The ACDSee user interface provides easy access to the various tools and features you can use to browse, view, edit, and manage your photos and media files. ACDSee consists of five modes: Manage mode, View mode, Develop mode, and Edit mode.
Manage mode is the main browsing and managing component of the user interface, and is what you see when you start ACDSee Pro using the shortcut icon on your desktop. In Manage mode, you can find, move, preview, and sort your files, and access organization and sharing tools.
Manage mode consists of 12 panes, most of which can be closed when not in use. The File List pane is always visible, and displays the contents of the current folder, the results of your latest search, or the files in your database that match your filtering criteria. A status bar at the bottom of the Manage mode window displays information about the currently selected file, folder, or category.
You can open and close panes, move them to different areas of your screen, and stack them on other panes or dock them to the edge of the window. Most panes also have additional options you can set to further customize their behavior and appearance.
Manage mode also features a toolbar and a set of drop-down menus. The toolbar provides buttons for your home folder, and for navigating forwards and backwards through your folders. The drop-down menus provide quick access to the most common tasks.
In View mode you can play media files and display images in full resolution, one at a time. You can also open panes to view image properties, display areas of an image at varying magnifications, or examine detailed
color information.
You can open View mode by selecting an image and clicking on the View mode tab, and you can use the filmstrip in View mode to flip quickly between all of the images in a folder. View mode contains a toolbar with shortcuts to commonly-used commands, and a status bar at the bottom of the window, which displays information about the current image or media file.
Perform most of your image adjustment in Develop to apply changes to the entire image. Then take your image into Edit to select and fix specific parts of the image. Use Develop mode's non-destructive editing tools to adjust an image's exposure, white balance, color profile, as well as sharpen, reduce noise and much more.
Develop mode is a non-destructive, parametric editing, RAW conversion environment. Parametric editing means that when you edit an image in Develop mode you are creating instructions for adjustments, rather than adjusting the actual pixels as you do in Edit mode. Develop mode's non-destructive operations are entirely interwoven and interdependent and are applied in a fixed order to maximize the image quality. When working on RAW files, adjustments are applied as much as possible using the RAW image data.
After applying changes to the entire image in Develop mode, use Edit mode to fine tune your image using pixel-based editing tools such as red eye removal.
Edit mode works on the image data already rendered to RGB. Edits are independently applied to the converted RGB data in the order that you do them. This chain editing gives you full control over the pixels allowing creative freedom to apply precise adjustments. This makes operations such as selections and blend modes possible.