ACDSee Photo Studio Professional 2022 Review

In this review, we take a look at ACDSee Photo Studio Professional 2022. As ACDSee’s mid-tier photo editor, ACDSee Professional 2022 combines ACDSee Home’s phenomenal photo management features with ACDSee Ultimate 2022’s powerful photo editing. By offering the best of both worlds, ACDSee Professional 2022 is ACDSee’s best value photo studio.

But like all photo editors, ACDSee Pro is not perfect. For example, it lacks the AI-powered trickery found in contemporary photo editors such as Luminar Neo. Nor does Professional include the layer-based photo editing found in ACDSee Ultimate 2022. Nonetheless, ACDSee Professional 2022 is an outstanding product at a spectacular price.

Table of Contents

• What is ACDSee Photo Studio Professional 2022
• How much does ACDSee Professional 2022 cost?
• What does ACDSee Professional 2022 do?
  • Photo Management
  • Geotagging
  • Face Recognition
  • View tab
  • Photo Developer
  • Photo Editor
• What’s ACDSee Professional 2022 like to use?
• What’s missing in ACDSee Professional 2022
• Is ACDSee Professional 2022 Worth it?
• Download ACDSee Professional 2022 Free
• ACDSee Professional 2022 Discounts
• Conclusion
• Recent Posts

What is ACDSee Photo Studio Professional 2022

ACDSee Professional 2022 is an all-in-one photo studio for Windows PC which combines world-class photo management with excellent photo editing. Therefore, ACDSee Professional 2022 is a great choice if you’re looking to contain your digital photography workflow within a single piece of software.

As ACDSee’s mid-tier photo studio, ACDSee Professional 2022 features ACDSee Home’s outstanding photo management. This means you will be able to rate your photos, add them to collections, and tag them with keywords.

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Furthermore, you get an ACDSee Face Recognition system, enabling you to sort your photos by those who appear within them. And integration with Google Maps means you can geotag your photos with addresses and coordinates.

As for photo editing, ACDSee Professional ships with two separate photo editing tools. My favorite is the Develop tab which is similar to Lightroom and Capture One. Whereas the Edit tab is similar to Photoshop and GIMP but is severely limited by the absence of layer-based editing. If editing in layers is important to you, you might consider upgrading to ACDSee Ultimate 2022. Read ACDSee Ultimate 2022 Review

How much does ACDSee Professional 2022 cost?

ACDSee Professional 2022 is available now and can be bought outright for your equivalent of US$99. Alternatively, you can subscribe for US$8.90 per month and benefit from continuous updates.

What does ACDSee Professional 2022 do?

ACDSee Professional 2022 is an all-in-one photo studio combining photo management and photo editing. Other notable features include Geotagging, Face Recognition, and Presets.

Photo Management

Photo management in ACDSee Professional 2022 is outstanding. On the most basic level, you can rate your photos, add them to collections and tag them with any number of keywords.

Once organized, you can use smart collections and searches to retrieve photos. For instance, you might create a Smart Collection called ‘Birds’ that automatically includes all photos featuring keywords such as Eagle, Kea, and Fantail.

If you don’t want to go to the trouble of tagging your photos, you can set up searches and smart collections based on your photo’s metadata. For instance, you might create a Smart Collection for photos taken within a specific date range or with a particular lens. But in terms of photo management, the best is yet to come.

Geotagging

If your camera lacks its GPS, you can use ACDSee Professional’s map view to Geotag your photo. Doing so will write an address (if applicable), latitude, and longitude to your photo’s metadata. Once your photos have been tagged, you will be able to browse for photos via the same map view.

Face Recognition

ACDSee Professional automatically detects faces to which you can add the person’s name. After you’ve done this a few times, ACDSee Professional will begin to recognize the Face and tag the person automatically.

Furthermore, you can set ACDSee Professional to crawl your photo archive and tag your older photos too. Afterwhich, you’ll be able to browse photos in order of those who appear in them. For instance, select ‘John Smith’, and it will automatically retrieve all photos of John Smith.

Alternatively, you can create a Search or Smart collection that will augment the search for John Smith with other criteria such as date and location.

View tab

ACDSee Professional features one of the best photo viewers there is. Not only is it clear and lighting fast, but you can instantly check your photo’s sharpness and exposure thanks to the magnifying glass and histogram.

For these reasons, the View tab is extremely efficient for QA’ing large batches of photos. Furthermore, the View tab represents another opportunity for you to tag your photo and run face recognition.

Photo Developer

The Photo Develop tab is to ACDSee what Lightroom is to Adobe. In other words, it’s purpose-built to process your JPEGs and Raw files.

Furthermore, it’s very good. Not only does it produce great-looking results but it’s fast, responsive, and relatively easy to use.

For instance, you can manually adjust colors and brightness by placing your cursor on the applicable part of your photo and dragging your mouse about. And the Color Wheel makes it extremely easy to target and adjust specific colors without having to mask.

If you’re looking for quick results, you can apply one of Professional’s Presets for immediate results or save the sum of your adjustments as a preset for future use. And if you make a mistake, you can use the History tab to roll back individual adjustments or restore your image to its original state and begin again.

Compared to the new wave of AI-based photo editors such as Luminar Neo, ACDSee Professional requires a little more skill. But once you’re up and running, it’s much faster and more precise.

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Photo Editor

ACDSee Professional’s Edit mode offers much the same functionality found in the Develop mode and more besides. For instance, you can add Text, Borders, Watermarking, and Special Effects. Unfortunately, the edit tab has a couple of problems.

First of all, the ergonomics are nowhere near as good as those in the Develop tab. And secondly, Professional lacks Ultimate’s layer-based editing. This means every adjustment you make compounds the other severely limiting the Edit tab’s creative envelope.

To be honest, the Edit tab feels somewhat superfluous next to the Professionals outstanding develop tab. If you like the look of the Edit tab, you should try layer-based ACDSee Ultimate instead. Read ACDSee Ultimate 2022 Review.

What’s ACDSee Professional 2022 like to use?

ACDSee Professional 2022 is ergonomically excellent, fast, and responsive. However, it may take you some time to get used to it.

This is because ACDSee Professional is a traditional photo editor and you must craft your effect by adjusting colors and tone curves. In contrast, modern AI-based photo editors such as Luminar Neo offer highly-accessible tools such as Sky Enhancer and Golden Hour Glow.

For this reason, Luminar Neo is a better option if you want to edit photos without learning anything about photo editing. But if you’re willing to learn the craft, ACDSee Professional will reward you with superior speed and precision.

As for photo management in ACDSee Professional 2022, it’s about as easy as it could be.

What’s missing in ACDSee Professional 2022

As a traditional photo editor, ACDSee Professional lacks the modern AI-based trickery seen in other products. In other words, there’s no one-click option for sky replacement, background blur, and Skin blemish removal.

If you’re looking for these kinds of tricks, you could hardly do better than Luminar Neo. But if you’re looking for an all-in-one photo studio plus AI tricks – check out ON1 Photo Raw 2022.

I’m in an unusual position in which I own all of these products. But for serious photo editing, I still prefer the traditional photo editing found in ACDSee Professional. To find out which is right for you, check out the best photo editors of 2022.

Is ACDSee Professional 2022 Worth it?

Yes. ACDSee Professional offers a lot of functionality for very little money. ACDSee Ultimate 2022 is technically better but only if you must have access to layer-based photo editing.

Download ACDSee Professional 2022 Free

Try ACDSee Professional 2022 free for 30 days.

ACDSee Professional 2022 Discounts

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Conclusion

ACDSee Professional 2022 is an all-in-one photo studio that delivers superb functionality for a great price. In terms of photo management, ACDSee Professional is tough to beat. With world-class management features such as Geotagging and Face Recognition, ACDSee Professional can bring order to any photo collection.

As for photo editing, ACDSee Professional 2022 serves you with two options. The Develop mode is a feature-rich, ergonomically superb alternative to Adobe’s Lightroom. Whilst the Edit mode enables you to add text, special filters, and borders.

But despite being a contemporary product, it remains a traditional photo editor. In other words, there are no one-click AI-powered super-tricks such as sky replacement and portrait background blur. So, if you’re looking to edit photos without learning photo editing – solutions such as Luminar Neo may suit you much better.

However, if you’re willing to learn how to make your adjustments, ACDSee Professional will reward you with superior precision, speed, and ergonomics.

Overall, ACDSee Professional 2022 is well made, a delight to use, and a relative bargain. You can also try it free for 30 days and you definitely should.