Ashampoo Photo Commander is a Windows program for viewing, sorting, editing and presenting a personal photo collection. It combines a file browser, metadata and location tools, an image editor, a batch converter and creative tools in one application. It is a paid program with a time-limited trial.
Browsing folders, albums and dates
Photo Commander shows pictures in three ways: a file explorer that follows the folders on disk, albums, and a calendar. The calendar places photos by the day they were taken. Albums are virtual, so a picture can belong to several of them without being copied. The program automatically detects connected USB sticks and external drives.
You can group photos by capture date, time, file name or location, then group long archives further by decade. A status bar shows EXIF data for the selected file. Video and audio files also play inside the program.
Finding photos by content and metadata
Filters narrow a collection by file name, EXIF or IPTC data, comments, file type or custom keyword tags. You can add missing metadata by hand, edit it, and export it.
Ashampoo Photo Commander also analyzes image content in the background and sorts people pictures into selfies, portraits, couple shots and group photos. This analysis runs on the computer itself, without uploading images or needing an internet connection. Each category becomes a one-click filter.
Duplicate detection
A wizard scans folders for duplicate pictures. A faster filter mode is aimed at collections with many thousands of files.
Locations and maps
The program reads GPS coordinates stored in JPG and RAW files and sorts photos by country, city and street. You can manually geotag pictures without coordinates and edit existing location data. You can open any location in Google Maps, Bing Maps or OpenStreetMap.
Importing, scanning and extracting images
An importer copies photos and videos from digital cameras and can place them in subfolders based on the EXIF creation date. A scanner function captures paper documents, including several pages in one pass. It saves these pages as a multi-page PDF. Photo Commander can also pull images out of existing PDF and MP4 files.
Retouching and correcting single photos
The editor covers geometry first: cropping, resizing, rotating, straightening, horizon correction and perspective adjustment, which can be combined with mirroring. Tone and color controls include contrast, brightness, saturation, temperature and gamma, plus a gradation curve displayed with histograms. A color accent effect keeps one color while desaturating the rest.
For quick results, a one-click optimizer adjusts color and contrast automatically. A recovery function brightens or restores overexposed and faded shots. Red-eye can be removed automatically or by hand. Automatic fixes also reduce noise and scratches.
Detailed repair work uses a repair pen, clone tools and in-painting. In-painting fills an area such as a scratch or an unwanted object with surrounding image content. People and objects can be cut out, several at a time. A dual view places the original next to the edited version for comparison.
Effects and overlays
You can preview effects live before applying them. They include tilt-shift and miniature effects, a focus effect that blurs everything outside a chosen area, and an effect pen for applying an effect to precise pixels. Text, shapes, other images and drawings can be placed on a photo.
Batch conversion and resizing
Batch processing in Ashampoo Photo Commander applies one set of changes to many files at once. A job can convert formats, resize images, rotate or mirror, add watermarks or frames, and apply adjustments. A wizard walks through file selection, operations and output.
Supported image formats
Besides common formats such as JPG, TIF and WebP, the program opens camera RAW files, JPEG 2000, SVG and MPO and JPS 3D images. The program loads and saves JPEG XL with its metadata. AVIF files open directly, including metadata and animations, without a separate codec. The program supports very large files such as PSB, BigTIFF and gigapixel images. It can also save images as PSD.
The Save As dialog offers presets for JPEG XL, WebP and JPG and builds a preview of the result while it is open.
Slideshows and presentations
A slideshow wizard assembles pictures into a show with transitions and an MP3 soundtrack. The show can be output at up to 4K resolution or burned to disc. For live presentations, Photo Commander can run the show on one display, such as a projector. At the same time, you can control and adjust it from another display, such as a laptop screen.
Calendars, collages and web galleries
Template-based tools create calendars with custom start and end dates, greeting cards, framed images, collages and panoramas. You can also publish pictures as web galleries or HTML albums, export them to PDF or multi-image TIFF, or send them by email.
Privacy and program settings
The program automatically encrypts its database, backups and registry entries. An optional protection blocks other applications from taking screenshots of the program window. You can export and import program settings when moving to another computer.
