ACDSee Free is a Windows file browser for viewing photos, camera RAW files and other media stored on your computer. It opens folders directly from your drives, so you can browse a photo collection without first importing it into a library. Its tools cover finding images, examining them, making selected batch changes and presenting or printing a group of photographs.
Folder browsing
Browse mode shows the contents of the selected folder in a central File List. Thumbnails provide a visual way to locate pictures, with a slider to change their size. List and detail views give more space to filenames and file properties. Sorting by image type, size, date taken or date modified changes the order of the files without changing the folder’s contents.
Quick Search puts matching files back into the File List, where they can be viewed or selected for another operation. You can search the current list or the local database, and combine terms to require both, accept either or exclude a term. Filename matching has a particular limit: it considers the first term in a filename. A name such as Cat_Dog can be found with Cat, but not with Dog.
Image viewing
ACDSee Free displays supported camera RAW files alongside formats such as JPEG, PNG, TIFF and WebP. It also opens PDFs and supported Microsoft Office documents, and plays audio and video. These are viewing functions; opening a document does not provide its original application’s authoring tools.
View mode provides a larger image display with full-screen viewing, zoom and panning. Zooming lets you examine part of a picture, while dragging moves across an image that extends beyond the viewing area. Quick View offers a smaller set of viewing controls without opening the main application, including moving between pictures, zooming and temporary rotation.
Batch processing
Selecting several images lets you rotate or flip them together. ACDSee Free also includes batch special-effect commands in Browse and View modes, including Sepia, Negative, Pencil Drawing and Pixelate, for applying a chosen effect to a selection.
RAW development and layered editing belong to the paid Photo Studio Ultimate edition. ACDSee Free can display a supported RAW photograph without providing the exposure, color and layer workflow of that edition.
Slideshows
A slideshow can use selected files, a folder or the folder and its subfolders. Images and videos can be included.
The slideshow controls set how long each image appears, which transitions play and whether the sequence runs forward or shuffles. You can repeat the show, choose a background color and add header or footer text.
Photo printing
ACDSee Free prints individual pictures and contact sheets containing multiple images. A contact sheet gives a printed overview of a selection, with options for captions, headers and footers. Full-page printing and other layout choices are also available.
The print preview updates as you change the layout. Image size and position, margins, paper orientation and copy count can be set before sending the job to the printer, so you can assess how the photographs fit together on the page.
Photo sharing
SendPix is integrated into ACDSee Free for sharing selected media by email. A picture can also be set as the computer’s wallpaper.
ACDSee Free’s Dashboard mode
Dashboard mode examines the collection through its stored information. It reads camera details from image metadata and file information from the ACDSee database. The resulting views include photo counts by month or year, camera usage and ISO settings, and file characteristics such as image resolution and bit depth.
