ACDSee has been around for quite sometime. It started as a humble program to view your photographic and other images. Over, the years and releases it has added more and more features and capabilities until finally it had so many bugs and performance issues that most people labeled it bloatware or worse. While I have had my share of problems with ACDSee over the years I never felt it was bloatware, ACD Systems was just adding in the features needed to make it a powerful all-in-one photo management and processing program. The problem was they couldn't seem to squash the bugs.

However, ACDSee Pro 2 was handled differently than any other release of the program. ACD Systems worked hard on it in private and then started releasing public betas of it and then turned around and used the information provided in the public beta to not only improve features, add features but to squash as many bugs as they could. The result is ACDSee Pro 2 is the best release of the program to date. I have been using it since it was released and have been quite impressed with its speed, stability, capability and lack of bugs. Now this is not to say that it is perfect. It isn't, no software program released today by any company is perfect. The days of 100% bug free software is I am afraid long gone. However, ACDSee Pro 2 is about as close as one should expect to get in today's world of powerful and complex software applications.

The one thing I have always loved about ACDSee is the fact that it supports many many many file formats, not just photo formats like JPG, TIF, etc. But, vector formats, fonts and so much more. It is to date the only program I have seen that supports this many formats. It also now supports many RAW formats from the most popular digital cameras, for a list of supported RAW files, Click Here. Now as I said ACDSee Pro 2 supports many different file formats. Well, I wasn't kidding, it supports over 100 formats, for a list of supported formats Click Here.

The interface is still clean and easy to use Screen Shot. Thumbnail generation is very quick and startlingly fast with RAW files and the quality of the thumbnails is very good. The batch renaming, batch conversion and even duplicate image finder tools are easy to use and powerful. My only real complaint is I don't like the photo editor that comes with it. I don't like the interface, it is not professional and not very user friendly in my opinion. For one thing it is a little messy, if you click on an image and then click on the "Edit Image" option in the task bar at the top you get one editor Screen Shot if you double click the same image you get a different editor Screen Shot, this is not only tacky but confusing. For what ACDSee Pro 2 costs I would have expected them to include the very good ACDSee Photo Editor which in my opinion is heads and shoulders above the less than stellar editor included in ACDSee Pro 2. I hope they will see the light and give Pro 3 a decent editor that is deserving of being included with such a powerful program.

ACDSee catalogs your images in to a database, giving the good parts of a database driven image cataloging program, without many of the negatives. However, it leaves your image files alone and allows you to view them on your hard drive like a browser type image viewer would. ACD System has done a good job of blending the database and the browser in to one, and one that works together seamlessly. Unlike some other database image management programs like Adobe Photoshop Lightroom ACD Systems gives you tools to manage the database files so that you can hopefully prevent any corruption problems, there are tools to do database clean up to keep the database files small and fast, database backup and restore and more.

Of course ACDSee Pro 2 has all of the features you need to create HTML photo galleries, slideshows, burn images to CD or DVD, create contact sheets, print photo layouts (like 2 5x7 to a page), etc. The one thing that does disappoint me is the printing capabilities. I was hoping it would have printing capabilities along the lines of their FotoSlate program so that you can do all kinds of print layouts like 1 5x7 and 8 wallet size, etc. But, it doesn't in fact it comes with very few print layouts and as far as I can see no way to create your own. I expected more for a program of this price and caliber.

When it comes to organizing your images so that you can quickly find them ACDSee Pro 2 is no slouch. You can organize them by categories, ratings, and even use the auto generated categories that ACDSee Pro 2 creates from the metadata in your images. Auto categories like aperture, file size, ISO, shutter speed and more. To show only images with a rating of 5 is just a mouse click away, so is showing only images that were shot at ISO 100, etc.

Finally, ACDSee's RAW handling capabilities are just getting better and better Screen Shot. Besides the updates that offer new support for the latest cameras you can view RAW files, edit RAW files, create HTML galleries and slideshows from RAW files and much more. You can do anything to a RAW file that you can do to a non-RAW file including batch converting, batch renaming, find duplicates, and compare images and the list goes on. As I said ACDSee Pro 2's RAW handling is very good the generation of thumbnails is quick and their quality is very good as well. The RAW processing features include exposure controls like exposure, highlight recovery, curves, etc. It also has a very interesting Light EQ tab that allows you to control up to nine individual tone bands, this is unlike anything I have seen before. There are also color controls for white balance, saturation, etc. There is also sharpening and noise reduction controls as well as cropping and rotation tools. All in all the RAW processing tool set is quite good and the final results at least to me appear on par with other RAW processing programs.

There is so much more that ACDSee Pro 2 is capable of, but we just have enough room left to cover what's new in Pro 2 and to talk about the fixes and additions made in the just released update to Pro 2. So let's get in to the goodies.

New and enhanced features include:

Certified for Vista

ACDSee Pro 2 is Certified for Windows Vista, providing the best experience possible on the Vista operating system. ACDSee has worked closely with Microsoft to provide features and functions at the highest level of compatibility with Windows Vista.

Improved RAW performance

Viewing RAW in ACDSee Pro 2 is now incredibly fast. Browse and view huge RAW files as if they were JPEGs, with new background RAW processing and RAW Image Previews (RIPs). Performance and handling of RAW files is optimized for dual processors. The quality of demosaicing and white balance is also improved.

Copy and paste RAW settings

Accelerate and simplify your workflow by copying and pasting RAW settings from one photo to another.

Rotate and crop in one step

Crop and rotate your photos at the same time with the flexible new Crop/Rotate tool.

Export to multiple formats and resolutions

Simultaneously export RAW images to up to 14 file formats and multiple resolutions, rename and resize your files, and embed a color profile.

Recover detail in RAW photos

Even when a photo is properly exposed, you can lose highlight details due to clipping by your camera. In ACDSee Pro 2, recover up to two stops of lost highlight detail with the Highlight Recovery slider in the Exposure tab of the RAW Processor. Or, use the Light EQ tab to control up to nine individual tone bands.

New RAW file formats

ACDSee Pro 2 supports several new RAW formats as well as XMP sidecar files.

Pop-up previews

Hover your mouse over a thumbnail and a pop-up preview will appear on screen. If you don't like the pop-up previews you can turn them off in preferences.

Browse by date

• View your photos by date with the new Photo Calendar or Events View.
• To access the Photo Calendar in ACDSee Pro 2, float the Calendar pane, select Month View, and enlarge the pane.
• Events View, a new option in the Calendar pane, displays your photos in an organized event list. Personalize events with unique descriptions like Auto Show or Jones Wedding.

View photos faster

See your photos instantly on screen with the Quick View mode. Whether opening an image attachment to an e-mail, or double-clicking on a JPEG from Windows Explorer, the Quick View mode is a fast, sleek, and efficient addition to ACDSee's powerful viewing tools. Pared down to include the viewing and browsing essentials, it displays your photos with greater speed than ever before.

Organize, sort, and navigate

• Group By arranges your photos into subsets, providing a logical viewing structure for faster viewing. Group by keywords, size, date taken, and other commonly used information.
• With Filter By, you get improved sorting and display of photos assigned to particular ratings or categories. For example, select Filter By | Rating 1. Only the photos in the selected folder(s) assigned to Rating 1 will be displayed.
• Easily navigate a summary list of groups of photos in a folder using the Table of Contents display. It is available when using the new Group By and Events View features.

Multi-word keyword support

ACDSee Pro 2 now supports spaces in keywords, making it compatible with the IPTC standard and with other photo editing software. Enter keywords like "Los Angeles" and no metadata will be lost when you import or export images from other applications.

XMP and DNG support

• ACDSee now supports the XMP sidecar file format created by Adobe products. These sidecar files can be used to store metadata for RAW images that cannot be edited directly.
• ACDSee also supports reading and writing to XMP metadata for their currently supported IPTC fields. XMP metadata is a new extensible standard that is becoming more widely adopted. For backward compatibility, ACDSee reads metadata from or writes it to, both the older IPTC fields and the newer XMP fields, with the XMP field (if it exists) taking precedence.
• You can also edit the metadata in DNG files including EXIF, IPTC, and XMP metadata.

Automatic categorizing based on metadata

Save time sorting your photos - browse through the Auto Categories pane. ACDSee Pro 2 now leverages metadata from your images to automatically place them in categories based on EXIF camera information, IPTC data, ACD database information and file properties. Use auto categories to improve searches too.

Improved Shadows/Highlights

• The sophisticated image processing behind the Shadows/Highlights tool is now even better! This patent-pending feature actively analyses each photo to automatically apply optimal settings for each individual photo. Fine-tune shadows and highlights independently using sliders, or a single click on the photo.
• For greater precision use the Light EQ and Advanced tabs. The Light EQ tab is like a sound equalizer - for light. You have complete control over 2-9 separate tone bands.
• With the Advanced tab, you drag the actual local, tone-mapping curve, which tells you immediately when clipping starts - or make adjustments directly on the photo itself using mouse controls. You can even "roll" your own custom curve using the mouse scroll wheel.

RAW Shadows and Highlights

Even better, controls for adjusting the too-dark or too-bright areas of photos have been added to RAW Processing both on the Exposure tab and on the separate Light EQ tab.

Expanded Batch Processing

Apply 13 different operations to a single photo or multiple photos using the Batch Processor, which now includes controls for Shadows/Highlights, Channel Mixer, Sepia, and Saturation.

Creative editing with Selections

Apply corrections, adjustments, and creative effects to a selected area of your image with the new Selections tool, giving you complete technical and artistic control of every aspect of your image.

Opacity and Blending

Change the opacity of an effect applied to the whole image or a selection. Change the way edited images blend with the original image. Used with selections or special effects, these tools effectively give you 17 new options for every editing panel! Quickly flip through the blend modes by hovering over the control and scrolling with your mouse wheel.

Channel Mixer

Create rich black and white images by controlling the amount of color information in each of the red, green, and blue channels used in the grayscale image. A preview window shows you precisely which areas of the photo you will affect for each channel

Advanced red-eye correction

With the new Red-eye Reduction tool, get natural-looking results even if the red coloring has bled onto the surrounding skin or iris. Set the intensity of the color and then create a custom color to replace red areas.

Export photos directly to PowerPoint

Use the new PPT wizard to instantly create a PowerPoint presentation of your photos by exporting them directly from within ACDSee. Just select your photos, click Create | Create PPT and the wizard will help you add or remove images, name your presentation, choose where to store it, apply a design template or even add captions, titles, and notes to each slide.

Unzip archives from right inside ACDSee

Now you can unzip archives and start viewing and organizing files without leaving ACDSee, so you can start viewing and organizing downloads immediately.

Upload to online services

Quickly upload your photos to online services like Flickr and SmugMug from within ACDSee.

Photo widget

Post a photo widget on your web site or blog, powered by your free ACDSee Sendpix online album.

Print Templates

Print Layout reduces the complexity and confusion suffered over printing multiple photos. It gives you a variety of print layout options. Print multiple 4x6 prints on a single page, or fill an entire page for an 8x10. While this is enhanced from Pro 1 it still isn't all it could or should be. ACD Systems needs to build FotoSlate in to Pro 3 and get it over with.

What's New in the Pro 2 Update?

ACDSee Uploader to Flickr, Version 2.0 allows you to

• Select security, safety and content type
• Set tags for individual images or all images
• Select which ACDSee metadata fields (including IPTC and EXIF) to display in Flickr fields
• Create new Flickr sets or direct images to existing sets
• Resize large images
• View your remaining space for the current month

Support for Brushes

• View, browse and organize .abr, .jbr and .pbr files, known as ‘brushes' and used in applications such as Adobe Photoshop and Corel Paint Shop Pro.

Hot key for mouse over pop ups

• Show or hide mouse over pop ups with the Shift key

New camera RAW support

• View, browse, organize and process RAW images from the following cameras: Canon 40D (including the sRAW format), Pentax K100D Super, Kodak EasyShare P712, Kodak P880, Samsung GX-1S, Olympus E-410, Panasonic FZ18, and Sony A700

Fixes, including

• Improved speed and performance for local brightening and darkening in RAW Processor

I don't think all of these wonderful tools and more that ACD Systems have added to ACDSee over the years makes the program bloatware, it makes it a powerful all-in-one image management and processing application. I hope that they keep on beta testing new versions and keep on listening to their customers. Together we can help, we can help them make ACDSee Pro the program we all want and we all want to use. For the first time in a long while I see a very bright future for ACDSee.

Needs

Hardware

• Intel Pentium III / AMD Athlon processor or equivalent (Intel Pentium 4 / AMD Athlon XP or equivalent recommended)
• 512 MB RAM (1 GB RAM recommended)
• 100 MB free hard drive space (1 GB recommended)
• High Color display adapter at 1024 x 768 resolution (1280 x 1024 recommended)
• CD/DVD Burner - for creating CDs and DVDs

Software

• Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0.0 (6.0.0 recommended)
• TiVo Desktop Software - to publish images to your TiVo
• Microsoft DirectX 9.0 - for Microsoft DirectX file format support, and to create slide shows and screen savers
• QuickTime 6.0 - for QuickTime file format support
• Ghostscript 8.0 - for PDF support
• Windows Media Player 9.0 or later