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As an enthusiast amateur photographer who does a lot of compositing work with multiple photo editors, I find ACDSee Photo Studio for Mac 2 is a good fit for my digital asset management needs. The recently-released version 9 made incremental changes, improving speed and efficiency. Thanks for that.
Other amateur photographers who seek to avoid the industry leader’s expensive black hole with an alternative one-app approach for raw conversion, editing and management may find it less appealing. The only way to really know is to download a free trial.
For what It’s worth, here’s my take on ACDSee Photo Studio for Mac 2.
The Good
1. A bargain one-time price, not a subscription. Full price for first-time users: $100 USD, current sale price: $90 USD, I upgraded earlier this month for $45 USD.
2. Speed - v9 for Mac is the fastest digital asset manager I have tried. Thumbnail creation and thumbnail read are speedy (depends on the size you set with an optional adjustment slider) and search function is brisk (impacted by the size of your database), even on my older 2017 iMac.
3. It’s easy to build a keyword database and assign words from that database.
4. Excellent integration with external editors. Each editor you use can be assigned a keyboard shortcut for quicker opening.
5. Good facial recognition for those seeking that feature.
6. Read of many image formats including raw files. Image write of JPEG, PNG, PSD, TIFF, the ACDSee format and others.
The Bad and Ugly
1. Features for raw development and editing allow the user to produce excellent images, but they are less efficient and light-years behind its big-sister Windows apps and apps from competitors. This is one of the reasons why I rely on external editors.
2. The develop/edit function is incompatible with external plugins.
3. Advanced AI/machine-learning photo editing features must be utilized via external editors.
4. History of minimal updates between version releases.
5. The small base of users results in little user-to-user support online. New users should download and consult the 174-page user manual (https://help.acdsystems.com/en/acdse...user-guide.pdf).
6. Based on participation, it appears ACDSee gives the user forum a low priority.
With the recent release of ACDSee Photo Studio for Mac 9, one would think ACDSee would devote at least a little more time for promotion of the app, particularly on the ACDSee YouTube channel. But a search this morning reveals there’s still nothing about v.9 there. Adam did produce a “What’s New” video for v.9 I found in a search a couple of weeks ago. That video was never added to the company’s YouTube channel, and it may have been deleted from the web since then. Very disappointing, but a reminder ACDSee is a Windows-centric company.
Other amateur photographers who seek to avoid the industry leader’s expensive black hole with an alternative one-app approach for raw conversion, editing and management may find it less appealing. The only way to really know is to download a free trial.
For what It’s worth, here’s my take on ACDSee Photo Studio for Mac 2.
The Good
1. A bargain one-time price, not a subscription. Full price for first-time users: $100 USD, current sale price: $90 USD, I upgraded earlier this month for $45 USD.
2. Speed - v9 for Mac is the fastest digital asset manager I have tried. Thumbnail creation and thumbnail read are speedy (depends on the size you set with an optional adjustment slider) and search function is brisk (impacted by the size of your database), even on my older 2017 iMac.
3. It’s easy to build a keyword database and assign words from that database.
4. Excellent integration with external editors. Each editor you use can be assigned a keyboard shortcut for quicker opening.
5. Good facial recognition for those seeking that feature.
6. Read of many image formats including raw files. Image write of JPEG, PNG, PSD, TIFF, the ACDSee format and others.
The Bad and Ugly
1. Features for raw development and editing allow the user to produce excellent images, but they are less efficient and light-years behind its big-sister Windows apps and apps from competitors. This is one of the reasons why I rely on external editors.
2. The develop/edit function is incompatible with external plugins.
3. Advanced AI/machine-learning photo editing features must be utilized via external editors.
4. History of minimal updates between version releases.
5. The small base of users results in little user-to-user support online. New users should download and consult the 174-page user manual (https://help.acdsystems.com/en/acdse...user-guide.pdf).
6. Based on participation, it appears ACDSee gives the user forum a low priority.
With the recent release of ACDSee Photo Studio for Mac 9, one would think ACDSee would devote at least a little more time for promotion of the app, particularly on the ACDSee YouTube channel. But a search this morning reveals there’s still nothing about v.9 there. Adam did produce a “What’s New” video for v.9 I found in a search a couple of weeks ago. That video was never added to the company’s YouTube channel, and it may have been deleted from the web since then. Very disappointing, but a reminder ACDSee is a Windows-centric company.
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