Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Photo Management Software - ACDSee Pro 5

Thursday, September 30, 2011


Photo Management Software
ACDSee Pro 5

 www.acdsee.com



     I've been blogging lately about Photo Management Software. I came across  ACDSee Pro 5 by searching  with the title "Photo Management Software". You don;t always get what you want, but somehow I was led to a blog site that briefly reviewed several of these sofwares. Personally, I find that too many blogs or sites that rate or review a product don't spend enough time, space, or depth on the product. I'd like my blog to be different in terms of the "doing". 

Their Icon

1. The Manage Menu

ACDSee Pro 5 follows the general template in having 3 large different menus.
The above is their Manage Menu or Window
The manage menu shows you all of the folders and files and the rating system .
  
2. The View Menu
 Double-Clicking (on my Mac) on a small image allows you to view the image enlarged 



3. The Process Menu

This menu is divided into 3 parts:
1. Tune (Please see above)
2. Detail (Will follow later)
3. Geometry (Please see Below)

The Process Menu 
(Geometry)

When I arrived at this menu, I didn't realize the surprise and satisfaction that would I would discover.
I try to give "neutral" reviews, but in this case for this particular menu and software, this is FANTASTIC!

I've already posted about lens correction software, but this "submenu" is the best that I've found to date. That includes stand-alone software, and submenus in regular image correction software!


Here's their menu

Here's a grid that you can add

This is an exaggerated effect for distortion (rather than correcting).

The Starting Image

Correcting Lens Distortion 

The Re-cropped Image After the Correction

The Correction for a Tilt (Rotate)

The Corrected Image  (Cropped)

Just "Playing Around" with the Perspective Conttrols

The Detail Correction Menu

The above is Chromatic Aberration
That's where  undesirable colours appear along an edge.
SInce the unwanted colour is red, you move the slider to the left to get rid of the problem.

This is the Sharpening Menu
You'll need to increase the threshold value to have an effect on the sharpening amount slider!
There is a faint-edged rectangle in the large image that is moveable.
This allows you to see the effect of the command at the time.

Notice that I changed its' position. For sharpening, I chose the nice reddish-orange flowers with lots of small detail and edges. For the Chromatic Aberration Correction, I chose a column edge against a darker background.

Always make sure to save the working image as a new file.
This allows you to preserve the "original".

The "corrected image" saved by renaming the file




The Effect of Sharpening - Before the Correction

The Effect of Sharpening - After the Correction



Just a repeated image showing before and after (below) of Chromatic Aberration Correcting




Saving the File Again


Adding a Grid to Illustrate a "Tilted Image".



The Tilt up Close



The Correction for the Tilt.

The Effect of Perspective (Horizontal)

Notice that the top ceiling decor is slanted.
I used the Perspective >> Horizontal slider command to correct the slant



The Ceiling Decor Slant Enlarged


I used the Perspective >> Horizontal slider command to correct the slant

The Correction

A Double Click (Mac) Presents You with the Corrected Image

The Original Distorted Image
This program is a fine-tuned software that works well. 
The distortion correction is especially excellent, especially since it's a sub-menu. 

If you're looking for one of these "image-management software" programs, then by all means have a look at this one. If you have the time, down;load as many of these programs that you have the time to "test drive". Also, don't worry about the time that it takes to learn. Once you start to work with 1 program, you will see both the similarities and differences, and you'll learn fast. You'll also learn to discern what each program has to offer. 



Click here to go to acdsee.


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