ACDSee Pro photo management software

[jskintauy Profile Private messageWebsite]

Hi All,

I am finding myself scanning 100's images and trying to organize them on a routine basis. Right now I am using Photoshop Elements 6 Organizer to catalog the images. Unfortunately, this seems to be a losing battle. I need to be able to quickly group photos together and rename/order the photos for easy use in PSP or video editing software. Here is an example of the problem. Right now, when I scan in photos I have little control over there names. They go into the file system in a haphazard way unless they are scanned all at once (frequently this is impossible) I need to be able to reorganize, rename, and reorder these files in the file system for easy use. Does anyone have a good suggestion for doing this? I know Lightroom is a possibility, but it seems expensive for this task. I see that ACDSee Pro is well reviewed. Does anyone have experience with this. What about other products?

Thanks ahead for any replies/suggestions.

Jim

[VernonRobinson Profile Private message]

Jim,
An unbelievably powerful tool at a reasonable cost is iMatch. I use it exclusively. Will do all the categorization, renaming, copying, etc. They have a 30 day eval. I am not affiliated with the company, just a satisfied customer for several years. Take a look here. http://www.photools.com/

[im42n8 Profile Private messageWebsite]

ACDSee Pro Photo management software is very powerful and easy to use. It's keywords and categorizing is pretty decent. It has a good RAW editor and allows you to specify more than one image editor to use on your images (if you want). To manage you many images, this one is pretty darned good. It also uses the XML sidecar now. That should make it easier to import other catalogs or export them to other apps if necessary. I've used it for a few years now ... (I also use Lightroom).

If you're gonna manage a large quantity of photos ... don't skimp. This s/w is also well rated among image managers. If you get it, you won't be doing anything wrong!

Dale

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

I bought Photoshop Album several years ago, and I still use it. Adobe decided to drop further development of the program, and I thought about switching because of this, but the thought of having to re-categorize thousands of photos stopped me short. And so here's my advice: find the software that suits you best, making sure it's been around for quite a while. Longevity is extremely important here. Whichever you choose, you aren't so much stuck with it as you are deeply invested in it.

Barbara

[im42n8 Profile Private messageWebsite]

Absolutely! The recategorizations, the keywords, etc is a real pain! That's why I was glad to see that ACDSee finally supported the XML sidecar for info on the fotos . . . a bit late for me tho. Anyway, working on thousands (or even just hundreds) of photos to re-input the info is a real pain.

Lightroom and ACDSee (Photo manager Pro) are very powerful, easy to use, have plenty of features that allow you to "grow" into them as you get more used to their power. I'm not saying they're the best but they ARE among the best available.

If you're starting from scratch it's no problem.

You probably want to get a very good app to do the work for you or at least help you do your work with the images ... and not make it an onerous task. Lightroom will be around awhile I do believe. Adobe's trying to beat Apple at it's game (which is Aperture ... but it only runs on Macs). ACDSee has been around awhile and has steadily improved, and differentiated, its offerings (from a the Pro version is probably what you want if you intend to do anything with your photos ... the non-pro version will get you by). Bibble Pro is really working hard to be THE photo workflow app and has been around awhile too.

You can get by with the others I guess . . . just determined by what you plan on doing with all of your images. But, you need to get something that'll handle today's needs and still handle your future photos well too. So, plan for the future and choose accordingly! GOOD LUCK!