ACDSee has announced the latest product in its line of photo management software with the release of Photo Manager 9. The company claim this is the fastest and easiest-to-use version yet with the new features putting a lot of emphasis on importing and sorting your photos rather than editing them. Whereas a lot of other programs are moving towards editing your photos too - just look at the appearance of Lightroom and Aperture as indication of this - ACDSee have chosen to take the program almost solely down the management path to make sure the program loads quickly and works just as fast. Photo Manager 9 was actually released with relatively little fanfare a few weeks ago, but now its making a big impact because the French, Dutch and German versions are now available.
Amongst the new features is a QuickView mode which is for viewing images outside of the ACDSee program, such as from e-mails or Windows Explorer. ACDSee claim this is faster than alternatives, and with importing options it makes it simple to add to a catalogue. More organising tools have been added too:
- GROUP BY… arranges photos into subsets such as size, date or keywords, to make further sorting easy.
- FILTER BY… quickly displays photos by one or more rating or category, which is new for ACDSEE Photo Manager (but I know that iView software at least has been doing this for a while so its not that new a feature).
- The TABLE OF CONTENTS view is an easy to navigate summary of photos in a folder and is available when using Group By…
- AUTO CATEGORIES. When you import a photo into the program it automatically puts your photo into a category based on EXIF, IPTC and ACD database information which like Group By should make further sorting easier, although it is an automatic feature which may impact some workflows.
- The CALENDAR EVENTS view organises photos based on date which you can later personalise with an informative name (like London July 06)
Despite the big lean towards photo management features in the program there are still a couple of editing tools added. An obligatory Red-Eye fix has been included now, although your camera and your printer can probably now do the job just as well. Of more use is the Shadow/Highlight tool which can correct poorly exposed photos without affecting properly-affected areas. The tools aren't as powerful as Photoshop but they have some uses, allowing you to make simple fixes in program while you are deciding which photos to keep - and you can always import them into a proper image editor later.
The last new feature is pretty special; although it may end up as one of those features you use once and then forget about. Called “ACDSee Showroom” it takes the form of a desktop widget that can display your photos on the desktop instead of them being hidden away forever, allowing you to do more with your photos than just printing them out or forgetting about them. I'll have to take a more in-depth look to see how useful this or if it adds more functionality than the built-in Windows photo screensaver does.
Available in the four languages from the website, the program costs £29 for a new version and slightly less for an upgrade. Nicely, a free 30-day trial is available directly from here although be warned that the software is PC only.
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