Does anyone here use ACDSee?

[Ian]

A straw poll would suggest that Adobe Lightroom, DxO PhotoLab, Skylum Luminar, Capture One, and Affinity Photo, are the most popular photo editing packages used by members of our forum.

Some, like Lightroom/Photoshop, operate a monthly ongoing charging policy, with continuous updates, while others offer a one-off charge with a year's updates, perhaps.

ACDSee offer both monthly and annual charging, and the software remains functional even after the newer and, hopefully, better version update is released, each year.

I noticed that last time we did a survey, hardly anyone owned up to using ACDSee. Well, it's been around as long as Lightroom, and I remember using it a very long time ago. The 2025 version has been launched and I've been offered a chance to review it.

If any of you do use it, please let us know how you get on with it.

Ian

[griffljg]

I used to use ACDSee Photo Studio for photo viewing and reviewing. When I upgraded to ACDSee Photo Studio 10, the new License Key kept being reported as "Invalid". During the course of many email conversations with ACDSee Support over the course of the next month, the problem was never resolved. What really annoyed me was that ACDSee Support took anything from 3 to 6 days to get back to me with new suggestions. Finally I just gave up in disgust. I won't be giving them any more of my money.

[griffljg]

I bought the upgrade on 21 Dec 2023. My last communication with them in this regard was on 24 Jan 2024. I can forward you the emails if you like.

[Ian]

I can hopefully help you as this wasn't that lonmg ago, now I have a line of communication with ACDSee - let me mention your experience to them.

[griffljg]

Thanks Ian. It is probably worth noting that I can still run the "Trial" version. It just reports that the key given to me by ACDSee is invalid.

[Cantilever]

I’ve been using it for a while…. Going back to early versions - 2.x … back when they were a viewer with almost no editing capability.

I don’t have the latest, I have the previous version.

I can’t remember how many versions back they added the ability to edit in layers - it’s a bit clunky if you are used to photoshop. I typically use GIMP for that stuff, it works well enough for what I need. ACDSEE is good if I want to quickly edit a geotag, or I need a quick edit of a photo… lighting, colors, contrast, that sort of thing.

Mostly I use it to bulk edit/reszie/rename/convert format images for things like eBay auctions. Or reviewing large numbers of images, tagging them, and then deleting/moving them to folders on the PC.

it’s a good balance between capability/cost. I don’t have to pay a subscription, so if I skip a version or two, because I don’t need any of the improvements, I’m getting even more value. It has enough editing that I don’t have to open another app if I’m not doing anything complex.

closest equivalent, on the PC, for browsing/managing/converting would be XNview (which is free, and they even have a portable version I can fun from a thumb drive). ACDSEE is more powerful for managing views, folders, geotags, and batch edits… like rotate, crop, rename, convert, whatever. But costs money, where XNview is free.

[Ian]

I’ve been using it for a while…. Going back to early versions - 2.x … back when they were a viewer with almost no editing capability.

I don’t have the latest, I have the previous version.

I can’t remember how many versions back they added the ability to edit in layers - it’s a bit clunky if you are used to photoshop. I typically use GIMP for that stuff, it works well enough for what I need. ACDSEE is good if I want to quickly edit a geotag, or I need a quick edit of a photo… lighting, colors, contrast, that sort of thing.

Mostly I use it to bulk edit/reszie/rename/convert format images for things like eBay auctions. Or reviewing large numbers of images, tagging them, and then deleting/moving them to folders on the PC.

it’s a good balance between capability/cost. I don’t have to pay a subscription, so if I skip a version or two, because I don’t need any of the improvements, I’m getting even more value. It has enough editing that I don’t have to open another app if I’m not doing anything complex.

closest equivalent, on the PC, for browsing/managing/converting would be XNview (which is free, and they even have a portable version I can fun from a thumb drive). ACDSEE is more powerful for managing views, folders, geotags, and batch edits… like rotate, crop, rename, convert, whatever. But costs money, where XNview is free.

I may be coming to you for some advice!

Ian

[shakyHands]

When I started shooting raw on my em-1 mk2 I had trials of ACDSee, capture1 and Lightroom. The rendering of the raw files from ACDSee was pretty awful - I assume they didn't really support the .ORF files of the time. The other two did a good job and I ended up subscribing to photoshop.

[R99C99]

I had never heard of it before so I’m going to take a look out of curiosity.

[moggi1964]

I use Photo Studio Home 2022 version. Useful as a viewer and library and for minor adjustments. I bought it mostly for the library function.

[Wreckdiver]

Not now but I used it years ago when it was free. It was my favourite image browser at the time.

[djrwhittle]

I have ACDSee Pro installed on my iPad. I used it quite a lot to edit photographs when away from my desktop ,where I use Corel Paintshop Pro 2023. I have recently installed Aphinity Photo ll for the iPad and, while I’m trying to learn that, I’m using it instead of ACDSee.

Derek

[Dennis Russ]

I used ACDSee many years ago. Now I use Photoshop & Lightroom.

[griffljg]

In addition to my complaint above regarding invalid licence keys and poor customer service, I felt I should at least give the reasons why I used to use ACDSee Photo Studio......

In the beginning there was Google Picasa. I used it to find all my previously lost photos, view them, review their locations (if GPS data were present), put them into slide shows and generally manage my digital photo library. It also allowed me to be software-independent. This was a good thing, as I was going through a phase of experimenting with different photographic software offerings and didn't want to be tied into any one software house for Digital Asset Management (DAM). I started off using Bibble Pro, then moved on to Adobe Lightroom and then onto Capture One Pro, experimenting with a few others along the way. Yes, I even played with Olympus Studio for a bit.

Picasa performed its task well until Google decided to do away with the stand-alone version. For a while I kept operating as I always had, but then I could no longer run Picasa on the latest operating system on my Mac.

Time to look for a Picasa replacement! I played with the open source package "digikam", but it was a bit too clunky at that stage and so I kept looking. Then I happened upon ACDSee Photo Studio and played with it for a bit. It did just about all that I expected Picasa to do..... View photos, view maps of their locations, view EXIF data, create slideshows..... It also wasn't very expensive. So I bought a copy. I kept upgrading whenever a new version was released..... Until December 2023, when I encountered licence key problems with the new ACDSee Photo Studio 10.

I then had another look at digikam. It is still clunky, but a lot better than it was. I am now using digikam and its fellow program showfoto, but I would really like to sort out ACDSee Photo Studio 10's licence key problems.

Typical view of my screen when running ACDSee Photo Studio: