New Software for Getting Your Images Under Control

September 30, 2014

By Laura Brauer

Photos are a bit like children: leave a bunch of them alone and pretty soon, you’ll have chaos. For many pros, Adobe’s Lightroom is the go-to tool for riding herd over this unruly photographic chaos. But Lightroom isn’t for everyone. If you’re itching to try something new, a pair of well-established image organizing and editing programs just received major updates over the past few days.

Both ACDSee Pro 8 and Zoner Photo Studio 17 offer RAW image processing, photo organizing and sophisticated editing and sharing tools. Here’s what’s new:

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ACDSee Pro 8

Updated just last week, the latest version of this image organizer and editor brings a slew of new features. Among them is PicaView, which lets you visually preview files in your operating system without having to open ACDSee at all. There’s also a new Smart Indexer which catalogs folders when your computer is idle to keep the ACDSee database constantly updated.

The program’s editing tools have also seen a major refresh with new functions such as Auto EQ for applying one-click image corrections, new special effects and the ability to target individual pixels by color to make highly detailed changes to color. A new Edit History Window gives you a visual rundown of all the edits you’ve made so you can retrace your steps and undo mistakes (or simply marvel at how good a photo editor you are).

ACDSee Pro 8 will set you back $200 or $60 if you’re upgrading from an older version.

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Zoner Photo Studio 17

Zoner Photo Studio is similar to ACDSee Pro in that it tackles organizing and editing. Version 17 offers more RAW editing tools over exposure, light, curves and clarity as well as an improved RAW preview engine for faster loading and instant reviews of your RAW file edits. A Smart Automatic Edits feature provide a one-click-fix for troubled images while new effects such as lens flare and cartoon filters give your pics some creative pop. Photo Studio now also contains a library of lens profiles for correcting optical defects in popular lenses.

The software’s organizing tools have also received an overhaul. According to Zoner, they’ll import faster and the program can now suggest keywords to help facilitate image tagging. The software can serve as a Wi-Fi media server to broadcast images out to other Wi-Fi-enabled devices and offers the ability to locate duplicate image files on your computer to free up hard drive space.

Zoner also offers a free cloud service that’s integrated closely with Photo Studio called Zonerama. All the photos you upload to Zonerama are viewable from within Photo Studio 17 and you can edit those cloud-based images using the software, just as you would a local file. Did we mention it’s free? In fact, unlike Flickr or SmugMug, which impose restrictions and storage caps, Zonerama will store an unlimited number of full-resolution images for you with no apparent catch in sight.

Photo Studio 17 costs $89 or $49 if you’re upgrading.