Software News

A couple months ago we reported that DXO Labs had acquired the very popular Nik Collection of imaging-editing software from Google. That news was greeting enthusiastically by users of the popular Nik plugins for Photoshop and Lightroom, because Google had earlier said they no longer planned to support or update the seven-plugin package.

ACD Systems recently announced the release of two new image-editing/management products: ACDSee Pro 8 and ACDSee 18. Offering users a variety of imaging features in an easy to use, affordable package, ACDSee Pro 8 is designed to be the complete solution for image enhancement and the control of image production for professional level photographers.

With each successive release of ACDSee Pro, the photo management suite adds ever-more-powerful features. In this review I hope to help you decide whether or not its features match up with your own workflow, meet your needs, or even improve on existing features to enhance your photographic creations.

In my own workflow, the new version, ACDSee Pro 5, smoothed over a few rough edges in the editing process and made my management chores a bit less time-consuming. The release is not so groundbreaking that it might make you consider abandoning Adobe Lightroom or Apple Aperture altogether, but there are some pro-level additions that are definitely worth considering. The program never crashed and operated quickly for just about any task on a standard desktop PC. Note I said PC—there is no Mac version available or considered at this point.

Think of Generative Expand as Cropping in reverse gear.  It's mind-blowing. Instead of making the image smaller and deleting pixels, the new feature allows you to expand image content beyond its original borders by using the Adobe Firefly-powered Generative Fill function to create additional content that never existed but blends naturally with the original image. The new content can be an extension of the original data or based on the Command Prompt you type. This description is an oversimplification—read on for some real-world examples you haven't seen anywhere else.

Adobe just announced a big update to its subscription-based Creative Cloud photography plan including the release of the new Lightroom CC which is designed to work faster and introduces new tools for editing, organizing and showing off your images.

Adobe just announced that Adobe Camera Raw 8.8 is now available as a final release on Adobe Labs. ACR 8.8 adds Raw support for nine new cameras, including the Nikon D5500.