ACDSee Ultimate Review - Surprisingly Intuitive for a Pro Photo Suite

excellent
key review info
application features
  • Manage, view, develop, edit and publish photos
  • (9 more, see all...)

ACDSee Ultimate represents the most comprehensive version from the ACDSee graphic series: ACDSee, ACDSee Pro, and ACDSee Ultimate. It's an all-around package that contains tools for managing, viewing, developing, editing and publishing photographs, mainly catering to professional users, such as graphic designers and creative artists.

Differences between ACDSee, ACDSee Pro and ACDSee Ultimate

The developer presents ACDSee (available for $39.95 / €41.95), the slimmest package out of the three, as ideal for photo enthusiasts with a growing image collection. It lets you organize photographs using folders, categories, keywords, metadata, ratings and color labels, as well as quickly track down images by building indexes based on metadata, file properties, data, event, keyword, rating, location and edited state.

You can create as many ACDSee databases as you want and swiftly cycle through them. The application supports visually tagging pictures via color labels, customizing and saving workspace layouts, metadata views, the file sort order and shortcut keys, as well as for loading external editors, viewing maps and enabling reverse geocoding by selecting a pin on the map.

ACDSee features support for an extensive list of file types (image, audio, video). It's possible to examine photo details using zoom, navigator, magnifying glass and histogram tools, instantly adjust exposure and remove color cast, eliminate flaws and other unwanted image parts using heal and clone tools, as well as to add text, custom borders, vignettes, drop shadows, matte, and edge effects, among others.

ACDSee Pro is available for $59.95 / €62.95 and adds several features to the ones previously described. Compared to ACDSee, this edition is dedicated to professional and advanced amateur photographers looking for total control over their workflows. It offers the possibility of selectively removing metadata to protect privacy and intellectual property, directly processing RAW images, as well as tinkering with many development tools: brightness and contrast adjustments for different tone bands, HDR processing, boosting saturation without affecting skin tones using the vibrance tool, applying post-crop vignette to any cropped image, or removing red eye without affecting picture quality. It has native support for 64-bit Windows and batch editing groups of photos.

As previously mentioned, ACD Systems mainly aims ACDSee Ultimate (available for $89.95 / €94.15) at graphic designers and creative artists. It has all the features of ACDSee and ACDSee Pro, and adds new ones to the list, like support for 32-bit and 64-bit transparency, layered editor for extra effects, trimming-out unwanted pixels with the eraser tool, using the move tool to adjust layers, hiding layers, .acdc file format for reopening images in Edit mode in the future, as well as blending modes and opacity adjustments for combined layers, among others.

New features in the latest edition of ACDSee Ultimate

A bunch of new features are introduced in the latest edition of ACDSee Ultimate. For example, Smart Indexer catalogs folders and adds them to your ACDSee database when the PC is idle, in order to keep your collection up to date. SeeDrive is a cloud storage service that requires you to sign in using an ACDSee 365 account, and its trial edition permits up to 2GB media uploads.

PicaView gets integrated into the file explorer to lets you preview images and their EXIF details in the context menu. Auto Lens View represents a collection of multiple lenses through which you can effortlessly preview your pictures, while Auto EQ gives instant exposure to your photos by automatically equalizing the color levels.

Moreover, ACDSee is now compatible with Windows Touch Gestures-enabled devices. You can selectively adjust pixels with a variety of edit tools by targeting specific colors and tones within the image, use improved selection tools, keep track of your history of adjustments and return to any previous step, as well as explore new edit modes.

Installation, requirements, license type, and interface

During the installation procedure, you can opt for complete mode to set up all elements included in ACDSee Ultimate's package, or switch to custom mode to exclude PicaView, Showroom, private folders, archive plugins (ARJ, CAB, encrypting, RAR, TGZ, ZIP), command extension plugins (archive, duplicate file finder, email, Facebook, Flickr, FTP uploader, SmugMug, Zenfolio), and image plugins (APD, brush decoding, canvas CNV/CVX thumbnails, DNG, DjVu, ICN, ICO/ICL, ID_Media, JPEG 2000, PICT, PS, PSD, PSP, RAW, TrueType font, WEBP).

It requires Internet Explorer 9 or higher, DirectX 10 or higher, GhostScript 8 (PDF support) and Windows Media Player 9.

The trial edition can be tested for 15 days without any feature restrictions.

The GUI is made from a maximized window with a dark theme, which is split into five major components: the manager, viewer, developer, editor, and 356. It's definitely intimidating to the untrained user. However, skilled graphic designers are likely to find the workspace layout well structured.

Browse, sort and organize media files

The ACDSee manager component has an integrated file explorer for locating and organizing media files. It lets you check out image thumbnails, as well as set tags, ratings, labels and categories. There's also a duplicate file finder available for files with the same name or identical files.

Manage, view, develop, edit and share photos with ACDSee Ultimate
Manage, view, develop, edit and share photos with ACDSee Ultimate

Metadata can be copied and pasted between photos, or removed to reduce their size. Meanwhile, thumbnails and metadata can be rebuilt, while metadata presets with IPTC details can be built and administered. ACDSee metadata has database information explaining how you have managed files in ACDSee, and it can be embedded in the objects to make them more convenient to restore after backup.

Collect items in image and burn baskets

Photographs can be imported from any removable storage devices that contain media (e.g. SD cards, internal camera storage), CDs, DVDs, disks or mobile phone folders. You can add any items to an image basket, which is an ACDSee feature that can collect media files from different locations to view, edit or share them. A burn basket exists too, which is similar to the image basket but it gathers objects for disc burning instead.

The program shows extended file properties for images, including their full path, type, date of creation, last modification and last access, attributes, dimensions, uncompressed size, bit depth, number of pages, pixels per inch, and embedded color profile (if any). These details can be copied to the Clipboard for closer inspection. Moreover, you can compare two images by placing them side by side.

Pinpoint photos on maps and save workspace layouts

You can consult a calendar to rapidly locate favorite images, in addition to the catalog with categories (e.g. albums, people, places), ratings, labels and keywords. Advanced settings can be configured for the catalog, such as disabling confirmation messages and easy selection mode, or hiding icons.

Photographs may also be pinpointed on a map, in order to later recall and view their information for reference. Multiple workspaces with different layouts can be created, saved to file and opened anytime to pick up from where you left off.

Database contents can be used to catalog files or to generate RAW image previews or file listings. It can be converted to a different format supported by older ACDSee editions, exported to a text file or a read-only compressed file, backed up with thumbnails, and optimized by removing obsolete information.

Run different bulk file operations

A lot of operations can be executed for multiple pictures at once in batch mode. As far as editing options are concerned, you can make presets to rotate, crop and resize images, adjust coloring, mix the color channels, control the exposure, apply sepia or vignette effects, equalize light, remove noise, sharpen photos, embed a text overlay, or insert watermarks. The original and new image can be previewed before applying modifications.

Files can be converted into BMP, GIF, JP2, JPG, PCX, PNG, PSD, TGA, TIFF, WMBP or WEBP file types, while their format and vector settings can be modified. It's also possible to modify timestamps when it comes to the date and time of creation or last modification, ACDsee database date and time, or EXIF date and time. Color profiles can be converted too.

An advanced renaming function can be executed for files in bulk as well, including their extensions. It gives you the possibility of using templates with numbers or letters to replace specific strings of characters, setting a starting position, inserting metadata, and changing the case.

View and edit photographs 

The ACDSee built-in image viewer has a filmstrip for quickly selecting files from the same directory. It shows ACDSee metadata, EXIF, IPTC and file properties, together with image and multimedia attributes. Auto-equalization can be activated with one click, while four auto lens can be just as easily applied (Lomo, Orton, black and white, sepia). The application can also use any external photo editors you assign.

The edit mode of ACDSee preserves the viewer's layout and adds all editing features available, which are neatly organized in lists for easy browsing. Basic drawing controls can be done using multiple selection methods (rectangular, elliptical, magic wand, lasso), fill, brush, rectangle, ellipse, line, arrow, curve, polygon, or eraser.

View and rate photos in ACDSee Ultimate
View and rate photos in ACDSee Ultimate

Meanwhile, the advanced editing utilities are grouped into six categories: repair, add, geometry, exposure/lighting, color, and detail, and all of them come with their own set of adjustments. These include red eye reduction (size, darkening), heal and clone (nib width, feathering), text (e.g. drop shadow, effects), image watermarks (e.g. transparency, alpha), borders (e.g. texture, edge), vignette (e.g. transition zone, outline), tilt shift (e.g. Bokeh frequency and brightness), in addition to a long list of special effects.

The remaining edit options consist of rotate, flip, crop, resize, perspective and lens distortion correction, exposure, levels, auto levels, tone curves, light equalization, dodge and burn, white balance, advanced color, color balance, black and white conversion, split tone, sharpen, blur, noise, clarify, and detail brush.

Discover photograph developer tools

The ACDSee developer mode arms pros with tools for tuning, details, geometry, and repairs. It's possible to toggle the picture between color and black/white mode in order to fine-tune the exposure, highlight enhancement, light filling, contrast, saturation, vibrance and clarity. Additional tweaks can be made to the white balance (as shot, auto, or custom temperature, tint and strength), light equalization (in basic, standard or advanced mode), advanced coloring (for saturation, brightness and hue), tone curves, soft focus (strength, brightness, contrast, tonal width), cross process (strength), tone splitting, and post-crop vignette.

Detail adjustments focus on sharpening, noise reduction and chromatic aberration, while geometry tuneups revolve around lens distortion, rotation and straightening, perspective, cropping, and vignette correction. Lastly, photo repairs can be made using healing, cloning or red eye reduction.

Worth noting is that any developer tool can be enabled or disabled for the image with one click, saved as presets, and reset to its last saved preset. During this time, you can click and hold a button to view the original picture and compare it to the new one.

Explore upload, sync, burn and other image export options

Images can be exported in batch mode to another location. You can create subfolders, set a file naming pattern, change the file type, pixel format and color space, resize the photos, as well as preserve or delete metadata, database information and the last modified date. It's possible to create and save profiles with various export configuration in order to apply settings automatically.

ACDSee features a synchronization mode that simply asks you to specify a source folder with media content along with a backup destination (regardless of the location). It can automatically replace (update) old files.

Additionally, the images can be printed or sent via email using your default client or a built-in SMTP server. You can upload them to your personal websites using an integrated FTP client, post them on Facebook, Flickr, SmugMug or Zenfolio, as well as share them using an ACDSee 365 account. If you also happen to have a Microsoft account, you can sign in to upload photos and videos to OneDrive.

The comprehensive application facilitates a simple-to-follow wizard for creating standalone EXE, Windows screensver or Adobe Flash player slideshows from multiple images. It enables you to set transitions, transition and slide duration, text captions, and soundtracks. Otherwise, slideshows can be played on the spot for presentations purposes only, without actually saving them to file.

Another wizard is provided for creating PDF documents, whether they are slideshows, a file containing all images, or files for each image. PPT presentations can be generated in a similar manner, provided that you have Microsoft PowerPoint installed.

Furthermore, you can burn CDs or DVDs using images from the burn basket, compress them into archives (ZIP, TAR, BZipped TAR, CAB, GZipped TAR, Strong Encryption Format), design and save contact sheets, as well as compile HTML photo album after selecting a preferred style.


The Good

No one can argue with the fact that ACDSee Ultimate boasts rich features. We've probably missed a lot of options in our evaluation, so arm yourself with patience and the official user manual with tutorials to find out more.

Apart from options we've already talked about, it supports a wide array of plugins and numerous configuration settings for each part of the program.

It worked smoothly on 64-bit Windows 10, Windows 8 and Windows 7 during our evaluation.

Considering the level of complexity of ACDSee's features, the program manages to be surprisingly intuitive.

The Bad

It crashed on a couple of occasions in our tests while we were selecting options from the main window.

It creates an icon in the system tray at every Windows launch and it gets sent there on exit. It doesn't inform you of this during setup, let alone give you the option to disable it. However, this can be done later from the general settings. 

The Truth

It takes a long time to explore all of ACDSee Ultimate, but we don't think you'll be disappointed. The software suite seems to have everything needed (and more) for organizing, editing and exporting photographs, especially if you're most than just an amateur. However, if you think the ultimate edition has too many components you don't need, you can check out the lesser versions, ACDSee Pro and ACDSee.

NOTE: Softpedia, in association with ACD Systems, is giving away 20 FREE licenses for ACDSee Ultimate 8 (English edition only). Each key is available for 1 PC, can be activated anytime, and has a lifetime availability (it doesn't apply for software updates). All you have to do is leave us a comment in the section below until next Friday, August 21, and tell us what you like or don't like about ACDSee Ultimate 8, or what feature you would like to get implemented in future versions.

We will pick the 20 best comments and send you an email. Make sure to enter your valid email address to be considered for the giveaway promo. Please note that only comments left on this page will be eligible for the giveaway promotion. 

Follow us on Twitter @spgiveaways or visit our Software Giveaways and Discounts page to stay up to date with the latest Softpedia giveaway offers.

Thank you to all participants! And the winners are (all emails have been sent):

1. Adrian 2. Modi Alastal 3. Akbar Ali Chowdhary 4. Tom Bayles 5. Stanislav Mitskevichus 6. Xan Xpdes 7. M. 8. Anurag 9. Sudip Kumar Das 10. super 11. Geoff Thomas 12. Ahmed Ali 13. Clay 14. ha14 15. mieszko 16. Bjourne 17. ellene 18. Burner 19. tmabbas71 20. seba

user interface 5
features 5
ease of use 3
pricing / value 4


final rating 5
Editor's review
excellent
 
NEXT REVIEW: IObit Uninstaller

ACDSee Ultimate - Screenshots (21 Images)

Manage, view, develop, edit and share photos with ACDSee UltimateSet ratings, tags, labels and categories with ACDSee UltimateUse developer tools for tuning, details, geometry and repairs in ACDSee UltimateEnter edit mode to explore dozens of adjustments and effects in ACDSee UltimateUpload media items to SeeDrive, ACDSee Ultimate's cloud storage service
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