Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

"Take your digital photos to the highest standard. ACDSee Pro 4 will help get you there fast, with all the tools you need for everything you shoot. Manage, view, process and publish your images in one full-featured application. You'll enjoy organized files, achieve stunning visual results, and free up more time to spend behind the camera."

I've been a huge fan of ACDSee for years - I've used every version of their product since the mid '90s - but I have to admit I'm not terribly enthused by this upgrade in their Pro line. The cost of the upgrade for owners of Pro 3 is high; $167.99 for the upgrade (compared to $99 for the Lightroom upgrade for example). When I look at the list of what's new, I don't see many things that make me say "Oh yeah, I've been waiting for that!". Pro 4 offers a better metadata panel, metadata presets, a location-based map view, improved raw rendering and vignette correction, chromatic aberration fixes...and that's about it. There's mention of an HDR feature on the product home page - and I don't think that's in Pro 3 - but the What's New page doesn't mention the HDR feature as being new...so who knows? Read more...

"Forget about JPEGs. You should be working with raw files, editing your photos at their most molecular level. We compare five raw image-conversion and editing apps that promise to take your photography to a higher plane of awesomeness."

Curious about what raw processing software you should use? The gang at Maximum PC has pulled together a few of the top options - although it's curious they ignored DXO Optics - and compared them to one another. It's a decent set of mini-reviews, though when the author stated that you can change ISO and shutter speed settings in a raw file, it put his article off to a bad start...I don't think he's someone who shoots or edits raw files regularly.

What do you use to process raw files? I'm still using Lightroom 2; it's one of the best pieces of software I've used, though I really wish it had automatic lens correction - that was one of my favourite things about DXO Optics.

Oh, and if you're curious, that's raw salmon in the photo above.

"While camera manufacturers keep competing for high ISO performance, DxO Labs now offers the image processing technologies which are critical to delivering top-notch image quality from such extreme ISO shots. In low-light conditions, photographers must choose between using low ISO and risking unnatural flash lighting or camera shake, or using high ISO settings with its typical image noise and loss of colors and details. But now, thanks to a new technological approach, DxO Optics Pro 6 sets a new bar for RAW conversion: photographers can push their cameras to the ISO limits and even beyond - as much as one to two stops above their usual ISO settings! - and still get great photos without any noticeable loss in image quality."

When I first started shooting raw a few years ago with my DSLR, I looked at a bunch of different raw processing software packages. With my experiments using Photoshop Elements and the Adobe Camera Raw plug-in, it quickly became obvious that processing images one by one, completely in isolation of each other, was a rather poor approach. I looked at several packages on the market, but spent the most time with Lightroom 1.0 and DxO Optics Pro 4.5. While there were several things I really liked about the DxO software, specifically the lens-based optics correction (I'm ticked Lightroom still lacks that) and the killer multi-threading, I found the user interface cumbersome to use. So have things gotten any better with version 5.0? I spent a few minutes looking at the press information, which is rife with competitive info, to find out. Read more...

"ACD Systems International Inc. today unveiled ACDSeeTM Pro 3, a new version of its leading digital image management software that retains the same fast and flexible features photographers rely upon and incorporates an enhanced user experience that delivers professional level workflow tools at a tremendous value. ACDSee Pro 3 builds on its reputation as a leading viewer, browser and organizer with new advanced speed capabilities in the editing and online stages. For example, the program's unique process mode integrates two highly prized features - nondestructive image editing and precise pixel-level editing - into one seamless application."

I've been a long-time fan of ACDSee, in all its variations, and it's always one of the first five applications I install on any new computer I'm using. It's really fast, really stable, really useful software. Version 3 of their Pro line brings with it some user-interface changes, and a bunch of improvements when it comes to raw photo processing. I'm a big fan of Adobe Lightroom, but I'll have to take ACDSee Pro 3 for a spin with some raw photos and see how it does. About once a year I email the nice people at ACD Systems and make some feature requests...I'll have to see if any of them made it into this product. Probably not, but a guy can dream, right?