ACDSee Ultimate 10 just got released. It now replaces CC for me.

[StephaneB]

When Adobe switched to subscription-only, I started to look at alternatives. I found none that could replace LR/PS for me at the time and since.

I tried ACDSee 8, not close.

I tried ACDSee Ultimate 9. Now, that was becoming very interesting. However, I came accross show stoppers: 

• Totally unable to cope with the large Photoshop tiff files. The indexer would literally choke on them. Since I use Photoshop since 2003, I have thousands of pictures that would render ACDSee unusable.
• The adjustment layers in Edit mode where very interesting by the excellent selection of adjustments that ACDSee provides there. But it was impossible to use for localized adjustment because the only way was by painting a mask with a basic brush and there was no visualisation of the brush strokes! Therefore no visualisation of how the mask was evolving. Unusable.
• Edit mode generates .acdc files. They were huge and very slow to save and load. 30-45 seconds slow.
• The gradients had severe banding in some conditions, making them unreliable.

I tried ACDSee Ultimate 10 and all of that is solved, and brilliantly. Really. It completely changes the situation:

• The magic mode of the selection brush makes it now the best selection tool in the industry, period. Better than the U-Points, better (miles!) than the magic lasso, leagues better than the Auto Mask in LR. A revelation.
• My old folders with big tiff files are now handled without a sweat. Actually faster than in LR.
• The layer masks management in Edit mode are now more than a match for PS and with the magic brush much easier to make local adjustments.
• .acdc files saving has been sped up a lot, it is now as fast/slow as saving in Photoshop. Not a problem anymore.
• The gradients are now on par with what Adobe does.

So now ACDSee at least stands a chance to successfully pass the trial period with experienced Adobe users. I think it should convince quite a few too.

The adjustment layers in Ultimate 10 give things that neither LR nor PS give:

• Localized sharpening. There is a localized sharpening in LR. But it uses the settings of the global sharpening. It is a filthy shortcut that Adobe took and they know it. They pretend to apply Bruce Fraser's sharpening theory of capture, creative and output sharpening. They do for capture sharpening with the global sharpening control. They do for output sharpening with the sharpening options in their print and export modules. But they don't for the creative sharpening that is supposed to have very different settings from the the capture sharpening and these settings should be different depending of the part of the picture where they are applied and the desired creative effect. LR does not allow that. Photoshop neither, incredibly. Sharpening in Photoshop is only destructive. With ACDSee's sharpening adjustment layer, combined with masking, one can properly process a picture with careful sharpening where it is needed.
• Localized clarity. ACDSee has a clarity adjustment layer that is missing from PS. And in ACDSee you can taylor the clarity effect to our creative intentions. You cannot in LR. Try it. That clarity adjustment layer is the best micro-contrast control tool in the industry.
• Speed. Enough said.
• Openness. It is dead easy and fully supported to use any other RAW processor. Or any other image processor while still benefitting with integrated asset management, printing and going from the output of external processors to either Develop or Edit mode.
• Integration. The UI for the magic brush is the same in Develop and Edit mode, for example. In the Adobe world, there is nothing in common between LR and PS. Concepts, tools, UI, everything is completely different. And launching PS from LR takes ages and break the flow of creativity. In ACDSee, it is all instant, you're in Develop mode, think of something to do with a localized layer and zip, you're there instantly. A much better experience.
• Backup management. ACDSee can maintain full backups of your entire library and database. Not just the database like in LR. it is a basic functionality, but it is there.

I am chuffed with ultimate 10!

[Jan K.]

Thanks!

And I guess, support for plug-ins are at least as good as 9 version?

Still with Nikon Capture Nx2 here, but have had the Ultimate 9 in view since release. Just hasn't made the shift-over yet...

[Benny Profane]

Spam?

[StephaneB]

Spam?

WTF?? Why spam?

[Kevin Raber]

ACDsee has always been an interesting program and many corporate offices use it for DAM.  Worth looking into.  I'll see if I can find them while at Photokina.

[StephaneB]

ACDsee has always been an interesting program and many corporate offices use it for DAM.  Worth looking into.  I'll see if I can find them while at Photokina.

I can't find them in the exhibitors list of Photokina. Hopefully someone from ACD Systems will reach out to you.

[StephaneB]

Thanks!

And I guess, support for plug-ins are at least as good as 9 version?

Still with Nikon Capture Nx2 here, but have had the Ultimate 9 in view since release. Just hasn't made the shift-over yet...

The plugin support is on par with other so-called compatible programs, meaning they support the 8bf plugins.

I have personally tried all the Nik plugins. All of them but DFine, Sharpen and Viveza work as plugins. But all of them work splendidly as external editors to ACDSee. That's how I use them, when I still use them.

I have also successfully tried Focus Magic, PT Lens and Neat Image.

This thread in the ACDSee user forum reports these to work:

• Flaming Pear's Flood
• DXO Viewpoint 2
• Jepp.
• Virtual Box v5.06
• Galaxy suite
• Topaz B&W Effects 2
• Topaz Clarity
• Topaz Clean 3
• Topaz DeJPEG 4
• Topaz Glow
• Topaz Impression
• Topaz Lens Effects
• Topaz ReMask 5
• Topaz ReStyle
• Topaz Simplify 4 (plugin crashed in first test but ran OK in second test)
• Topaz Star Effects
• Topaz photoFXlab (It's probably better to run this as an external editor)
• Topaz Texture Effects

It is always worth it to check if a plugin that's useful in Photoshop remains so in other hosts. For example, I have found that ACDSee greatly reduces my need for Silver Efex because its B&W conversions look great and I can use the new magic selection brush in ACDSee that is actually better for me than the U-Points.

LightEQ in ACDSee reduces the need for HDR Efex, while of course there remains cases where only multiple shots will do. For these, declaring HDR Efex pro as an external editor able to take multiple files works beautifully.

My main use for DFine was to reduce or suppress the noise in blue skies before B&W conversion. I can now do that pretty effectively in ACDSee, again thanks to the new selection tool.

Nik's RAW pre-sharpener remains a top tool, but since I can now very easily use RawTherapee to convert my X-Trans files to tif, and RawTherapee has extremely good sharpening, I find I seldom need a plugin for that anymore.

I never used Viveza all that much.

Color Efex Pro is in a league of its own. I suppose I'll still use it from time to time, as before.

[Lundberg02]

Windows only.  Why doesn't ACDSee wake up.

[StephaneB]

Windows only.  Why doesn't ACDSee wake up.

Non idea what you mean about waking up.

Platform choices for software companies are made based on a variety of criteria.

There are multi-platform programs and single platform programs for Windows, Mac and even Linux.

Faced with that market we each try to choose what we think is best for us.

[Benny Profane]

WTF?? Why spam?

The bullet points. Dead giveaway.

You're not going to sway the very established professional retouching and post production world with a windows only tool. Non starter. Well, maybe if it was miles beyond Photoshop, but, I don't see that yet.

[Rhossydd]

You're not going to sway the very established professional retouching and post production world with a windows only tool.

I doubt they care about the tiny number of professional retouchers at all. They're making a tool for the mass market of photography and, from a global perspective, that is Windows users as a majority.

ACDSee is certainly a package I'll look at again.
It's not if I stop using Adobe products, but when. (unless the change their subscription model)

[StephaneB]

The bullet points. Dead giveaway.

Right. Let's hope you're not into detective work or forensics. Or any job that would require sound judgement.

You're not going to sway the very established professional retouching and post production world with a windows only tool. Non starter. Well, maybe if it was miles beyond Photoshop, but, I don't see that yet.

I am not trying to sway anyone. There have been threads with people looking for alternatives. Some might even use Windows, you'd be surprised.

[Rory]

I appreciate your enthusiasm but I'm not seeing the same things you are reporting Stephane.  A quick look revealed:

• Adjustment brushes appear to be quite limited in what they can adjust (exposure, saturation, fill light, contrast and clarity)
• The adjustment brush is not so "magic" leaving halos and speckling
• The clarity does not appear much different than the Lr implementation
• The keyboard shortcuts are limited compared to Lr

ACDSee is a nice package but certainly not in the Lr/C1 class yet and I won't be moving from Lr any time soon.

[Benny Profane]

I doubt they care about the tiny number of professional retouchers at all. They're making a tool for the mass market of photography and, from a global perspective, that is Windows users as a majority.

It's not really all that "tiny", but, I guess we're getting all relative here. Compared to what? The great, abundant market of advanced amateurs and professional photographers (who prefer to post process their own photos)? I'm not privy to the numbers, but I hardly think the latter is a market big enough to warrant another advanced editing program, and then to convince the existing pros and amateurs to not only switch over to that program, when, I'm pretty sure, most are pretty happy with Photoshop, except for the monopoly pricing model, but buy a whole new computer and learn that, also. Sorry, life is hard enough. Like I said, show me some new magic in this thing, like the first time I saw a Chromocon, and I may investigate. Otherwise, eh.
The new massive market is Instagram and its ilk, cloud push button software for the masses shooting millions of pictures on their phones, which is changing photography forever. Not a desktop program.

[StephaneB]

I appreciate your enthusiasm but I'm not seeing the same things you are reporting Stephane.  A quick look revealed:

• Adjustment brushes appear to be quite limited in what they can adjust (exposure, saturation, fill light, contrast and clarity)
• The adjustment brush is not so "magic" leaving halos and speckling
• The clarity does not appear much different than the Lr implementation
• The keyboard shortcuts are limited compared to Lr

ACDSee is a nice package but certainly not in the Lr/C1 class yet and I won't be moving from Lr any time soon.

Avoid using bullet points, they are a dead giveaway for spam, according to some 

• What can be done in Develop mode with the adjustment brush is indeed very limited, much more so than in LR. However, the same brush appears in Edit mode, under the name of selection brush. After selecting with it, you can select any type of adjustment layer to apply it locally.
• I'm not sure about halos. If by speckling you mean there are holes in the selection, I see what you mean. That is linked to the tolerance it uses to discriminate between what should be selected and what should not. That tolerance can be adjusted to better suit what you are trying to select. Another way to use it is to first select with the brush in dumb mode and let paint a bit more than what you want. Then you can switch it to magic mode and deselect with the right button by painting outside the zone you want to select. In some cases that works better.
• Clarity in Develop mode is indeed close to what is in LR. The clarity adjustment layer in Edit mode, on the other hand, allows for much more customisation of what it does.
• I don't particularly like the default keyboard shortcuts either. But you can change them and add shortcuts that better suit you. I have the letter E to start the default external editor, C to start the photo comparison tool, etc...

Whether it is worse or better than C1 and LR will depend on personal preferences. In my case it took me a while to grasp enough of it to get a better picture of what it does well and doesn't. If I just take the print module, I still find that LR's print module is better than ACDSee's, but the one in C1 is not close to either.

The main attraction of ACDSee is the integration of the layer editor in the general tool, with adjustment layers better tailored to photography.

[StephaneB]

It's not really all that "tiny", but, I guess we're getting all relative here. Compared to what? The great, abundant market of advanced amateurs and professional photographers (who prefer to post process their own photos)? I'm not privy to the numbers, but I hardly think the latter is a market big enough to warrant another advanced editing program, and then to convince the existing pros and amateurs to not only switch over to that program, when, I'm pretty sure, most are pretty happy with Photoshop, except for the monopoly pricing model, but buy a whole new computer and learn that, also. Sorry, life is hard enough. Like I said, show me some new magic in this thing, like the first time I saw a Chromocon, and I may investigate. Otherwise, eh.
The new massive market is Instagram and its ilk, cloud push button software for the masses shooting millions of pictures on their phones, which is changing photography forever. Not a desktop program.

You're probably right.

On the other hand, I really don't like the renting. Last year I lost my job and it took me about 10 months to find another. In the mean time the Adobe rent looks like a really superfluous expense while it is pretty hard to stop it because not having the editing tools while you at last have plenty of time to use them...

And the attempted dumbing down of the import module in LR lit a few alarm bells in my head. If that is the direction of their thinking for LR's evolution, I'm out, definitely.

For my personal usage, in the way I use those tools, it appears now that ACDSee gives me a better value than Adobe. Of course that won't be the case for everyone. Most certainly not for a majority at this point.

[sniper]

I haven't tried the new version but the version we have (I think it's 8?) is pretty good, the shadow/highlight is miles better than photoshops, with a lot more options for tonal range, and while it's not as fully fledged as photoshop it does a good job.

[StephaneB]

I haven't tried the new version but the version we have (I think it's 8?) is pretty good, the shadow/highlight is miles better than photoshops, with a lot more options for tonal range, and while it's not as fully fledged as photoshop it does a good job.

You should definitely try version 10.

[Rhossydd]

It's not really all that "tiny", but, I guess we're getting all relative here.

It is, but I assume you work in a niche of full time Photoshop on Mac use.
With a wider world view you'd see there's a lot more to the photographic software business.

Compared to what? The great, abundant market of advanced amateurs and professional photographers (who prefer to post process their own photos)? I'm not privy to the numbers, but I hardly think the latter is a market big enough to warrant another advanced editing program,

Well it is huge and ACDSee has been around and doing well for very many years (hence version 10). Personally I find it good to hear that they're continuing to mature and develop the product.

then to convince the existing pros and amateurs to not only switch over to that program,-----but buy a whole new computer

As I said previously; I doubt they're interested in trying to conquer niche markets of pro retouchers, it's too small and close minded to worry about, neither are they unduly worried about developing for Macs, it's still a minority operating system on a global scale.

[Rory]

Avoid using bullet points, they are a dead giveaway for spam, according to some 

• What can be done in Develop mode with the adjustment brush is indeed very limited, much more so than in LR. However, the same brush appears in Edit mode, under the name of selection brush. After selecting with it, you can select any type of adjustment layer to apply it locally.
• I'm not sure about halos. If by speckling you mean there are holes in the selection, I see what you mean. That is linked to the tolerance it uses to discriminate between what should be selected and what should not. That tolerance can be adjusted to better suit what you are trying to select. Another way to use it is to first select with the brush in dumb mode and let paint a bit more than what you want. Then you can switch it to magic mode and deselect with the right button by painting outside the zone you want to select. In some cases that works better.
• Clarity in Develop mode is indeed close to what is in LR. The clarity adjustment layer in Edit mode, on the other hand, allows for much more customisation of what it does.
• I don't particularly like the default keyboard shortcuts either. But you can change them and add shortcuts that better suit you. I have the letter E to start the default external editor, C to start the photo comparison tool, etc...

Whether it is worse or better than C1 and LR will depend on personal preferences. In my case it took me a while to grasp enough of it to get a better picture of what it does well and doesn't. If I just take the print module, I still find that LR's print module is better than ACDSee's, but the one in C1 is not close to either.

The main attraction of ACDSee is the integration of the layer editor in the general tool, with adjustment layers better tailored to photography.

Thanks for the additional tips.  I do like the edit clarity.  Undo was not working for me with brush strokes.  I'll have to test it more thoroughly.  It would be ironic if I returned to using ACDSee.  I was their 15th customer of their initial release way back when.  It was the lightning fast image browser back then.