Customer Reviews

ACD Systems ACDCD70860WI Pro Photo Manager 3.0 Camera Software

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

 

 

I have tested mostly all the RAW workflow softwares(Lightroom, Bibble, Capture One and Silkypix) and this suits best for me.

Why did I choose this SW?
1. I use Olympus camera and ORF files are opened perfectly in ACDsee. Other/All other SW opens with white balance shift and not giving the same quality of Olympus Master.
2. Wonderful light adjustment, the best in market. You have high level adjustment and separate intensity level adjustment.
3. Color adjustment is also like light adjustment, which gives better controls.
4. Good image management(not the best one).

The non destructible processing does not apply to other tools like vignette and borders. I would be very happy if they have provided for the tools too.

Finally, if you are working on RAW files and need a good, easy to work and cost effective software then this one is for you.

Update on 24 July 2010
After using little less than year. I have been very much pleased with this software. It is very much stable and reduced my time working with raw files.

ACDSee Pro 3 is first and foremost a photo management tool, but to describe it simply thus is to misrepresent the power that lies within the package. I'm no professional photographer, just a keen amateur, but I realise the importance of being able to organise my photos and set about processing them to establish collections of photos I can be proud of. Put simply, ACDSee Pro 3 is the best software you will find on the market for that purpose. The array of management and viewing tools is truly impressive, and best of all its features are very accessible, affording a relatively easy learning curve for those used to other photo editing and management tools. Allied to this ACDSee Pro 3 offers some truly amazing photo editing tools. When I say photo editing, I mean tools which allow one to adjust parameters associated with the quality of the photo. You won't find much in the way of gadgets and gizmos for removing unwanted objects from a photo, or for turning a shot of grumpy Uncle Joe into a beacon of joy - for that you will need another package which offers such trickery. Instead, you will be offered some of the best tools for adjusting lighting, exposure and color you will find anywhere. Best of all, the whole lot comes together seamlessly offering what, in my view, is the best workflow of any photo software on the market.

If you are familiar with ACDSee Pro 2.5, be prepared for an enormous change. This is no incremental upgrade, but a complete overhaul of what was a reasonably accomplished package. In moving to version 3 I would state that ACDSee have rewritten the way photo management/editing gets done, and for that they should be complemented.

The downside? Well, as I have mentioned, the range of editing tools is limited, but if one goes into that knowing that what one is buying is limited (but excellent in execution) then that should be okay. The program does not accept Photishop plug-ins, which is a pity. And that's it. A great 5 star buy.

ACD Systems has done a very good job for the money. This software of course doesn't have all the features you would find in the ADOBE products, but it has all the good ones most people would generally need to process their digital images.

The software is easy to install and register. More importantly, it is has a very intuite operator interface that makes it very easy to use. It comes with a useful tutorial and the "help" function is great as well. The workflow is smooth because you aren't fighting the software, sorry ADOBE. There are four tabs on the upper right of the screen that allow you to select either manage, view, process or online. Each screen is very well layed out and all the tools are easy to use and their functions are labeled. No guess work or symbol memorization required.

The product supports a very large range of digital cameras. Downloading your photos is quick and easy. It has all the bells and whistles for batch processing and makes sending photos online a snap.

I had been a longtime user of Thumbs+ -- through several versions -- but I decided to switch after that product's publisher failed to keep up with the changing needs of the digital image/camera market.

I downloaded the 30-day trial of ACDSee Pro Photo Manager, and purchased it after some extensive tests after a few days.

The product is stable and fast, providing indexing, sorting and acess to thousand of image files on my Windows 7 64-bit system.

I recommend it.

I am a hobbyist who takes lots of pictures and have used ACDSee Pro 3 for about 9 months. In using this product regularly for culling, organizing, editing and viewing my images (almost exclusively jpegs), I've found it to be very fast, stable, highly effective and a pleasure to use. There was hardly any initial learning curve, but I've just decided to read the Help module and online tutorials more thoroughly to become even more proficient with the application. This is one of my most used and useful software applications. I've no hesitation in recommending this product.

PS. I use this product with Topaz's EXCELLENT plug-ins (with Photoshop Elements 8 Editor or irfanview) for more intensive editing. I've tried many of the free image organizers/editors but they can't compare with ACDSee. Photoshop Lightroom 3 is also very good, but seems slower than ACDSee Pro 3, and Lightroom edits are not carried over to the actual images, as another reviewer here has pointed out. This is also an issue for me.

The disk was missing a key file required to backup my database. ACDSee customer service emailed me a link to the file and led me through the install process. The program is extremely stable and does everything I need. I tried PSE9 but it was so slow and I almost pulled my hair out. Corel Pro X3 was unstable and crashed repeatedly. Lightroom required too many steps to get the results I wanted.

I've used this application for several years, upgrading thru several versions. I was originally thrilled with it. But this latest version is an unmitigated disaster. Features that used to work are now buggy. Crashes happen sporadically and without warning, sometimes leaving image files damaged. I am utterly disappointed in this release, and I've spent far too much time fixing what ACDSee has broken. I'm done. I'm outta here. It's to revisit the competition.

I love this program it does what it says it will. I have used lightroom and ACDSEE PRO 3 keeps up nicely the only reason I gave it 4 stars is plug ins don't work. The price completely knocks light room out

For over 10 years, I've used Thumbs+ as my software for organizing and "post-production" work on photos. Before I go any further, I must explain that "post-production" means cropping, perhaps tweaking the contrast, and adding a stamp (© mark with name, as unobtrusively as possible). I have refused to get into any version of Adobe PhotoShop, first because I found Elements to be complex and instructions and videos badly written and produced, and second because the upper end software is ridiculously priced. If you photos need that much help, you don't need software as much as experience and perhaps a better camera.

Okay, the pros of ACDC Pro 3 are:

It's makes organizing and reorganizing photos simple.

It can take existing folders and sub-folders and just create thumbnails with ease. One should read the "Preferences" at the top of the page first, but with some assistance from the folks at ACDC, I haven't found anything that they can't correct (see cons below).

So, before I get into the "technical" pros, let me say that, their customer support is fantastic. I know that some of my questions must be answered online or in the menus at the top of the page, but when I haven't been able to find something quickly, I email. Invariably, I have an answer - and answer that actually answers the question - in 3 hours, sometimes less. This was even when I was just trying it out!

Ah, and you get a full 30 days to try the complete program. I tried 12 and 3, 3 being the more enhanced program, for about 15 days each, and bought Pro 3. On sale through ACDSee for $99 at the time.

Though I never thought I would actually spend time getting rid of a branch or some other object in a photo, their "Repair" tool is so precise that you can replace a stick with sky pixel by pixel. I've done it once, and it is noted on the two pictures on my web site.

I use a Canon SX20 IS camera (see Amazon review) and, while I love most of it, I'm pretty much relegated to taking pictures in bright sunlight. Otherwise, I have to go to an ISO of 400 or 800. At 400, there's noise. At 800, I can't hear a thing. ACDC's "Exposure," "Lighting," "Sharpness," and "Noise" can make all the difference in the world. Sometimes, just sharp and noise will do it, sometimes just contrast and fill. And there are a myriad of settings along with those. It CANNOT take an out-of-focus picture and make it focused. Not even PS can do that.

I've only had to use redeye reduction four or five times (I was blessed with blue-eyed grandchildren). ACDC's redeye correction works, period. Now, if only somebody would come up with gray eye problems on dogs, and flashbacks on birds.

I never would have thought that I'd use perspective correction, but I have on several relatively "crooked" photos, and with this and cropping, came out with a very decent photo.

I can't go through all that it has, and it is true that I can't take the elephant in the room and place him on a beach as in PS, but I always thought I'd like to have the elephant where I found him. Not that I wouldn't like to have puffy clouds over Half-Dome, but that would be cheating.

I don't take photos in RAW because none of my P&S cameras take RAW. Probably just as well. If post-production takes more than 15 minutes on one picture, it wasn't worth the effort.

Cons:

Just two. First, I am still having trouble printing a 5x7 or 8x10 direct from the program. There seems to be some distortion, and even correcting by using their "management tools," the head of a snake is too narrow. Even I can look thinner.

When Resizing, the present "email" setting will give you the same size photos as if you had attached the original. I have to switch to my old Thumbs + to print. It's just as well. That little extra time reminds me how much each print is costing me!

Actually, 20 minutes ago, I wrote to ACDC support and asked how to correct for their sizing and print issues. What am I doing wrong, and where could I find it in help? Since it's 1 AM, they probably won't get back to me until noon today. Since I've been dealing with it for two months, I can wait until noon or later.

Love the program. If you've used software before, this is truly intuitive. It put's Canon's software that comes with their more expensive cameras to shame. And Sony's. And Google. And...

EW

I have used 3 different versions of the ACDSEE software. The biggest problem is an EXTREMELY SLOW DATABASE. If you do not have a lot of photos, then the speed will be better, but if you have a large number of photos Do Not Purchase this software because you will sit at your PC and pull your hair out just waiting for it to perform all of it's SLOW database tasks. If have tried everything to try to speed this up, including closing all other applications. I have even tried to disable the database options, and it still by-passes my configurations and takes over by creating another database.
As far as customer support - Forget It! You basically leave a ticket and their response is that it may take weeks to look at your request for assistance.
If you are aware of software that you would recommend, then please reply to this comment - THANKS!