ACDSee Pro for Mac: The photo manager for the rest of us?
Back in the day, ACDSee was a pretty able image editor, though the current Pro iteration is positioned as a digital photo manager only. That said, they have much to prove before they will pry $150—what the PC version costs—from my wallet.
ACDSee has announced the availability of ACDSee Pro for Mac beta, marking an eight-year dry spell since the last time anything the company shipped for the Mac and the very first OS X compatible product.
Although ACDSee will run on PPC Macs, it requires OS X 10.5 Leopard, so you will need at least an 867MHz G4 or better to use this application. Given that PPC support in OS X will likely end later this Summer with the release of Snow Leopard—well before v1.0 of this app ships—this seems an odd choice to make.
Simply downloading the beta gets you two days of usage without providing any information or an email address. However, providing an address gives you access to the application, one presumes, until the finished product ships on February 19, 2010 or there abouts. Given the $150 asking price for this application, we’re getting the better part of a year for year. The company writes:
Accelerate your photography workflow with ACDSee Pro for Mac. Manage and view your images with speed and ease. ACDSee Pro is the photography software with the flexibility to adapt to the way you work; helping you optimize every aspect of your workflow.
ACDSee doesn’t support .png format, which is the go-to format for the internet when image quality and clarity are paramount. Happily, however, this application lists generic Photoshop and Illustrator file support, meaning you can view and manage images from these sources.
View a full listing of compatible file types in the release notes
Bizarrely, ACDSee Pro will open MacPaint files. What’s odd about that? This perhaps most groundbreaking of all the original Mac applications from the 80s was discontinued back in 1998 and was never ported to OS X.
Perhaps the biggest advantage of ACDSee Pro is speed. Because it doesn’t import anything, though all of your photos will be mapped instantaneously to the application’s three-pane interface, everything stays where it was originally put, which is good if you’re planning on keeping iPhoto or Picasa (review).
However, once you start moving things around, you’re on your own. Thereupon, individual file and batch resizing, tagging, moving, etc files happen fast and there are plenty of easy to remember keyboard shortcuts to get you there. I didn’t challenge ACDSee with any multi-gigabyte conversions, but I feel confident it’s fast nonetheless.
Still, what photo management doesn’t offer a slideshow maker or player? ACDSee needs more than just a simple, competent slideshow manager and integrated online photosharing hooks (ie flikr, FaceBook, MobileMe, etc) for the anticipated asking price.
Conclusions
I’m not a professional photographer. I actually like iPhoto and if I didn’t, I think Picasa would be up to the task. Moreover, as a Mac user with long (profitable) associations with Apple and Adobe software, if I were in the market for a digital photo manager, I’d like something a bit full-featured and robust than what ACDSee is offering right now, not to mention the fact that I’m well trained in those workflows.
Then again, this is a first beta, it is free until February 2010, it is fast and in the day it was running on my Early 2008 MacBook it did not crash or freeze or leave me fuming over spinning beach balls. Further, if you’re a recent switcher with a long history with ACDSee in your workflow, then this might be just thing for you…
What’s your take?
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May 26th, 2009
I don’t really like ACDSee.. it is too expensive for a ‘simple’ program, better I’m using FasStone Image Viewer, it’s freeware but powerfull like ACDSee.. Unfortunately, FastStone only work with Windows.. just hope they can create the Mac Version of this freeware.
May 18th, 2010
I prefer: Justlooking. It’s simply small and IMO best for viewing… it reminds me IrfanView a bit…