ACDSee has released ACDSee Pro 3
September 30th, 2009 by HeidiACDSee released ACDSee Pro 3. This is their professional photo software organizer/editing images software. The cost of ACDSee Pro 3 is $169.99 but you have previous versions you can get a discount at 30% off.
Note: ACDSee has 2 major product lines – home & professional. The home versions are the ones used for digital scrapbooking organizing, ACDSee 9 (old), ACDSee 10(old), ACDSee 2009(most recent). The pro versions are ACDSee 2.0 & 2.5 (old) and this new release ACDSee Pro 3. If you are confused about which version is the best for you, here is their quiz.
Download your free 30 day trial of ACDSee Pro 3 now!
If you are person that takes a lot of photos and need to process RAW photos or like to tweak the lighting, color, etc of the images, then this product is for you. ACDSee Pro 3 competes against Adobe Lightroom. In ACDSee Pro 3 they introduced some new “modes.”
Manage Mode:
The Manage mode is the one where you your organizing, categorizing, and this is similar to ACDSee 2009 or ACDSee 2.5 and very little has changed here.
View Mode:
The view mode is to look at images larger. It basically is like Windows explore filmstrip version.
Process Mode:
The Process mode is where the majority of new additions were added. Think of the Process mode as the digital darkroom. In the Process mode there are 2 sub-modes, Develop & Edit. Develop is the non-destructive editing of the image. The Edit is the normal destructive editing. Whenever you Develop or Edit something, the originals are saved in a hidden folder so you can revert back to your original if you need. (And if you show hidden folders on your windows, you will see Developed & Originals folders if you have processed an image in that folder.) In the past, I typically took it upon myself to save the original and then do edits. With this tool, you can forget having to save the original and let the tool do it for you.
Process Develop mode (non-destructive editing) you have many different settings, here are the Tune, Detail & Geometry:
Process Edit mode (destructive editing) you have what appears to be some of the same as in Process and some additional editing tools.
So you have this Develop And Edit sub-modes in the Process mode and it seems just a little confusing. When this product was in Beta there was quite a discussion on this. So I wanted to clarify it but I think the best way is to quote a ACDSee’s developer from the beta forums:
Basically, you can think of bringing an image into develop mode as the same thing as bringing a roll of film into a photo lab. You bring your negatives into the shop and they develop them into a good looking image. Develop mode is our way of letting you control the way the lab tech develops your image. You walk out of the photo lab with the printed images (developed images), and you still have your negatives in your pocket so you can return to the lab to get them developed again using different settings if you want.
Now that you have your printed images you are free to do what you want with them. My analogy is going to break down a bit here, but let’s say you want to draw a moustache on someone’s face on your printed image. You get out your pen and draw on the image (this is like using edit mode). After drawing the moustache on the image you start thinking "I really wish this image was brighter, I’m going to go back to the photo lab to re-develop the image with some brighter settings". This is the point at which you are considering going from Edit to Develop mode. In reality, you can’t bring a printed picture with a moustache drawn on it back to the photo lab and ask them to brighten it. The only way you can re-develop the image is to bring in your negative and ask them to develop the image brighter this time. Obviously you are going to have to abandon the moustache you drew on the image and start from scratch.
Using the process tools you can tweak your images and even save some you didn’t think were all that good. This really helps if you aren’t the best photographer. Before & After I did some tweaking in Develop Mode.
Sharing photos:
In addition, they added a new tool to ftp your images to a site. So this may be beneficial for some digital scrapbookers. You can upload from ACDSee to the following sites: Smugmug, Flickr, Zenfolio and ACDSee’s new online album.
Organizing aspect:
And I have to finish this up with Organizing aspect of ACDSee Pro 3 because so many of us use ACDSee products primarily as their image organizer for digital scrapbooking. I know the question I will hear will be does ACDSee Pro 3 introduce any new features that will help us with organizing digital scrapbooking supplies. Unfortunately, ACDSee Pro 3 new features focused on image editing/processing of images. There was very little change in any organizing features. The minor changes are in the organize pane:
Category Icons are gone
They removed the icons for the categories in the Organize pane. This now requires me to read the categories and figure out what category I am in instead of glancing an icon. I miss the icons.
ACDSee 2009:
ACDSee 3.0: 
Assigned Flags are gone as well as Multi-select boxes but you can assign a category by checking a box in Organize pane.
In previous versions there were little assigned category flags signaled that if an image or multiple images were selected which categories or you could tell which sub-categories were assigned. (See screenshot of ACDSee 2009 to see what I am trying to explain.) There also were little boxes that were multi-select boxes that allowed you check multiple boxes for searching on multiple things. Both the flags UPDATE: & multi-select boxes are gone in ACDSee 3.
ACDSee 2009: 
The new boxes in ACDSee 3 now allow you to assign or un-assign categories by checking a box in the Organize pane (previously checking a box could only be done in the Properties Pane.)
Instead of the multi-select boxes, to select multiple categories for a search in ACDSee 3, you need to select your first category, hold down the CTRL key and select the second or more categories. (Definitely not as intuitive as the multi-select box.) UPDATE (or use the blue & gray pointers on the left.)
There are also new blue & gray pointers on the left. Not sure if grey/blue pointers add much at all. I can already tell what is selected because the whole row is in blue. UPDATE. The pointer are multi-select boxes that disappeared from above. They are now arrows instead of boxes.
ACDsee 3.0 
But as with all of ACDSee products, the best way to figure out if the product is right for you is to TRY it out. All of ACDSee’s products have a free full working version for 30 days.
Download your free 30 day trial of ACDSee Pro 3 now!
Subscribe to the comments for this postSome of my tips from over at ACDSee Home Blog
September 9th, 2009 by Heidi-
Save those pictures!! This is an article that is more general rather than ACDSee specific. It covers some basic suggestions on ways to backup your images.
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And some ACDSee related tips:
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Viewing & Working with PDF files with ACDSee
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Using Filter By in ACDSee Photo Manager
Some Current Shutterfly Sales
August 26th, 2009 by HeidiSave 20% off gift tags. See site for more details. Offer valid from 08.20.09 to 09.01.09
Create a youth sports share site, get a free 11×14 collage poster. See site for more details. Offer valid from 8.11.09 to 9.30.09.
Want an ACDSee tip about using Go To File..
July 21st, 2009 by HeidiVisit ACDSee’s home blog to read about: Using Go to File in ACDSee Photo Manager
Shutterfly’s Current Sales
July 17th, 2009 by HeidiWant to use Twitter but don’t know where to start or how to get involved?
July 9th, 2009 by HeidiEveryone’s twittering, why aren’t you?? Do you feel that way?
Getting started with twitter is probably the hardest part of twittering. When you twitter you want someone to listen (your followers) and want to hear the conversation of others (who you follow.) When you first sign up for twitter it is like standing in the middle of group of strangers and you hear random comments and no one can hear your comments. So you need to increase your followers and follow people but how?
Here’s my simple way..
- First figure out what interests you. Hobbie: Scrapbooking? Gardening? Technology: Wordpress? etc…
- Many people twitter on a certain subject they use hash tags. It’s like labeling the twitter comment with a subject. There are tons of hashtags but try find a hash tag for one or a few of the interests above. Here’s a great site for doing that. hashtags.org A hint is digital scrapbookers are using #digiscrap for their hashtag.
- Now search for that #hashtag at search.twitter.com and listen to the conversation.
- As you see people twittering about things that interest you.. Follow them. Click on their name and click Follow. Keep doing that and you gain people to listen to in your own “conversation stream.”
- Now to get followers, start talking about things that interest you. People will start following you if they like your content. If you don’t twitter you won’t increase your followers.
- In addition, follow your followers and see what they have to say. (Be careful though, some are just spewing junk. Unfollow the bad ones..)
Now there are other ways.. but I think with my method, you get a nice conversation to follow on subjects that interest you.
One of the other ways to find friends is using Twitter directories: feel free to read about them some of them: Find ‘Em On Twitter: 15 Twitter Directories Compared and here: 14 Twitter directories to find new friends
Another great Firefox Add-on if you link images in forums
July 7th, 2009 by HeidiI love this little add-on and use it frequently.
It basically allows to me copy a link with either html or bb code (for forums.) Then I create pretty links in the forums instead of those long ugly links that include the http. You know what I am talking about.
In addition, you can customize so you can quickly create linkable images but that is a two step process.
I’ll show you how but first go install the CoLT add-on and restart firefox.
First simple BB Code & HTML links:
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Find a text link on the webpage and right click on it.
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Choose Copy Link Text and Location As -> BBCode
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Now the following code is in your clipboard: [url=Example.
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Same goes for HTML code if you choose Copy Link Text and Location As -> HTML Link. You will get the code in the clipboard and then paste it in: Firefox add-ons, the Digital Scrapbooking Collection for a nicely formatted link.
More advanced to link images..
One time only, you need to add on 2 special formats.
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Go to Tools | Addons.
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Find CoLT and choose Options.
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Click on New Separator to add a spacing line.
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Click on Add… and add this:
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Menu Label: CopyImageLink BBCode
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Format: [url=%U][img][/img][/url]
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Click OK
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Click on Add… and add this:
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Menu Label: CopyImageLink HTML Code
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Format: <a href=”%U”><img src=”" alt=”%T”/></a>
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Click OK
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You should now have something like this:
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Click OK
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To Use for Forums (bb code)
- Find an digital kit preview that links to its details. (This is how much digital scrapbook stores are setup.)
- Right click on the image choose Copy Link Text and Location as -> CopyImageLink BBCode
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Then paste this code into the forum message: [url=http://prettyscrappy.com/xcart/product.php?productid=18335&cat=0&page=1][img][/img][/url]
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Then return to the image, right click and choose Copy Image Location
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Paste this code right between the [img] and [/img], so it looks like this:
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[url=http://prettyscrappy.com/xcart/product.php?productid=18335&cat=0&page=1][img]http://prettyscrappy.com/xcart/thumbs_cache/armina_blackbeauty-ps-0.jpg[/img][/url] This will create correctly formatted linkable image in a forum Example.
To Use for HTML Code, the process is almost identical:
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Find an digital kit preview that links to its details. (This is how much digital scrapbook stores are setup.)
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Right click on the image choose Copy Link Text and Location as -> CopyImageLink HTML Code
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Then paste this code in: <a href=”http://prettyscrappy.com/xcart/product.php?productid=18335&cat=0&page=1″><img src=”" alt=”Black Beauty Kit”/></a>
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Then return to the image, right click and choose Copy Image Location
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Paste this code right in the “” for img src. Like this: <a href=”http://prettyscrappy.com/xcart/product.php?productid=18335&cat=0&page=1″><img src=”http://prettyscrappy.com/xcart/thumbs_cache/armina_blackbeauty-ps-0.jpg” alt=”Black Beauty Kit”/></a>
Firefox add-ons, the Digital Scrapbooking Collection
July 6th, 2009 by HeidiUse Firefox? Want to customize it with some great add-ons specific for digital scrapbooking?
All the add-ons are compatible with Firefox 3.5. By the way, have you tried the latest version of Firefox?
Do you have additional add-ons that you think need to be added to this list, leave a comment?
Here is collection of add-ons in an already premade list:
Digital Scrapbooking Collection
Visit the list and pick and choose which ones you like to install.
And here is description of add-ons in my collection and why I find them useful.
DownThemAll!
I love this add-on for downloading digital kits. It allows me to keep track of what I have downloaded and still need to download as I get those mega-kits.
I download all kinds of zip files (besides digital kits) so I have list of where I like to save things.. but clicking on this dtaOneClick it will automatically save in that folder..
along with a progress popup:
Colorful Tabs:
Makes your tabs all different colored:
IE Tab
If a site isn’t working right in Firefox, quickly switch to IE or back to Firefox by clicking on the Firefox icon or IE icon in the bottom status bar.
Cooliris
View images in a whole new way.
Try it out in the DigiScrapFinder Gallery
Look for these links in the gallery:
Show me these digital kits in a Slideshow!
Cool Previews
How to Use:
- Click Icon to see the next page in a pop-up. A great way to see the larger images of digital kits without leaving the list of digital kits you are looking through.
- CoolPreview Detailed Directions
Morning Coffee
How to use:
- On the first day, visit the sites that you do daily.
- As you visit each one, find Morning Coffee and choose add to my morning coffee:
- Then each morning, click on Morning Coffee and it will load all your daily sites in one click.
PermaTabs Mod
Make a tab permanent and you can’t accidentally close it. Will stick around too between opening and closing Firefox.
How to use:
- Right click on a tab and choose Permatab
Xmarks (formerly Foxmarks)
If you work on multiple computers and want the same bookmarks on both, then install this add-on.
Kaboodle
If you are a kaboodle fan, use this one to quickly add things to your shopping list.
Adblock Plus
Stop or reduce the number of ads.
Some Good Shutterfly sales are on!
July 2nd, 2009 by Heidi20% PhotoBooks
30% 18 month calendars
20% Stationary Notepads
Print Sales
4th of July Print Sale: Save up to 30% on prints: Save 10% when you buy 50 prints, 20% when you buy 75, and 30% when you buy 100 prints. Use Code: SAVEPRINTS. Offer valid from 07.01.09 to 09.01.09. Limited Time prepaid photo plan offer – 200 prints for $20. See site for details. Offer valid from 07.01.09 to 07.08.09.
Buy a PhotoBook and get free prints!
Get free prints when you create a share site
Spend $30 and get a free poster OR $5 off your next order
very, very disappointed with Inkubook service
June 9th, 2009 by HeidiTable of contents for Inkubook book experience
- Creating a book at Inkubook
- Inkubook photo book is printed and on its way…
- My Inkubook order has arrived and its really cute!
- very, very disappointed with Inkubook service
I like to save up my printing services and print multiple books to save on shipping and handling. DON”T try this with Inkubook!
It turns out that if you order different books that you are forced to pay shipping and handling on each different book order. I ordered and then talked to customer service. They said that is the way it is and it is something that they would like to change in the future but can’t be done now.
Their help statement:
7. If I’ve made more than one book can I order copies of each of them at the same time?
If you’ve made more than one book with Inkubook, you’ll need to order each book separately. Because each book is printed at the time it is ordered instead of being plucked off a shelf of pre-printed books, each book must be prepared and tracked separately. It’s like getting a made-to-order outfit instead of buying something off the rack.
They told me if I would have talked to them beforehand, they would have given me a coupon code for shipping and handling.. No where does it state in that help, the offer to talk to them first for shipping and handling discounts.
Anyway, extremely disappointed in Inkubook and customer service. They seemed unable to do much or offer to help.