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ACDSee releases free beta of Gemstone, its brand-new Photoshop competitor

08 Jul

ACD Systems, the maker of image software like Photo Studio and Photo Editor, has launched a free beta version of its all-new photo editing software, Gemstone.

Gemstone is a new standalone multi-document interface, similar to Adobe Photoshop. Gemstone features a layered image editor and up-to-date RAW image support. Gemstone will include a combination of all-new features and familiar features from ACDSee’s Photo Studio and Editor products, including:

Light EQ
Frequenty Separation
Path text
Pixel Targeting
Color Wheels
Tone Wheels
Liquify Tool

Beyond these features, Gemstone offers full RAW development support for more than 500 camera models. The multi-document interface (MDI) allows users to have multiple documents open simultaneously and supports split view. Images can be edited across multiple layers, allowing users to perform complex adjustments and add layered effects within a non-destructive workflow.

Gemstone can work with RAW images from more than 500 cameras. Credit: ACDSee

‘We are expecting tens of thousands of users to try Gemstone and provide input. Gemstone is complete with a multi-document interface, layered editor, and RAW support. We are excited to share what we have built so far, and what is to come,’ said Frankl Lin, COO and CTO at ACD Systems.

The Gemstone beta is available now for free. You can download the beta by signing up here. To run Gemstone, you must be using Windows and have an Intel or AMD processor with 64-bit support. 4GB of RAM is required, although 8GB is recommended. You must have a DirectX 10 compatible graphics adapter. For the full list of system requirements, visit the Gemstone product page. ACDSee expects the full Gemstone product to release this fall.

ACDSee has published numerous videos providing an overview of Gemstone, which can be seen below.

Alongside product overview videos, ACDSee has published a Gemstone beta review with professional photographer Alec Watson. In Watson’s review, you get a great look at Gemstone’s user interface, layers, RAW editor, and more. You can even see Watson use a sharpening adjustment layer, something not available in Photoshop. He calls Gemstone ‘super easy to use’ and gives it a thumbs up.

That is, of course, just one photographer’s opinion in a video published by the manufacturer. If you want to try Gemstone for yourself, visit ACDSee.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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News: ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2021 Released

28 Sep

The post News: ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2021 Released appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.

ACDSee has just launched its latest software:

Photo Studio Ultimate 2021, which improves upon ACDSee’s Photo Studio Ultimate 2020 and continues to compete with programs such as ON1 Photo RAW and Luminar as one of the best all-in-one photo editors on the market.

ACDSee’s software is consistently impressive; Photo Studio Ultimate 2020 contained an excellent mix of digital asset management capabilities, basic adjustments, and more advanced, layer-based edits.

So what does Photo Studio Ultimate 2021 offer over its predecessor?

Quite a lot, as it turns out.

For one, Photo Studio Ultimate 2021 features increased performance. ACDSee promises “up to 100% faster start up, up to 50% faster mode-switching, up to 100% faster working with keywords & categories, and more.”

After trying Photo Studio Ultimate 2021, it’s clear that this is true. While I wouldn’t refer to the program as fast, it’s certainly speedier than Lightroom, Photoshop, or Luminar.

Photo Studio Ultimate 2021 also offers a brand-new color wheel, which allows you to make precise adjustments to colors in your images. Using an eye-dropper tool, you can select specific colors in your image. And you can modify the selection by way of an intuitive color wheel graphic:

Honestly, this has to be one of my favorite implementations of selective color adjustments, and should give photographers plenty to have fun with.

But ACDSee didn’t stop there. In addition to the Color Wheel feature, you get a set of handy tone wheels. Here, with a few simple clicks, you can selectively tone the highlights, the midtones, and the shadows. This makes it easy to color grade your images and to create a stylistic look that’s truly your own.

Plus, Photo Studio Ultimate 2021 offers a nifty little Refine Selection feature. While previous versions of the software allowed for selections while editing, you can now contract, expand, and feather your selection for a more precise result.

Additional new features include:

A modified batch rename option
Improved user experience and layout
Enhanced crop capabilities
Enhanced watermark capabilities
Much more!

So if you’re looking for a photo editor that includes complex digital asset management capabilities, powerful layer-based editing, and a whole host of new processing tools, check out Photo Studio Ultimate 2021.

You can grab it on ACDSee’s website for just $ 8.90 USD per month, $ 89 USD per year, or (if you’d prefer to make a one-time purchase), $ 149.99 USD.

Now over to you:

What do you think of ACDSee’s Photo Studio Ultimate series? And which of the new features are you most excited about? Share your thoughts in the comments!

The post News: ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2021 Released appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.

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ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2021 announced, promising faster performance and new features

23 Sep

ACD Systems International has launched ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2021. This is the newest version of the company’s flagship photo editing software. The new version is focused on providing improved performance. ACD Systems International states that Photo Studio Ultimate 2021’s performance enhancements are up to 100 percent faster and RAW decoding is up to 20 percent faster.

Frank Lin, CTO & COO of ACD Systems International, says, ‘This product is everything you need to optimize your digital asset management, your photography workflow, your editing process and your work as a photographer. We’re pleased to have focused on responding to customer feedback to make this the best product for today’s photographers.’

New features in ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2021 include:

New Color Wheels and Tone Wheels – These wheels allow users to more precisely adjust colors, highlights, midtones and shadows.
Text on paths and text in a frame – You can now customize your text, including its path.
Refine Selection – In the new version, you can shift or soften edges, allowing for better use of included tools such as Smart Erase.
New and improved batch rename and resize functionality – You can now create your own templates and presets to speed up batch processes.
New optimized user interface and panes – New UI and panes are designed to streamline the editing process, allow the user to capture snapshots and view a full edit history for a file.
Improved Quick Search – Finding images in large databases is much faster.
Improved crop and watermarking – You can crop multiple images to custom sizes and add watermarks using anchor points.
Easier migration from Lightroom and Picasa – You can import face data in three clicks.

This screenshot shows the new Color Wheel in ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2021. Image credit: ACDSee

ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2021 is available now. You can purchase a perpetual license for $ 149.99 or purchase the software via subscription for $ 69 per year. You can learn more about ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2021 and evaluate your purchasing options by clicking here. Photo Studio is also available in Professional and Home versions as well for $ 100 and $ 60 respectively. These versions have fewer features than Ultimate in exchange for a lower price.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 Review

21 May

The post ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 Review appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Glenn Harper.

dps-acdsee-photo-studio-home-2020-review

It’s not unusual for photo-editing software to be multifunctional. Any combination of browser, raw processor and pixel editor is normal. ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 offers a slightly different blend of digital asset management (DAM) and pixel editing. In this article, we’ll see what this combo can do for you.

ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 - View Mode — View Mode in ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020

What is DAM Software?

Many programs that help you organize photos are, rightly or wrongly, described as DAM software. An example of this is the now-discontinued “Picasa.”

With that popular program, you could browse photos, edit them, add metadata, assign keywords, create albums, mark photos as favorites, and so on. It was comprehensive. But was it DAM?

A defining feature of real DAM software is its ability to create a database of your photos. Lightroom does that, as does ACDSee Photo Studio Home.

These products aren’t just an extension of your OS. They record things, like the location of your photos and all the metadata attached to them. And they create thumbnails so you can fly through your collection at high speed whether you’re connected to it or not. This is what separates DAM software from fancy browsers.

First three modes for browsing and DAM

In ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020, the first three modes are for browsing and DAM. The modes are as follows:

Manage Mode is where you can browse folders, filter out photos, create stuff like slideshows and contact sheets, and send images to various photo platforms. You can switch between photo editors from here, too, in case you have other software with different functionality. Manage Mode is the hub of the software. You can even add geographical data to photos from here using the Map tool and reverse geocoding.
Photos Mode is great if you want to see everything on your drive within a short space of time. Let’s say you need to root out photos without any keywords or identifying data—this is the place to do it. This mode lets you see all content at once, whether it’s in folders or subfolders, so there’s no hiding place when you’re trying to find specific pictures.
View Mode gives you a nice big preview of your photos one-by-one, and it’s quick. This is a good place for assessing the content of your photos and grading them. (In another article, I suggest a workflow for this software). You can scrutinize the technical quality of TIFFs and JPEGs* in this mode, too. A nice feature of View Mode is the set of experimental tools it gives you, which you can apply to the picture without committing to the edit.

*Note that View Mode is not a good place for assessing critical sharpness in raw files, as the software displays the embedded JPEG to maintain speed. This JPEG looks especially poor at 100%, but it’s fine for assessing content and composition.

Fast photo browsing in ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 — Photos Mode. This mode shows all images, whether in folders or subfolders.

Importing and Cataloging

When it comes to importing files into ACDSee software, you don’t need to do it at all.

The software accesses the folder system of your OS, so it’s enough just to copy and paste the files onto your hard drive. They are added to the ACDSee database automatically when you browse them later. That being said, you can import files via the software if you want and adjust filenames or add metadata while you’re doing it.

If you need to catalog lots of pictures without browsing them all first, you can do that too in Manage or Photos modes. This is especially useful when you first start using the software, though you must wait a while for the process to complete.

Getting organized

It’s all very well cataloging your photos, but there’s still a way to go before they’re genuinely searchable.

In Manage and View Modes of Photo Studio Home 2020, you can open the Properties panel to the right-hand side. It’s here that you add keywords, captions, ratings, color labels, and categories to your photos.

ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 - IPTC data — I advise working on keywords in the ACDSee Metadata tab, then copying and pasting them into the IPTC field if you want them to be readable elsewhere. Alas, there’s no button to make this task quicker.

You can use any or all of these features to make your photos searchable, grade them, and track them in your workflow. In a recent sponsored article, I suggested using ratings to grade the quality of your photos and color labels to mark your workflow progress. This is a common use of these tools.

Keywords

Keywords make your photos searchable using a variety of criteria. For instance, you can add different photographic techniques to keywords as well as describing the subject of the photo. How thorough you should be in keywording depends on your needs, but you can import keyword lists to avoid having to create them yourself. That’s a new feature in 2020, and it saves loads of time.

To Tag or not to Tag

To the top left of the properties panel is a check box for “tagging” images. This is a good way to highlight your keepers and reject the rest (or vice versa).

It’d be nice if ACDSee added the ability to proactively reject photos with a dedicated reject flag. As things stand, an untagged file could be one that you’ve simply missed.

Image Baskets

A favorite ACDSee feature of mine is the image basket. This is like a virtual folder, where you can gather image files from various places without physically moving or copying them. It’s very handy for working on quick projects without cluttering up your drive with duplicate files. You can use image baskets for purposes of viewing, editing and sharing.

Face Detection and Recognition

ACDSee software is good at detecting faces, at least when they’re not obscured, and it’s impressively good at recognizing them thereafter.

Often, you only have to name a person once for the software to learn facial features. There are obvious limitations. It won’t necessarily recognize faces across several decades, for instance. But this feature is decidedly useful for cataloging pictures of friends and family.

Face detection technology - face recognition technology — ACDSee software asks for confirmation that this is Marcel Proust. It’s seen one picture of him at this point, so that’s pretty good going.

Edit Mode

Two-thirds of ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 is DAM software, aimed at getting your photos organized and being able to find them with ease. If that was all you got for your money, it’d already be good value. But there’s also an Edit Mode where you can work on rendered files (e.g. JPEGs, TIFFs) and get them looking good.

What about raw files?

You can open most types of raw files in Photo Studio Home 2020, but there’s no develop module like there is in ACDSee Ultimate, for instance, so you don’t get to choose the processing parameters.

If you want to benefit fully from shooting raw, you should link this ACDSee software to a raw editor and switch between programs. That, theoretically, would be a higher-quality workflow than having to address technical issues after conversion. And you still have the DAM side of the software for cataloging and grading your raw files.

ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 - raw files — This is why you can’t judge the technical quality of raw files in ACDSee View Mode (where they’re best viewed at low magnifications). The inset shows the same file at 100% in Edit Mode.

Edit Mode features

A bit like Photoshop Elements vs Photoshop CC, there are things missing in ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 that aren’t missing in ACDSee Ultimate. For instance, there’s no 16-bit color support, no layers, no perspective tool, no dehaze, no dodge and burn, and no Color EQ. But these absent features are all forgivable since there’s a ton of stuff you do get.

Photo watermarks and logos - ACDSee Photo Studio Home — Using the watermark feature in Edit Mode to place a logo (quickly created elsewhere) into the corner.

Color and Tone

For basic work on color and tone, there are the usual levels and curves tools.

In fact, these tools are nicely implemented by ACDSee, with a built-in histogram and an exposure warning that tells you when you’re losing detail with your edits. You also get a basic version of the proprietary Light EQ tool, which lets you adjust shadows, mid-tones, and highlights separately.

Given that many people only use the basic version of this tool anyway, this is a valuable inclusion.

Photo exposure warning - clipping display — The levels tool in Edit Mode. The exposure warning draws attention to blown highlights and blocked shadows.

Cloning and Healing

I should mention once more that the clone tool does not work for me in ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 (nor its predecessor). I just get a black screen. That seems trivial when set against everything that does work, but it’s still a tad irritating. I can use the heal tool a lot of the time instead, though its pixel-blending function is a bit different.

Creative Tools

ACDSee could be forgiven for providing the bare minimum of Editing tools, but they go beyond that. You get a cross-section of some of their most creative features. Under the “Add” filter menu, for instance, you’ll find Special Effects. And there are many of them for you to try.

I like the “Orton” effect, which smooths details for a dream-like appearance.

ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 - special effects — The Purple Haze special effect at 50% opacity. Try experimenting with blending modes to see what else you can achieve with these effects.

You can modify all edits with blending modes, opacity, gradients and the Edit Brush. This means you can adjust localized areas of your photo a bit like you can in Adobe Lightroom and other programs. What you can’t do is work on multiple edits at the same time, but this is still useful versatility.

ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 Review - radial gradient — A radial gradient placed over a black and white LUT, causing color to fade out towards the edges. You can make this kind of localized edit using gradients or the Edit Brush. (Not all LUTs are color, despite ACDSee’s nomenclature.)

The Tilt-Shift filter appears under the “Add” menu.

The temptation with this is always to dig out high-angle views and create that miniaturized effect where buildings, people, and vehicles look like toys.

However, you can try this filter out on other subjects, altering their depth of field and bokeh. It works quite well on close-ups of flowers, for example.

tilt-shift filter on flower - ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 — An atypical use of the tilt-shift tool, creating a very soft “bokeh” outside the center of this flower.

You’ll find the Convert to Black & White filter under the “Color” menu.

This lets you fine-tune your black-and-white conversions by adjusting brightness and contrast in all the colors that make up your picture. Also present here is the equivalent of Photoshop’s Channel Mixer, where you adjust the red, green, and blue (RGB) sliders to achieve your conversion, making sure the total value is at or under 100%.

convert to black and white ACDSee — Simple use of the Convert to Black and White filter. I’ve lowered brightness in greens and increased it in yellows and oranges to create pleasing contrast in this picture.

Color LUTs are found under the “Color” menu, too. These have become popular in recent years, allowing users to mimic the world of movie production by applying color grades to their pictures. The effect is often radical.

ACDSee comes with some color LUTs built in, but you can download more from various sources on the Internet.

Color LUT - orange and teal - color grading - ACDSee Photo Studio Home — The ACDSee “Film” color LUT adds a classic orange and teal look to pictures as well as increasing contrast. This color grading is often seen in movies or TV series.

Summing it up

Genuine DAM software, the kind that catalogs your photos, often costs well over $ 100. Or it’s part of a subscription plan that locks you in annually. ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 is appealing not only for its affordability but because it’s a great photo manager, period. On top of that, it’s a raw opener and pixel polisher with plenty of scope for creativity.

Orton special effect — “Orton” special effect, faded towards the top using a gradient.

If you’re sold on the benefits of shooting and editing raw files, you could pair this software with RawTherapee or DarkTable without spending more cash. Whatever you choose to do, rest assured it’s impossible to waste money on ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020. This software is easy to use but has a depth that far belies its price.

Have you tried this software? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section.

The post ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 Review appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Glenn Harper.

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Getting Photos Organized with ACDSee DAM Software

11 Apr

The post Getting Photos Organized with ACDSee DAM Software appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Glenn Harper.

Getting Photos Organized with ACDSee DAM Software - Best DAM software

As soon as you begin using a camera with any regularity, you need to find a way of labeling photos and putting them in order. If you don’t, it could soon take hours to locate a given picture among all your folders, hard drives, and devices. ACDSee DAM software sets you on the right path from the beginning.

Organizing images with ACDSee DAM software — Cataloging photos used to involve writing on them directly or typing out captions on sticky labels. Many people didn’t bother, but digital photography made record-keeping easier. Original photo by Brett Jordan.

By investing in good DAM software at the earliest opportunity, you won’t get into a position where you have a huge backlog of digital pictures to organize.

By investing in good DAM software at the earliest opportunity, you won’t get into a position where you have a huge backlog of digital pictures to organize. In this article, I’ll introduce you to ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020, which offers a great set of features without breaking the bank.

More reasons for needing DAM

There are many
reasons you might want to locate specific photos among your collection. For me,
writing these articles is one of them. A set of photos illustrating a theme
might be scattered far and wide in my collection.

That’s where ACDSee’s Image Basket is so useful. You can work on
pictures from all over the place as if they were in one folder.

Ten photos from different folders collected in an ACDSee Image Basket. Note that I’m trying out a Lomo filter here using the experimental tools of View Mode.

Perhaps for you, it’ll be a photo book or a website that causes you to search for photos. Or you might be looking for portraits of friends and family. ACDSee DAM software includes excellent Face Detection technology. Once you’ve identified someone a few times, the software does a good job of finding other pictures of the same person. Or, if it’s not sure, it will ask you to confirm ID.

ACDSee DAM software - face detection technology - face recognition technology — A quick demo of Face Detection technology, albeit using an artwork. With photographic portraits, the software learns facial features and starts to identify friends and family automatically.

A legitimate reason to label photos and get them in order is for posterity. One day, your photos may interest future generations of your family or even local historians. How many prints exist from the last century where the identity of the subjects and location is lost? I find that a shame.

The importance of DAM software — Countless prints of places and people from the last century have become anonymous with time. Photo by Suzy Hazelwood.

ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020: A solution

There are some serious pieces of DAM software on the market. By far the best known is Adobe Lightroom, which happens to be a strong raw editor, too. Other examples include iMatch and FotoStation. But all these products come at a price.

Dam software choices - Lightroom — The familiar interface of Adobe Lightroom on a MacBook. Photo by energepic.

ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 is remarkable for several reasons.

It offers a lightning-fast browser, multiple ways to search your pictures, easy tagging and keywording of images, and a good set of editing tools for rendered files.

What’s not to like? You get all that for about a third of the price or less of many rivals.

Manage Mode

In Photo Studio Home and other ACDSee DAM software, Manage mode is where you make a lot of things happen. It’s an HQ for your photography. So, what can you do there?

Folders and catalog panes – finding pictures

The folder system
of your OS is accessible through the left-hand Folders pane in Manage Mode. And
that’s handy because you’re already familiar with it.

As long as your image folders are well named, it’s an easy task to find
what you’re looking for. Alternatively, you can use the adjacent Catalog tab to
filter photos by a wide variety of attributes.

The Folder pane in ACDSee DAM software — The Folders pane in Manage mode. You only get to preview the images inside if they’re not in subfolders, but you can easily switch to Photos mode to see all content.

Manage Mode drop-downs

There are six drop-down menus exclusive to Manage mode: Import, Batch, Create, Slideshow, Send, and Editors. Importing files is easy. At this stage, you can rename files, add metadata, and divide file types into subfolders, among other things.

Creating a contact sheet in ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 — Building a contact sheet of flower photos via the Create drop-down in Manage Mode.

ACDSee links up seamlessly with other software too, which is what the “Editors” drop-down is for. Simply add any other programs you’re likely to use and you’ll be good to go. You can flick between them as you can with Lightroom and Photoshop or Photoshop and ACR.

Properties pane – organizing, categorizing

You can add metadata and keywords in Manage, View, or Edit mode of ACDSee. That’s what the Properties pane on the right is for.

As a stock photographer, keywords are a necessity for me. They help potential buyers find my pictures if I’m lucky. I add any words I think are relevant to the image.

At the very least, you should batch-add keywords to photos from the same shoot.

Map view in ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 - adding geodata — You can add geographical information to the IPTC data of your images by placing them on the Google map in Manage mode and hitting “Reverse Geocode.”

Import keywords

A welcome improvement in the 2020 version of ACDSee is the ability to import sets of keywords. It’s hugely time-consuming to create a keyword list from scratch, but now you can import lists from the Internet or elsewhere. You can also export lists so that you can move them from one piece of software to another.

Keyword lists help you to be thorough in your keywording instead of relying on random ideas. They also save you from repeatedly typing the same words.

Adding keywords in ACDSee DAM software — Keywording in View mode using the foundation list linked in this article. You can adapt and grow your list as required.

You can import Foundation List version 2.0.1 into ACDSee. You’ll need to build on it, but it gives you a useful structure and a good head start.

Keywords are stored in the ACDSee database and can be applied to all file types. Note the “Embed ACDSee Metadata” tool does not write keywords to the IPTC keyword data field. I recommend copying and pasting keywords to this field if you want them to be visible elsewhere.

adding keywords in ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 — Here, I’ve pasted keywords from the Organize tab into the IPTC data field of the Metadata tab. This ensures visibility elsewhere. Of course, you could enter words directly into this field, but then you forfeit the rigor of using a hierarchical keyword list.

Photos Mode, View Mode

ACDSee automatically catalogs the images as you browse. You can catalog folders you haven’t browsed, too, which might be useful if you’re adding lots of pictures in one hit. This is possible in Manage mode or Photos mode.

Photos mode lets you rifle through folders of images according to their date. It even gives you a fair chance of finding pictures with no keywords or tags of any kind. This is a good way of seeing all the photos on your drive in a short space of time.

Finding images in Photos Mode - ACDSee DAM software — Flying through images by date in Photos mode. This was the day the “Tour de Normandie” cycle race began a stage in Vernon a few years back.

For browsing photos individually, View mode is the place to be. It’s
incredibly fast, and it gives you a big preview of each photo. This is also a
good place to grade, categorize, and keyword your photos.

I’ll give you a complete workflow to use below, so you can catalog photos like a pro!

Edit Mode

ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 offers a solid set of editing tools for photographers of all levels. Of course, there are things omitted at this price point that advanced photographers may miss. Here are three absentees, along with their workarounds:

No layers or adjustment brush as such, but you can perform localized edits using gradient tools or a regular brush tool. These come with blending modes, so you get quite a lot of control over the result without the sophistication or confusion of layers.
No raw editing. You can open most types of raw files without any say in their processing. Don’t forget you can link ACDSee to a raw processor if you need that extra control. That may also solve the problem of other missing features (e.g. perspective tool).
No 16-bit support, so you have to save any files you edit in 8-bit color. If you bring 16-bit archival files into Photo Studio Home 2020 and want to preserve their color depth, you must use “save as” to create new 8-bit files with all your edits.

One niggle and some good points

On my PC, the Clone tool in this software and the version before it refuses to work. I get a black screen. That’s odd since I don’t see the same thing with ACDSee Ultimate.

There’s lots to like about the editing tools in Photo Studio Home 2020. You get all the control over color and tone you’re likely to need, including the basic version of ACDSee’s esteemed Light EQ tool. This lets you adjust shadow, mid-tone, and highlight areas of an image separately.

I like some of the little touches in ACDSee, such as the way right-clicking resets the default value of any tool. There are creative features here, too, like Color LUTs, Special Effects, and a fun Tilt-Shift tool.

ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 - tilt-shift tool — The Tilt-Shift tool works well with high-angle views, but you can try it out on all sorts of photos to alter their “bokeh.”

Workflow suggestion

Although this is a sponsored post, I’m a regular user of ACDSee software. I use it to organize pictures and I edit a lot of TIFFs and JPEGs in it. Below is a Photo Studio Home 2020 workflow that takes you from importing photos to saving the finished articles.

Importing photos and naming folders

1. Import your photos. You can open the Import dialog box in Manage Mode or have it open automatically by selecting the software in Windows Autoplay.

2. Choose a destination for your photos in the Import dialog box. An example might be “Pictures” in Windows. Name a “single subfolder” using the following naming convention: yymmdd-location (e.g. 200531-Paris-France).

3. Locate your imported folder of photos via the Folders tab in Manage Mode. Using the above naming convention, the latest folders are at the bottom of the folder list by default.

4. Double-click the first thumbnail in your newly imported image folder. This will open the image in View Mode while allowing access to other images in the folder. You’re ready to start grading and cataloging your pictures.

Assessing and grading photos

5. Make sure the Properties pane is open alongside your photos.

6. Decide on rejects by tagging all keepers with the checkbox in the Organize pane (top left). At this point, tag all photos you will or might keep for whatever reason. Important: do not reject raw files on the basis of poor sharpness in View Mode, since you are probably looking at an enlarged view of the embedded JPEG. Check the technical quality of raw files later in Edit Mode.

7. Flick back to Manage Mode and click on View > Filter By > Untagged. Delete your rejects. Or, just filter them out by selecting “Tagged” if you don’t like deleting stuff.

8. Back in View Mode, you can now rate your images. Ratings go from one to five. Rather than rate photos on a whim, I suggest writing down the meaning of each rating at the outset so you have a reference point. For instance:

1 – poor photo with sentimental value.
2 – adequate record photo, average family snap.
3 – fairly strong photo with visual interest, worth showing to friends.
4 – approaching your best, worthy of inclusion in portfolios.
5 – your very best, potential competition winner.

Tracking workflow

9. In Edit Mode, use color labels to indicate where in the workflow images are. Again, I have suggestions:

Red – to delete. Once you get raw files into Edit Mode, you can assess their technical quality better at 100%. You might yet want to delete some of them or downgrade their rating.
Yellow – editing in progress. Still more work to be done on color and tone or retouching. Perhaps other possibilities to explore or versions to create.
Green – editing over. Nothing more to be done with this picture. Ready to use.
Blue – to print. You can return the status to green once it’s printed.
Purple – uploaded to a specific photo website, stock library, etc. You can use the blue label for this as well if you don’t tend to print photos.
No Color Label – nothing done since the initial assessments.

10. Photos that need work (those with yellow labels or no color labels using the above system) can be finished in Edit mode. Apply edits ranging from basic color and tone to special effects and LUTs. When you’re done editing, change the color label so you know you’ve worked on it or finished it.

Categories and keywords

11. Give your finished photos categories and keywords. If you’ve imported a set of keywords, you can go through the list top-to-bottom and apply any that suit the image. ACDSee comes with quick keyword lists built-in, which may be enough, depending on how thorough you want to be.

12. Copy and paste keywords from the Organize > Keywords field into Metadata > IPTC > Keywords. Write a caption in the Description field of IPTC. Hit “Enter” or none of this will save. This makes the data universally visible outside of ACDSee.

Naming files

I haven’t spoken of file naming above, since you might want to do that at the beginning or end.

Each photo needs a unique name. You can do it on import if you like. However, if you later delete photos, you might leave irritating gaps in your number sequence (file names invariably include numbers).

A way around this is to forget consecutive numbers and use date and time instead. This works as long as you don’t shoot multiple frames per second, which would create duplicates.

ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 - file naming — Photo libraries always had their own file-naming conventions. In the digital age, including subject names in the file name makes your photos SEO-friendly.

I always rename files after I’ve selected, converted, and edited them. That’s when I do most of my admin. Raw files keep their original names because I rarely revisit them.

I recommend using a sequential number and place, or subject names in your files (e.g. 0001-Eiffel-Tower-Paris). This can often be done quickly using ACDSee’s Batch Rename tool. The number should obviously be unique in every image.

Get started

Photo Studio Home 2020 is nothing if not versatile. Seasoned photographers who want extras like raw editing or layers can hook it up to other editors and still benefit from the superb DAM tools.

For beginners or photographers who only shoot JPEGs, this feature-laden software might be all they need. Why not get your photos sorted now?

ACDSee is a paid dPS partner.

The post Getting Photos Organized with ACDSee DAM Software appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Glenn Harper.

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News: ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2020 Released

14 Nov

The post News: ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2020 Released appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.

News: ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2020 Released

ACDSee has just released its latest post-processing software, Photo Studio Ultimate 2020. ACDSee’s software is meant to pose a challenge to some of the big-name programs out there, most notably Lightroom and Photoshop, though Ultimate 2020 is somewhat unique in that it aims to take on both programs at once.

While Adobe’s Lightroom plus Photoshop package has remained a favorite of photographers over the past few years, programs like ACDSee continue to give them a run for their money. Especially when you can do with a single program that Lightroom and Photoshop can only do in conjunction.

ACDSee Ultimate 2020 isn’t just a full-fledged photo editor (like Photoshop), nor does it confine itself to digital asset management with moderate processing capabilities (like Lightroom). Instead, it offers both file management and advanced, layer-based editing for those photographers who’d like to keep their workflow all in one place.

ACDSee Ultimate 2020 promises a host of new and upgraded features in order to improve both organization and editing workflows, including:

Enhanced face detection features, which allow you to easily find photos of specific people within the ACDSee database
An HDR function that allows you to combine several exposures to create one high-quality HDR image
Focus stacking capabilities, in order to produce a deep depth of field image out of several photos focused at different distances
And a Blended Clone tool, which allows you to quickly and efficiently remove distracting areas from your photos for a seamless result

ACDSee Ultimate 2020 also offers RAW support for a slew of additional cameras, including Sony, Panasonic, Fujifilm, Hasselblad, and Canon bodies.

The most unfortunate thing about ACDSee Ultimate 2020 is that it’s only available for Windows. But if you’re already a PC user, there’s a lot to love about this program. You can download a copy of ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2020 for $ 150 USD, or for $ 69 per year as part of a subscription program.

Now I’d like to know your thoughts:

Are you planning on purchasing ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2020? If not, what is your favorite photo editor, and why? Do you think that single programs like ACDSee will ever be able to take the reigns from Lightroom and Photoshop?

The post News: ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2020 Released appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.

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ACDSee Video Studio 4 Review – An Intuitive, Easy-to-Use Video Editing Software

16 Sep

The post ACDSee Video Studio 4 Review – An Intuitive, Easy-to-Use Video Editing Software appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Carl Spring.

In this review, we take a look at the new video-editing software – ACDSee Video Studio 4.

Video is something that, as photographers, we seem to be delving into more and more. Whether that be capturing behind the scenes of photoshoots to create marketing material or simply a video of your photo adventures with friends, video is something many of us are either doing or may want to do. However, it’s not always as easy as that.

Image: Video Studio 4 is great for editing short clips for social media or uploading to YouTube. It...

Video Studio 4 is great for editing short clips for social media or uploading to YouTube. It will not, however, enhance your skills in front of the camera, as you will see later in this review!

The main problem with video content isn’t necessarily shooting the video, but the editing process. I am sure some of you have lots of video footage that you always intend to make into a video (as I have), but it never gets made. You start with good intentions, but the editing always seems to be the sticking point. For those who don’t edit very often or are new to video, editing can be hard and so much software lacks user-friendliness.

Video software usually comes with a steep learning curve too. Those that many consider the standard, Premiere and Final Cut, aren’t particularly user-friendly to the novice user. You will end up spending hours of your time watching YouTube videos to simply understand the basics of how to create a simple edit for either of those pieces of software.

ACDSee has set out to change that. With their latest software, Video Studio 4, you get powerful video editing built into a software that is intuitive and simple to use.

Opening it up

When you launch the software, the layout you see may resemble others. However, with ACDSee Video Studio 4, this layout is streamlined, and the most useful stuff is there, ready and waiting.

On the left side, there are 10 different options for you to work with. They are laid out in a way that guides you through the process of editing from start to finish.

Let’s go through them to see how you can use each one.

The left panel

Media

Video Studio 4 accepts a wide variety of formats for audio, video, and images. These are:

Image formats: JPG, JPEG, GIF, BMP, PNG, HEIC
Audio formats: WMA, MP3, AAC, WAV, AC3, OGG, M4A
Video formats: AVI, MP4, WMV, FLV, MOV, TS, MTS, M2TS, ASF, M4V, MPG, MPEG

As you can see, the software can handle pretty much any format you want to use. It is great to see such a wide range of options available. It means you don’t need to worry about converting files before editing.

Image: Here is a variety of a png, JPEGs and HEVC iPhone footage. ACDSee Video Studio 4 handled them...

Here is a variety of a png, JPEGs and HEVC iPhone footage. ACDSee Video Studio 4 handled them flawlessly.

Captions

Adding in titles and captions is simple and easy. A wide variety of fonts and placement options means you can create a title for your videos quickly.

There are several different styles to work with when it comes to adding titles and captions.

Audio Recorder

If you make videos, sooner or later you will find yourself in a situation where you need to record a voiceover. With ACDSee Video Studio 4, you can record audio directly into the software, thus, keeping everything together. This means you don’t have to move between programs to record extra audio. A really fantastic little tool that you may not think is useful – until you need it.

Transitions

With 30 different transitions to choose from, you can easily apply transitions between video clips. Tweaking these to your desired length is simply a matter of dragging them onto the timeline. Some are cheesy, some are incredibly cheesy, but you have options. I am a simple “fade” guy, but if you want something different, you will definitely find it here.

Image: Whilst there are several to choose from, I rarely tend to look past a “fade” or...

Whilst there are several to choose from, I rarely tend to look past a “fade” or “fade to black” transition. If you do, there are several options.

Audio Effects

Adding fade in and outs to your audio tracks is simple and easy too. You can do it manually, but by using the presets and then tweaking to get the desired effect, you can really save some time. You’ll also get your content created much quicker and easier than ever.

It is easy to add fade in and outs with audio in the program.

Animations

New in this version of ACDSee Video Studio 4 is the ability to use keyframes to make custom animations. This allows you to create bespoke animations for your clips, which is great when using a still image in your video.

There are also some great presets to use as starting points, which you can fine-tune to get your clips just how you want them.

You can start with one of the inbuilt animations or start from scratch.

Behavior

Behaviors are customizable entrance and exit effects. You can use these on a clip to really emphasize the clips’ start and end. Simply tweak each effect to customize it to your taste.

I really didn’t see where I would use this, and it feels a little gimmicky. This is a feature most people will not use too often, but in the right hands, I am sure you can do something cool with it.

Filters

ACDSee Video Studio 4 gives you many filter options to tweak the look of your clip. When applied, these filters tweak things like the clips color, and exposure. There are also several creative effects for quick and easy effects for your footage.

There are several options to explore here. Which ones you choose depends on your taste and preference, but there is something to please most people here. You will no doubt find your favorites when you have used the software a few times, and these will become your go-to filters.

You can add multiple filters should you need or want to. They stack on top of each other in the clip, and you can edit them individually.

Image: This shows the exposure filter in action. It worked well on a clip that was underexposed. The...

This shows the exposure filter in action. It worked well on a clip that was underexposed. There are many others – some good, some that you probably won’t use.

Overlays

Overlays are effects that sit on top of your clips. Some of these, such as the animated hearts and bubbles, are an acquired taste and most of you probably won’t touch them (but will no doubt serve a great purpose for the young generation). However, light leaks and film scratches can give a great effect, depending on the look you are going for with your project.

Image: You can add filters to give your footage a certain look. Some are a little cheesy IMHO, but t...

You can add filters to give your footage a certain look. Some are a little cheesy IMHO, but there are some really nice ones, such as old film, which I used here.

Advanced Effects

This is where the software gets seriously impressive. Here you will find some features most commonly found in high-end editing software, yet they come with the ease and simplicity of use that makes Video Studio 4 so user-friendly.

Starting with one of the new features in Video Studio 4 is Remove Color. This is most commonly used for green screen work. This allows you to shoot against a green screen (or other color backgrounds) and remove it from the clip. You can then add in a background of your choice. This is great for YouTube videos, where you can buy a cheap green screen (or even use a green sheet) and then add in a background you created in Photoshop or similar. It can give you a host of creative options, is incredibly simple to use, and really powerful.

A new cool feature is Color LUTS. These allow you to add a variety of different color grade options to your footage to enhance their look.

Another new addition allows you to adjust the speed of your footage. You can create time effects such as slow-motion, or speed up the timing of your clip.

The last new addition is Mosaic, which is great to blur out items in clips, such as car number plates. This can then be sized and tweaked to match your clip. Again this is one of those tools that you probably won’t use very often, but when you do need it, you will be glad the software includes this handy tool.

Image: You can add LUTS to color your footage. Start with a preset or upload your own. For the short...

You can add LUTS to color your footage. Start with a preset or upload your own. For the short video I created, I used Tinsel.

Using ACDSEE Video Studio 4

It’s one thing to list all the features of a software, but it is another thing entirely to put it in practice. With this in mind, I put a few things together in ACDSee Video Studio 4.

The first project involved taking a couple of clips from a photoshoot on my iPhone and making them into a quick clip for Instagram. I also wanted to try out the screen recording software that comes with Video Studio 4 so I used this to make a quick tutorial on creating custom animations in the software.

Lastly, I wanted to test one of the key new features, Remove Color.

Green screen test

As this was one of the new features of the software, I was keen to test it out. However, rather than test this with a perfectly lit green screen, I tested it in a more common situation. At first, I tried against a blue block wall, not expecting it to work at all.

Then I used a green screen I borrowed from a friend. Now, this is by no means a high-end green screen. In fact, one of the stands fell to pieces when we were putting it up and had to be held together with tape! I also didn’t iron the green material (as you can see in the clip). It was a very cheap eBay purchase, but it is the type of setup the most people will use when starting with a green screen, so I wanted to see the results.

I used no specialist lighting in the setup either. Again, with the right type of equipment, this is super easy, both for the editor and the software. But, I wanted to push it a little…

Here are the results:

As you can see, the software worked pretty well on the green screen (just a slight issue with the reflection in my glasses) and surprisingly well on the blue wall, even if it didn’t manage to get it quite perfect. I think that a simple, smooth painted wall, with decent natural light, would work perfectly well for this type of work. Moreover, with an ideal studio lighting setup, it would work great.

The tutorial video

ACDSee Video Studio 4 also comes with software that allows you to record your screen, which I wanted to test to create a simple instructional video. As I am reviewing the software, I decided to make a quick tutorial on creating a logo animation. I simply selected the inbuilt Mic and Webcam and hit the record button.

When you have finished recording your footage, it drops it directly into Video Studio 4 ready to edit. Editing is then simple.

Here is the result:

If you are looking to get into creating tutorial videos for your photography, or tutorials for any software, Video Studio 4 is great.

The Insta edit

What I see as the biggest possible use of this software is for quick, simple edits for Instagram. This software is perfect for that purpose –one of those situations where you just want to put a few clips together and make an edit as quickly as possible.

In this example, I had three phone clips I wanted to use. I also had my logo and background I created in Photoshop. With all I needed ready to go, I jumped into Video Studio 4 for the first time.

It is super simple to use, and within minutes I had a completed video.

The first thing I wanted to do was to create a quick intro using my logo. I saved my logo as a .png file so that I could keep the background transparent so it would work with layers. Then I placed both the background and the logo into the software. To add some animation, I used the custom animation feature in Video Studio 4. By dragging and dropping this onto the logo, I was able to quickly add two 360-degree motions to the logo to add interest.

It was easier than I imagined. Within 20 seconds, I had my animated logo.

Then I added transitions to the start and end of the clip as well as adding an old film overlay. That was it. One minute and I had a finished animated logo. If I wanted to, I could export this clip and use it in all future videos as an intro. That saves even more time when creating clips like this.

Next, I needed to insert my clips. Again, it was simply a matter of drag and dropping them to get them onto the timeline. To trim the clips to the required length, you have two options:

drag the ends of the clip to where you want them, or
split the clip where you want the edit and delete the part that you want to trim.

I found this splitting quicker, and this is what I did for the rest of the clip.

With my clips trimmed, I also needed to remove the audio. There are two ways you can do this: Method one is to adjust the sound level of the clip by right-clicking on it and selecting Edit Audio. This is great when you want to adjust the sound levels of a clip. In this case, however, I didn’t need the audio at all, so split the clip into separate audio and video tracks. This way, I was able to delete the audio from the clip quite simply.

Image: You can either edit the audio level of clips or split the audio, which is what I did here. As...

You can either edit the audio level of clips or split the audio, which is what I did here. As I didn’t need sound, I simply deleted the audio from the clips.

I then added transitions between clips. While there are loads to choose from, you will probably find yourself going back to a select few. In my case, I have always tended to use Fade to Black or Cross Fade (called Fade in Video Studio 4).

For the last stage, I easily added a LUT to the footage. There are several LUTs in Video Studio 4, or you can upload them into the software. I decided to use the Tinsel LUT, which adds a color grade to the footage.

Adding music

When I watched the footage back, I decided I wanted to add some music. I used a track by A Himitsu, the details of which are as follows:

Adventures by A Himitsu, Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported— CC BY 3.0

Music released by Argofox Music provided by Audio Library

Once I had the music in, I wanted to move my edits a little to match the music. Even though I had LUTs applied and fades in place, this was easy, and there was no lag when dragging clips around. The software felt speedy throughout using it, which was reassuring. With the music added, and clips altered, I just needed to add an audio transition to fade the music out, which I then tweaked until I was happy with it.

All complete, it was time to export my project. You can see the final edit below.

Export

Exporting is quick and easy and helped by Video Studio 4 holding your hand through the process. You can export and save to a file, or you can upload directly to YouTube or Vimeo. Just log in to YouTube and follow the instructions. In terms of time, the software exported quickly, and I didn’t notice a difference in export times compared to using other editing software.

You can also export to an animated gif, which is ideal for things like action sports clips.

As you can probably guess, the theme of simple and easy continues here. Video Studio 4 guides you through things in the beginning while allowing you the ability to be more creative as your confidence grows.

Image: Video Studio 4 guides you through the export process. You can export to file or upload direct...

Video Studio 4 guides you through the export process. You can export to file or upload directly to YouTube, which is what I did. It was simple and worked perfectly.

Support

ACDSee has some great training videos for their software on their website. For those of you new to video editing, these are well worth a watch to get you started with Video Studio 4. I am sure that more will be added over time, but they have everything you need to get started. There is also great technical support should you have any other issues.

Below is an example of their training videos with Director of Photography, Alex Watson. Before anyone says it in the comments, I know his delivery is a little better than mine.

Who is this software for?

If you use Premiere or Final Cut, you will have more than likely not even made it this far. It is not as fully featured as these programs and is in no way a replacement, but that is not the purpose of this software.

ACDSee Video Studio 4 is for those who are new to video editing or who just want to create quality content without having to spend large amounts of time learning to use software.

While Video Studio 4 is incredibly user-friendly for the beginner, it also contains many features for those wanting to delve deeper and use more advanced features such as the green screen.

In a nutshell, the aim of Video Studio 4 is to create professional videos quickly and easily for those new to video. It does this impressively well.
It is really competitively priced, and for those who are new to video and use PC, I can’t think of a better alternative.

Final thoughts

ACDSee Video Studio 4 is a simple to use, yet surprisingly powerful video editor. It is not a replacement for Premiere, nor is it intended to be. There are some really powerful features in here, but it also contains some stuff that I would personally never use. For example, some of the fades and overlays feel cheesy and overdone. Then again, as a teen starting out with video editing, these will more than likely be fun, and I am sure they will get used in creative ways. Maybe it’s more me being an old stick in the mud for the classics?

If you have been thinking about adding video to what you do, I would recommend you try Video Studio 4. This is simple to do as ACDSee have a free trial, allowing you to try before you buy. When it comes to purchasing, you also have options. You can purchase the software outright, or you can get it as part of the ACDSee 365 plan, which also includes ACDSee’s Photo Studio software for a simple monthly payment.

ACDSee is known for offering alternative software that is feature-packed, simple to use, with a great price tag. With Video Studio 4, ACDSee has definitely cemented that reputation.

ACDSee is a paid partner of dPS.

The post ACDSee Video Studio 4 Review – An Intuitive, Easy-to-Use Video Editing Software appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Carl Spring.

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Catalog Photos Like a Pro: ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 Review

11 Jun

The post Catalog Photos Like a Pro: ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 Review appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Glenn Harper.

ACDSee software has been around since the earliest days of digital photography. For 20 years, it’s been competing with Adobe Photoshop. Today, with Adobe offering its top image-editing programs by subscription only, there’s more room than ever for alternatives. ACDSee offers a compelling subscription model of its own, but it also maintains a full suite of standalone products. Photo Studio Standard 2019 is among them, and I’ll review it here.

ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 - default layout

The default layout in Manage mode of ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019. You can move things around as you wish and close any panes you don’t need.

Aimed at keen photographers with growing photo collections, ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 is ideal for sorting, finding, and viewing photos. It also has a set of editing tools that will quickly make your pictures look good for the web or printing. We’ll look at all this in detail. To avoid wasting anyone’s time, this program recognizes and opens raw files but it’s not a raw editor or metadata editor – it’s a pixel editor. You have no control over how raw files are processed and can only save 8-bit files.

Embedding ACDSee metadata into DNG files

Preview of a DNG file. You can embed ACDSee metadata into DNG files, unlike other raw formats.

This review of ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 will include the following:

Starting up

One thing that struck me immediately about ACDSee software was how quickly it opened. Sometimes I wait 2-3 minutes for Photoshop CC to start. There are technical reasons for that, like the plug-ins I have loaded into it and its sheer girth. Perhaps it connects to my Adobe account, too. Whatever. Photo Studio Standard 2019 opens in around 15-20 seconds every time.

Manage mode

Digital asset management (DAM) is the great strength of ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019. In Manage mode, the software offers all you need for sorting and locating your images. Like many people, you may already have your folders arranged chronologically. This is handy for sifting through them using the folder pane of ACDSee, but the software gives you lots of other ways to find pictures.

ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 - folder pane

Here, I’m using the folder pane in Manage mode to browse photos. I’m not the best organizer, but I do have most folders labeled chronologically.

Calendar pane

I latched onto the Calendar pane within minutes of opening ACDSee. Even if you have your folders arranged by date, it’s so quick to rifle through your photos month by month using the calendar. You can widen the search by choosing multiple months or use single days to narrow it. I used this feature straight away to dig out a few files I might’ve overlooked as potential stock photos.

Catalog pane

The ACDSee Catalog pane gives you several ways to find what you’re looking for: color labels, keywords, ratings, saved searches, categories, and auto categories. Of course, you have to add most of this info yourself to the images, but that’s easy using the software. Auto categories come from EXIF data, so you can filter results by the lens or aperture used, for instance.

There are various ways to filter photos in the Catalog pane, some of which rely on you having rated, keyworded, labeled, tagged, or categorized your photos already. In this screenshot, I’m looking at photos taken with a particular lens.[/

Map pane

ACDSee includes a Map pane. Drag your photo(s) onto the place where they were taken, hit Save, and the GPS coordinates are automatically embedded into the EXIF data. Cool! That wasn’t a feature I expected at this price point (Lightroom has it), but it does show how thorough this software is in what it does.

Dragging a photo or several photos onto a spot on the map and hitting “Save” embeds GPS coordinates into the metadata.

Shortcuts pane

The Shortcuts pane offers a way of bookmarking files you know you’ll often need. It makes it that little bit quicker to find any special photos – perhaps a collection of your best-ever shots.

Image Basket

Another neat feature of Photo Studio Standard 2019 is the Image Basket. Normally, when I’m preparing a gallery for the web, I create a new folder on my desktop to work from. The Image Basket is a way of gathering original files together without having to copy them elsewhere.

Keywording in ACDSee

Keywords are an invaluable way of quickly finding what you’re looking for, but they can be time-consuming to add. ACDSee is ahead of Adobe in this respect. It’ll import any keywords you’ve added elsewhere to the IPTC data, but it has excellent keywording capability of its own.

The ability to create large keyword sets of up to 250 is enough to satisfy any lexicologist. I wouldn’t normally need that many, but 40 or 50 isn’t uncommon. Adobe software is restrictive in this respect.

A welcome feature of the new ACDSee ‘Quick Keyword’ tool is the ability to use 25 rows by 10 columns of words (i.e., up to 250 keywords). In Lightroom, you can only have 9 keywords max per set – a source of frustration for many users. ACDSee has its own metadata field that is stored in the database rather than embedded in the file, but you can embed it into suitable file formats.

Photos mode

In Photos mode, ACDSee catalogs all images from the location(s) of your choice and puts them on display so you can scroll through them. Like the Calendar pane, it’s an easy way for you to search visually and find pictures. Hovering the cursor over a thumbnail brings up a larger preview with vital info such as image dimensions, file size, and folder location.

Photos mode on the daily setting. You can scroll through your whole database, but it’s still divided by daily, monthly or yearly headings.

View mode

Double-click on a photo in Manage or Photos mode and you’ll bring up a large view of the image in ACDSee’s View mode. Various viewing options are available as well as useful editing tools like Auto Light EQ and Auto Lens. You can rapidly scroll through files in this mode and tag images or add ratings, labels, keywords, and categories. It’s an extension of Manage mode if you want it to be. Clicking on Edit mode from here takes the open picture into editing.

View mode is the place to be if you want to browse large previews of your pictures. Double-clicking on any picture in Manage or Photos mode brings you here, too. You can also perform a few basic edits in this space or categorize photos.

Edit Mode

ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 has plenty to offer in terms of editing but something has to be sacrificed at this price point, and that’s parametric (non-destructive) editing. Photo Studio Standard is a pixel editor only, so you make physical changes to rendered images. You can still leave the original file untouched, but as soon as you finish editing and save a file, there’s no going back and tweaking your adjustments. This is more important if you’re in the habit of reworking pictures or if you edit extensively and want your work to be reversible.

Repair

There are a couple of tools under the “Repair” heading. The red-eye reduction tool is something I’d probably never have a need for, but I tested this with a public domain image. Works well – easy to use.

With this close-up view, I found myself wishing the size of the adjustment would go slightly larger, as it barely covered the dilated pupil. But still, the red-eye has gone. Most portraits won’t be as near to the subject. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

One of the few glitches I encountered in ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 was a malfunction among the repair tools. I can get the Heal tool to work, and it does a nice job of blending the sampled pixels into a new area. But the Clone tool hasn’t worked for me even after a reinstall. I just get a blacked-out image. This appears to be a bug in the program, as it works flawlessly in other ACDSee software I have on my PC.

Add

Under the “Add” heading you can insert text into your photos or a watermark (the Watermark feature is new in 2019). The default watermark is the ACDSee camera logo, but you can use your own graphic if you want. There are also borders, vignetting, special effects and tilt-shift choices here.

The Tilt-Shift tool makes Manhattan look miniaturized.

Personally, I’d be most likely to use vignetting out of these, as it helps direct the viewer’s eye and is a useful photographic tool. It can be fun to add borders to your photos, too, which you can customize in this case with a wide selection of textures or any color you choose.

I counted 54 special effects in ACDSee’s collection, and each is modifiable in some way. Even the ones that don’t instantly appeal might work for you with some adjustment, so there’s a lot to go at. Among my favorites are Collage, Lomo, and Orton. The latter is great for creating a dreamy look.

ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 - Orton special effect

This is the Orton special effect, making a peaceful scene even dreamier.

Geometry

Under “Geometry”, ACDSee provides rotate, flip, crop, and resize tools. There are some thoughtful touches among these tools, like the ability to control darkness outside the crop area. The Rotate tool also has a cropping feature, so you can level the picture up if necessary and correct wonky horizons.

When resizing, the default algorithm is Lanczos, but it’s worth experimenting, depending on what you do with your photos. Lanczos gives a sharp result when downsizing, for instance, but if you want to back off that a little and achieve smoother edges, try Bicubic.

Exposure/Lighting

ACDSee offers some powerful tools under “Exposure/Lighting,” not least its excellent Light EQ technology alongside traditional tools like levels and curves. Light EQ is similar to curves, only better in some respects since it treats highlights, mid-tones, and shadows separately. That’s only possible to a degree using curves without layers.

Here, I’m using ACDSee Light EQ to adjust the tone of the image. By having the Exposure Warning switched on, I can ensure a good tonal range without losing detail in the shadows or highlights. As soon as pixels appear in red or green, I back off the adjustment slightly. I have the histogram showing the blue channel, as that’s the nearest to clipping at both ends.

The auto buttons in these exposure/lighting controls are also worth a hit every now and again. Personally, I find the auto setting in Light EQ tends to make things too bright, but it might provide a better starting point.

You can set your black and white points using eyedroppers in levels and also define the clipping limits under “tolerance.” (Don’t worry if this means nothing to you – it’s only one of several options.

I should mention, too, that ACDSee provides an Edit Brush and gradients with many of these controls, so you can apply edits to selected parts of the image.

Color

Under “Color,” you’ll find White Balance, Color Balance, Convert to Black and White, and Color LUTs. The White Balance tool is excellent, though, like all white balance tools, it relies on neutral tones in the image to use as reference points.

You could also correct color using the Color Balance tool, especially in conjunction with the floating histogram. A good thing about the ACDSee histogram is you can stretch it out as far as you like for a detailed look at tonal distribution. There’s a hue/saturation tool alongside color balance.

You can make the floating histogram as compact or elongated as you wish.

“Convert to Black and White” is new to ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019. Based on the colors you know are in the image (e.g. blue sky), you can adjust their brightness to alter the contrast of the final result. This also lets you emphasize different areas of the photo. Good stuff! Contrast is also affected by the RGB percentages, which must always add up to 100. A high proportion of red usually creates more contrast in cloudy blue skies, for instance. Colorized monochrome images are possible, too, under Convert to Black and White.

Using the new “Convert to Black and white” feature, I’ve increased the brightness of cyan a fair bit to make the fire-escape steps stand out more. Then I’ve colorized the picture with sepia-like brown tones.

One of the best things in ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 Edit mode has to be Color LUTs. These let you alter the look of your photos (often drastically) via numerical color shifts. They’re like photo filters on steroids. ACDSee LUTs are good, but you can also download LUTs from the web and load them into the program.

The lower half of this picture has the ACDSee “Turin” Color LUT applied to it. Look closely and you’ll see it’s darker with deeper blue windows and yet has a more cyan sky. You can use the Edit Brush or gradients on many edits.

Detail

Sharpen, blur, noise, and clarity all lie under the “Detail” heading. These are all pretty standard. The sharpen tool is like unsharp mask with amount, radius and threshold settings. Typically, you use a low radius for high-frequency photos with a lot of fine detail or a higher radius to bring out coarse detail across a wide area. A sharpening mask slider would be a nice bonus here if I were compiling a wants list. That would be quicker than selective sharpening with a brush.

Other Features

In case all the above isn’t enough, there’s more. For instance, the external editor feature in Manage mode lets you swiftly open images in other programs. Perhaps that will be Photoshop or it could be ACDSee Photo Editor 10, which would complement Photo Studio Standard well.

ACDSee also has a dashboard that gives you stats on equipment used, database size, and photo counts that show you how prolific you’ve been at various times.

ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 dashboard

The ACDSee Dashboard, indicating prolific use of a Sony RX100 in my case. There are numerous other stats available.

You can create PDFs, PowerPoint files, slideshow files, zip archives, contact sheets, and HTML albums straight out of ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019, too. There really isn’t a lot you can’t do.

More new stuff

ACDSee also introduced AutoSave and Auto Advance features in 2019. AutoSave does away with the “do you want to save changes?” dialog when you move onto another image. Auto Advance is good for rating, labeling, or categorizing photos, as it moves onto the next image automatically once you’ve clicked.

Also new in 2019 are customizable keyboard shortcuts, support for HEIF files (used on later iPhones), and print improvements that let you adjust for differences between what you see on screen and what your printer produces.

Conclusion

As much as I understand the benefits of SaaS and subscription software models, I think there will always be a market for standalone products that consumers can update when they want.

ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 is, first and foremost, a great photo organizer. I’ve never seen better. It’s quick as a browser – doesn’t hold you up – and it gives you workflow choices. There are lots of nice touches to make tasks easier. It’s not especially advanced as a photo editor, but you can achieve a lot without layers, 3rd-party plugins, and even Adobe’s unassailable repair tools.

If like me, you prefer taking photos to organizing them, ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 is the ideal way to get your collection under control. It drills into your database from several directions and helps you find any picture. Many people will want to supplement the editing capabilities with other programs, but you won’t find much better than this for photo management.

Disclaimer: ACDSee is a paid partner of dPS

The post Catalog Photos Like a Pro: ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 Review appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Glenn Harper.

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Using Face Detection and Recognition in ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2019

11 Dec

The post Using Face Detection and Recognition in ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2019 appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Stacey Hill.

Are you a person who takes lots of photos of people? Perhaps you shoot weddings or events? Family portraits? Maybe you like to capture images of family and friends? Eventually, you end up with many images. Some are easy to sort through when they have only one person in them.

However, what about group photos? How do you tag/catalog/sort through those? Do you have to list out everyone’s name in the meta tags manually?

What if you don’t know all the names immediately? What if you find out later that Heather is actually Helen and you have to go back and change it?

Finally, how can you find all the images with a specific person quickly and easily?

Luckily, ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2019 makes this task easy with the new Face Detection and Recognition capabilities.

How to set up Face Detection and Recognition

1. Open the program and in ‘Manage’ mode, navigate to the desired folder where you have stored your images.

2. Click on an image of the person you want to name and click on ‘View’ to open in View mode.

3. Face Detection identifies the person by outlining their face.

4. If this outline box is not present, click on the ‘Show Face Outlines’ button (or Shift + B).

5. Once the face is selected, we need to apply the name. Click on the ‘Face’ Tool (or Shift + F) and a dark grey text bar pops up under the outline.

6. Click in the text bar and type the name of the person and press ‘Enter.’

7. If you select any other image with that person and open it in ‘View mode,’ it should automatically select their face and apply the name.

A key point regarding the naming structure you use is to put some thought into what naming convention you use and then keep it consistent. For example, something along the lines of: first name (space) last name or first name_last name. Doing so makes a difference later if you are using search parameters to find people.

What happens if you have more than one Joe Smith? What if you start off using only first names and then you have 3 x David, 4 x Michael, 2 x Louise all in the same wedding party? Being as specific as possible when naming addresses this issue.

How it becomes useful

Once the software has recognized the face and you have assigned a name to it, it detects that face amongst all your other photos. While it works across any images currently stored on your computer, the data is saved and applied to any new images you import onto your computer.

Therefore, you should only have to tag the person once. ACDSee remembers their name and applies it to any future image with their face in it.

Now you might want to search for all the images with Heather.

1. In ‘Manage’ mode, select ‘Catalog’ on the left-hand panel. The panel is broken up into different sections. At the top is ‘Categories.’

2. The second panel down is ‘People.’ All the names you have applied to your images are listed. Click on any name, and it goes through the database to pull out all the images with that face present in them.

3. In ‘Manage’ mode, you can ‘Quick Search’ by typing the name in the Quick Search box.

Searching for multiple people

1. Search for two or more people by holding down CTRL while selecting a second name in the People section of the Catalog panel. The software finds the images for those people. You can also utilize the ‘Easy Select’ arrows next to the names to select multiple people.

2. Find an image with two specific people in it together by typing both of their names in the ‘Quick Search’ bar as Person 1 + Person 2 to run a Boolean AND search. It is during this process that it’s essential to understand the naming convention you used originally.

In ‘Manage’ mode, select the folder you want to search in and click F3 to search (or right mouse click and select Search). Make sure you put ‘People’ in the ‘Categories’ section or it will search the entire database and potentially pull up other images.

3. You can also run a search from the ‘Catalog’ pane. In the ‘People’ section, select all the people you want to search for by using the ‘Easy-Select’ arrows or CTRL/SHIFT clicking. Click the gear icon on the People section header, and change the search type to ‘Match All.’

Managing name data

You can edit/change/remove the name data you have stored, which comes in handy if you have to update the spelling on one. Maybe you forgot you already had a ‘Sebastian’ in there, and you need to change one of them.

1. In ‘Manage’ mode, select ‘Tools’ from the top menu option.

2. From the drop-down menu, select ‘Manage People.’

3. A ‘People Manager’ box opens up with all the names you have saved. You can edit each one as needed by selecting them and using the bottom buttons.

Things to note:

1. The naming convention you use is important, so plan that out in advance.

2. If the face is not automatically detected, and you have to create it manually, the software will not further recognize it in Face Recognition. Also, note that if you use the Remove Faces or Redetect Faces command on an image, manual faces aren’t retained. The Rerun Face Detection option remembers them if you edit images.

3. Currently, there is no facility to import face recognition tags from other software (Picasa as an example). However, a search through the support forums has this listed on the ‘Potential Ideas for Future Updates’ list. It also appears to apply to the exporting of images from ACDSee as well, with the intention of retaining the face recognition tags.

4. There is no easy way to establish if there are currently any unnamed faces.

5. If the software has assigned the wrong name to someone, you can remove it with the Remove Faces function. This removes all face data from the selected image, not just the one wrong one.

6. To ensure a better success rate, you may need to manually select several images of one person so that the software can ‘learn’ that face with accuracy. You achieve better accuracy by naming as many faces in the (first) image as possible.

7. You can manually remove the names from incorrect selections and can rescan in ‘Manage’ mode via Tools | Redetect Faces. You need to correct the wrong name, rather than remove it, otherwise rescanning continues to return the wrong name over and over.

Conclusion

Face detection and recognition is a tool that can make life easier for a photographer with many images of people in their portfolio. The ability to assign a name to a person and have the computer run an algorithm to find all the other images is significantly faster than doing it manually.

To be able to search for images with a specific person (or range of people) becomes faster and more efficient as well.

Is it perfect? If I am honest, not 100% all of the time. However, it is easy to use, easy to manage and does a pretty good job for most requirements. It could be useful for many other things that they may implement into the next version.

Right now, it is an effective time saver for the home photographer with photos of family and friends, through to commercial photographers with wedding/event shoots filling up the portfolio.

The previous 2018 generation of ACDSee was the first version that bought a range of features all together in one space. Thus, giving you the capability to manage and view files, edit Raw files, do creative editing with layers, all in one piece of software.

Leading with this Face Detection and Recognition, the 2019 iteration builds on that initial foundation by bringing specific functionality to boost capabilities even further. Thus, making for a compelling consideration for anyone looking to purchase editing software, especially when it is available via one-off perpetual license purchase.

The post Using Face Detection and Recognition in ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2019 appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Stacey Hill.

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Why celebrity photographer Manfred Baumann uses ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2019

22 Oct

Celebrity photographer Manfred Baumann has been using a pre-release version of ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2019 for a while, and in this article he shares his impressions of using the software.

As a photographer, there are plenty of software programs out there that all want my attention (and my money). ACDSee is a name that will be familiar to many digital photographers, going right back to the 1990s. Designed originally as an image organization tool for digital photographs, ACDSee has evolved over more than 20 years to become a fully featured digital asset manager and editing platform. These days it’s basically a ‘one-stop shop’ for digital photographers.

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Like most photographers, I prefer taking pictures to sitting in front of a computer. For that reason, the software I use has to be fast, uncomplicated and self-explanatory. A Raw Converter is like a digital darkroom for me – everything else is optional. I’ve been using ACDSee for years. The latest version, Photo Studio Ultimate 2019, competes directly with the world’s best Raw editors, offering in-depth editing features alongside advanced image cataloging and organizational tools.

New in the 2019 version is face detection and automatic face recognition,

One of my favorite things about Photo Studio Ultimate’s editing power is the option to use layers when working on my Raw files. New in the 2019 version is face detection and automatic face recognition, which allows you to find photos of clients, friends or relatives at the click of a button. I don’t think many people would have difficulty recognizing some of my portrait subjects, but face detection and recognition are useful features when I’m organizing images for my clients.

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Photo Studio Ultimate also brings improvements to black and white editing, which let me individually adjust the contrast and brightness of different channels. I can even use the Edit Brush to paint these adjustments onto specific parts of an image. Monochrome editing is at the heart of a lot of my workflow, and the improved black and white mode features in Ultimate 2019 are really useful.

ACDSee is ideal for photographers who prefer to take photos rather than sit in front of the computer

It is important to continue growing, and as an artist, you always want to make sure that viewers can recognize your signature in your photographs. I like to think that I catch what others might not have seen. My primary focus is using images to say something about the essence of the person I’m photographing, and it’s all about the imagery: quality before quantity. Quality can be recognized by the fact that a good image doesn’t go out of date.

I would say ACDSee is ideal for photographers who prefer to take photos outdoors or in the studio rather than constantly sitting in front of the computer. It is cost effective, fast, and offers more features than most of its competitors. With Photo Studio Ultimate I really don’t need to use additional software in my workflow; I can usually do everything I need to do without leaving the app.

When it comes to image organization and cataloguing I do this exclusively in ACDSee Studio Ultimate now. It’s the quickest and easiest way for me to work.

Learn more about ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2019

Manfred Baumann lives and works in Europe and the USA with his wife, Nelly. Throughout a long and varied career he has photographed celebrities from the worlds of acting, sports, and fashion for some of the top publications in the world.

A passionate advocate for animal rights, images from Baumann’s ‘Mustangs’ project have been exhibited in the Natural History Museum, Vienna.