ACDSee Pro 5
There were only four months between the launches of ACDSee Pro 4 and 5, meaning the developers of this photo management software have either been incredibly busy, or this isn’t the most revolutionary update. At least the upgrade price is modest at only £19inc VAT.
Converting our image library from version 4 to 5 wasn’t as easy as we’d hoped. A wizard handled the process automatically, but the message “This may take a few minutes” was an understatement. Five hours of inactivity later, we gave up and forced the application to quit. After relaunching, it turned out the import had been successful. This wasn’t the most confidence-inspiring start, but it’s reassuring that the version 4 database was untouched, providing a backup if the process should run into serious problems.
There’s little change to the interface, but the four main modes – Manage, View, Develop and Online – are joined by a fifth: Edit. Its contents were previously a subsection of the Develop mode, but promoting it to a top-level mode is sensible. Tools in Develop mode are non-destructive – for raw images, at least – whereas the ones in Edit mode are destructive, with ramifications for workflow.