So I finally broke down and bought ACDSee, the organizational software that is hailed by so many as a savior - the Second Coming, if you will.  It will tag and cross-reference all your digital files to enhance your digital scrapping experience and make your crafting flow more smoothly.

If you can get it to run at all, that is. 

I run Windows XP and have had very few problems with my current desktop setup.  My computer is a few years old (3 or 4, I don’t really recall) with a decently-sized hard drive, extended memory (upgraded a few months ago to make running PhotoShop CS2 more enjoyable), a clean desktop and a good anti-virus program.  I regularly do a disk cleanup and defrag and delete unnecessary files often and keep my software as up-to-date as necessary.  In other words, my computer is much neater than my house.

So I figured that the masses couldn’t be wrong about this.  I thought my current system of organization might benefit from some help because I don’t have a method for cross-referencing and tagging in place. 

I loaded it with no difficulty, so they weren’t wrong about that.  Then it wanted to know where all my pictures were.  This is where I began to get annoyed.  It wouldn’t take my word for it when I said none of my image files were on my C: drive or that there were only three folders (plus sub-folders) on my EHDs that held relevant files.  It scanned through every folder on all three drives and continued the process for so long that I ended up going to bed for the night and leaving it to its discovery mission.

After all that, it still opens up like Windows Explorer or Adobe Bridge.  It takes much too long to find my files on my EHDs and tagging is cumbersome and time-consuming.  I’m left believing that my own home-grown system is sufficient for my purposes and apparently didn’t need any improvement.

To add insult to injury, it froze up and shut down in the middle of working with it.

I know others have reported great success with ACDSee and I’m so very happy for them.  All I can figure is that it works best when one is only just starting to amass a large collection of digital image files and possibly when used on a single drive instead of over three drives.  I do not store any image files of any importance to me on my computer’s hard drive.  It is all on redundant external drives, backed up to CD and DVD.

On the positive side, before it shut down I was able to view PSDs as easily as JPGs, GIFs and PNGs in thumbnail views.  A very nice feature when looking for the perfect template but also available in Adobe Bridge.  It is also not a bad thing to have the ability to tag files in the way that ACDSee allows, but I’d rather spend my time scrapbooking than going back to re-organize my files.  I’ve heard of some scrappers spending a month or more on organization!

I do think ACDSee can prove useful for anyone who does not have Adobe Bridge or for anyone who is intent on remembering which designer created which element or paper.  I am neither, so I cannot say it is a helpful product for me.

In the end, I’ve satisfied my curiosity, learned that I’m more impatient than I thought and determined that the money could have been better spent elsewhere.  I’m only glad I didn’t pay full price.