trial download last October work perfectly in Picasa.

If you are new to this photo management business then I recommend you start right out with another product like Picasa. I haven't used the comparable Adobe product but have friends who recommend it. If you are an old ACDSee user (it was long ago shareware) and want to upgrade, consider buying version 7. It is still available here and the updates available on the company site suggest the code should be stable. A few months ago Fry's was offering ACDSee 7 with a full purchase price rebate. I believe those are the "used" (described as new but without UPC code) ones on sale for less through Amazon as well.

I see someone here says that the Adobe software is slow when you have lots of pictures. Perhaps. I have been working the last two days with Picasa and my 12 thousand photos. Everything I do seems to be as quick as on my ACDSee 6.03.

Picasa is different; you do things differently; and subfolder management does not seem to be as good. ACDSee manages folders of photos the way your wished My Computer did.

I intend to add captions and do all I can with Picasa. When that isn't sufficient I will fall back to using my old ACDSee. This really illustrates the point made in "Half Great". I can only move to the best photo management software if the data about my pictures is in portable format. That is why I have waited so long for IPTC; you should use it too.

ACDSee gets a lot of user-interface ideas right, but they have a long and very serious problem with quality control. I've used every version of this software since 4.0, and the bugs just drive me crazy. It crashes, it writes messed up jpg files, its resizin filters have off-by-pixel mistakes that shift images. And it just never gets better in this regard. Hire a new programmer, guys!

When (finally)installed after (many,many)error messages, and time-wasting frustration, the product worked. Then, disregarding my experience with this product, I (disasterously) decided to load the (free) upgrade, what a catastrophic decision. The ultimate in errors, the upgrade refused to run, every error "in the book" was screened. So, with a measure of anger at the programmers who devised this stressful/frustrating piece of software, I uninstalled, the upgrade, again, a mistake. I assumed (as with other software)this uninstalling would leave my system clean (and free) of the original ACDsee, and the upgrade. So, quite innocently,I reloaded the original, yes you've guessed correctly, just a continuous flow of error messages. So, AGAIN I uninstalled, using software that was more expensive than ACDsee, and cleared all remnants of ACDsee from my computer, it should be noted that after uninstalling, I then did a selective search for any reference to ACDsee in my entire system, it was amazing the files that were shown relating to ACDsee.
FINALLY, after days of frustration I have ACDSee (the original) working.
Please note, if you have this software "up-and-runnig", and you load another (different) product, check that ACDsee will run AFTER loading this new product. If you get an error message, and you have a personality prone to a quick and destructive temper(and here I inject some humour), save all your data,and format your hard drive.
To the enthusiasts out there who reply "I didn't have any problems with ACDsee" I say you were fortunate.
This product is awarded a 3,'cause when it works its just what I required, it loses 2 stars for its erratic performance during and after installation.
I add, after all the problems with ACDsee, every time I attempt to run this software, I await an error message.

I have tried several organization software programs and none come close to ACDSee. My favorite feature is its speed. I have thousands of photos stored in my PC that I have ranked and sorted with ACDSee. I use Photoshop and managing files in the browser or the new Adobe bridge is like surfing the net with a 14.4 modem, while ACDSee is broadband. Version 8 has additional editing features that I use for quick fixes. In short, it is a great program that is well worth the price.

I'm a longtime user of ACDSee, from way back with version 2.1, when it was shareware. That little Canadian firm, ACD Systems, has gone hyper-capitalist, judging by their oh-so-slick web site, which hides the price of the product while encouraging downloads of the free trial. Also, they are quite aggressive against piracy, which if you peruse the warez groups which regularly post the ACDSee serial numbers, may be justified. For this reason, a product bundled with the program called InTouch checks ACD Systems' server to see if your copy of AcdSee is legit. I have read a lot of complaints and criticism about the InTouch service, but it really doesn't bother me too much at this point. If a software vendor tries to protect their product, who can blame them. Just make it transparent to the end-user and don't bundle any spyware; two mandatory conditions.

Initially, I was reluctant to lay down $40-odd, and so I resorted to using the other image viewers out there, such as FastStone, which is about where ACDSee 1.1 was, ten years or so ago. Primitive, and doesn't view some file types that you really want to view. And then, that East European program, I forget the name...where you can click on the programmer's web site and it shows pictures of him and he says if you're a woman, send him naked photos? Well, his program is OK but again, rather primitive and limited in what it can do.

ACDSee is a definite step up, and if you can afford the hefty price (It IS pricy, all things considered...) then go for it. I would caution you however to make sure you have an up-to-date system, XP or 2000, and an AMD 3000+ or similar modern processor. Why bother with an updated image viewer if your hardware is stuck in the dark ages?

The latest version has an enormous number of features. The one I am going to tackle first is burning a CD or DVD. I tested this last night to create a CD full of photos that I intended to take to Walgreens' to printout. And so I did...no problem, worked like a charm. This is a VERY NICE feature to have, if you think about it for about five seconds. Sure, you have your own CD burner software, but it can't display photos, so you don't really know what you're dragging and dropping. With ACDSee you know what you're pulling.

Other than that, the program IS faster than previous versions and works good on my Windows 2000 system. Some annoying problems have been eliminated; for instance in version 4.0, the program would crash sometimes for who knows what reason. Very annoying. In fact, the primary reason I bought this release was to get a STABLE version. And yes, this version, 8.0, is STABLE after 50 some-odd hours of use. I like.

The reason to buy ACDSee 8.0 in a nutshell is THERE ISN'T ANYTHING ELSE OUT THERE REMOTELY CLOSE. The competitors suck. I searched far and wide and came back to this 'un. Luckily I was able to get a discount on the product because I owned a copy of version 4.0. I downloaded the program from their web site and didn't bother buying the CD. After all, you can create your own CD. All you really need is the serial number which InTouch (as mentioned earlier) will verify.

A word to the competitors: to lure people away from ACDSee, charge a lower price, give a free trial period, and come up with a better design. ACDSee is a bit cluttered in places. But it really does look to me like ACDSee has a merit-based monopoly in this little niche of the software market. Other than competing primarily on cost, I'm not sure what a competitor could add.

UPDATE- 12-15-2005: the slideshow function freezes up and ***crashes!!!*** when I try to make a slideshow out of pics on a networked PC. I must concede despite the five star rating I generously gave this program, that "Best Programming Practices" were *****NOT***** utilized. An embarassment for me at my party which made me feel my decision to buy the product was a mistake.

I was recently given a copy of ACDSee8 and I had absolutely NO problem with using it right out of the box, quite an acomplishment for a 50 something housewife.

The ACDsee 8.0 software is well worth the price for quick photo management. I love the automatic creation of folders with the date of upload to keep the photos separate until I move them myself. The quick editing tools are good if you are in a hurry, but can't compare to dedicated photo editing software such as Photoshop. I would recommend this product to any serious photographer who wants to keep the files in order. The other tools are a plus as well and there are many.

I have a few thousand digital photos on my computer and the more pictures I added the more difficult it became to manage them.

I installed ACD on a recomendation and I am now thrilled with the ease of managing my digital photo collection.

If you have a large or even a small digital collection then you need ACD 8. You can do batch functions, categorize, rate and edit your photos easily and quickly.

If you think an inexpensive program will have low end editing functions nothing could be further from the truth. You can correct red eye, adjust curves and levels and even sharpen you shots with the unsharp mask.

Once you have your computer and your digital camera, ACD 8 is the next essential part of your digital photography.

Want software that will organize and manage all your digital photos? Of course you do.. who wouldn't. ACDSEE 8 is the perfect add on gift when giving a digital camera.
Easy to use interface so you don't need to read the manual.
Just install and start using.