ACDSee Pro (Mac) 1.6

'ACDSee' is a commercial image viewer, as well as a competitor to the built-in Preview.

This program is very popular among Windows users, but it appears that the Mac version isn't as popular. Currently the product has been discontinued on the Macintosh platform, so this is a review of a very old program.

While testing ACDSee I compared it with Preview, because it's a direct competitor with it. I started with the file type support. I took a screenshot, which I then exported as a PNG and converted into all possible types that are supported by Preview, except PDF because that's a document format. ACDSee couldn't display some file types such as JP2, which uses the JPEG 2000 compression algorithm, as well as the TGA file format, and the PICT file format.

The way viewing was implemented is annoying, because skipping to the previous picture is a problem, although skipping to the next one isn't. The keyboard shortcut, which is used for getting to the previous picture, is used by the operating system to open the applications 'Preferences' panels. Yes, I am talking about Apple (Command) +, which is reserved. I couldn't define a custom combination for ACDSee, because you can't modify this in the 'Preferences' panel. The program 'Preview' is annoying, because it can't skip, by default, to the next or to the previous picture into a folder. I guess this means that it's a tie.

I couldn't compare the other behaviors well, so I tried to find out what features ACDSee can provide. I was surprised to see that it can automatically generate a HTML document, which can display an image that is contained in a folder from your local or a network drive. The images displayed in that HTML document use only the JPEG compression. This means that it has to output a new set of images, which would be placed in the same directory with the HTML document. In fact, it places those under two new subdirectories: 'Images' and 'Thumbnails'. This HTML document can be mounted on your own Web site, but the generated gallery doesn't give you a professional look.

A feature that isn't available into Preview is the file browser. ACDSee has its own file browser that can be used to find your pictures. It also generates an image database that you can use to find your pictures quickly.

Another feature, that is not available in Preview, is the video support. It can play all kind of movies using a Quick Time module. I would not recommend playing your videos with this application, because it works slowly. Even the movie is displayed in slow motion.

Pluses: it is an alternative image viewer. It features an image database that can be used to find your files. It can display videos and generate HTML galleries. It has its own file browser and it can do some basic picture manipulation operations.

Drawbacks / flaws: it's unstable, and I say this because it crashed twice during testing. When in viewing mode, the keyboard combination for skipping to the previous picture is not inspired at all. The video files are played in slow motion.

In conclusion: I guess this product is to old to compete with Preview, which is a new application compared with this version of ACDSee. Since the development of this product has been discontinued, there won't be any new features.

version reviewed: 1.6.5