ACD System’s Photo Studio for Mac 8 adds M1 compatibility, better tools, and more: Digital photography review

ACD system debuted Photo Studio for Mac 8, a digital asset management tool that runs natively on macOS. The new version is the first Photo Studio software to run natively on Macs with Apple Silicon based on the M1, including the new MacBook Pro models.

Photo Studio for Mac 8 includes user-friendly graphical user interface enhancements that allow for easier navigation. The look and feel of Photo Studio for Mac 8 is more in line with existing macOS presentations. While your computer is idle, a new customizable Indexer organizes your content efficiently.

The software also includes new color-related tools for photo editing, such as Color LUTs, Color Wheels, Tone Wheels, Dehaze, Skin adjustments, and the addition of Contrast for the Color EQ tool. Users can precisely target and adjust saturation, hue, brightness, contrast, highlights, mids, shadows, and contrast balance.

To summarize, according to ACD Systems, Photo Studio for Mac 8 includes the following new features:

• With a wide performance boost, ACDSee Photo Studio 8 is a Universal app that runs natively on Macs with Apple Silicon chips.
• Use the ACDSee Mobile Sync app to send photos and videos directly to ACDSee Photo Studio 8 wirelessly and instantly from your iOS or Android mobile device.
• With ACDSee Indexer, background indexing of your content occurs when the computer is idle, keeping the ACDSee database automatically up to date.
• Filmstrip View provides a full-size view of photos in Manage mode while you browse and organize.
• The Navigator is used to zoom in on an image and quickly pan around it for close-up viewing and editing in the View and Develop modes.
• The color wheel in Develop mode visually targets adjustments to specific bands of color in your image. Accurately brighten gray skies and dim reflections.
• Tone Wheels in Develop mode make it easy to create split highlights, midtones, and shadows.
• Color LUTs in Development mode apply unique effects with a single click. Choose from eight default color LUTs or enter new ones for unlimited potential.
• Dehaze in Development mode restores lost contrast, detail and color to your images. Especially useful for images that have been taken through fog.
• Skin adjustments in the Elevation mode lighten the color by lightening, smoothing, and restoring the luminosity of your subject.
• Contrast/Color EQ Balance in Development mode manipulates more of an image’s contrast using the new Contrast and Contrast Balance adjustments in the Color EQ tool.

Photo Studio for Mac 8 includes new color and contrast tools, such as Color LUTs, a new Color Wheel, and more. Click here to enlarge.

In addition to the above new features, Photo Studio for Mac 8 also has many improvements. Color pickers in Development mode now display the RGB color values ​​of pixels. The application provides improved performance when cataloging a folder with many subfolders. There’s a new Zoom Lock button in View to lock the zoom level when browsing photos.

You can read the full list of additions, improvements, and known issues in release notes. For an overview of the general features of Photo Studio for Mac 8, access the ACD . System. The software is a digital asset management application, which means you can easily organize, rate and add labels and tags to your photo library. The app is also a RAW photo editor and as you can see above, there are new editing tools in the latest version.

Photo Studio for Mac 8 includes new photo editing tools, including Dehaze and Skin Tune. Click here to enlarge.

The new Photo Studio for Mac 8 is available now for a special introductory price of $70, $30 off the full retail price. Special introductory offer ends on Nov. 24. Special upgrade pricing is also available if you log in via the link above with your acdID account.