Every time I have ever called for support on my aging MacBook Pro 2010 typically software related stuff they have spent oodles of time working with me to resolve my issues. Totally taken by surprise.I got very mad and am starting to look for alternatives. To my surprise I was told they no longer offered any support for LR5 and I would have to move to LR CC. After a fatal crash, I called Adobe for support as I had exhausted every possible avenue. 99% of my photo editing is with Pentax DNG's and completed in Lightroom's develop module. For the past four years, I have used Lightroom 5 for all of my photo editing and cataloging requirements. Actually, I think it works best with just three on screen at a time.I'm looking for your help. ACDSee lets you put those shots on screen, next to each other, all at the same time.
Often I will have a series of four or five shots (or more) which are largely similar. I know Lightroom offers something similar, probably others do too, but none seem to work as well as that in ACDSee. Second, the process of culling is easier because ACDSee offers an excellent tool for comparing photographs in close detail. Not only would you save a huge amount of time cumulatively, it also makes for a much more satisfying experience. I cannot fathom that there is anyone who likes sitting and waiting for their computer to catch up. That adds up to an awful lot of time over the years. Using Bridge, after more than 30 seconds I gave up, clicked to zoom in, and only then did it become a clear, sharp, fully-drawn image. Both ways, using ACDSee, the image was clear, viewable in sharp detail, within 2 seconds. Then I reversed the process and opened Image B in Bridge first, then in ACDSee. I took shot Image A and opened it to a full-screen view in ACDSee, then in Bridge. Objectively, ACDSee is faster at drawing a RAW file than Bridge to an insane degree. In all fairness, Bridge was then just as quick as ACDSee.
It was taking so long with Bridge, the images were still not viewable after 2 minutes, that I moved to another copy I have of the same images on a faster, SSD drive. The same folder was opened, with thumbnails and images viewable very promptly, in less than ten seconds with ACDSee. It was painfully slow to open a folder and draw the thumbnails on a computer with quite high specifications. Subjectively, I tend to find Adobe Bridge rather clunky to operate and slow in responding. ACDSee helps me with the cull in at least 3 ways. I will take a long time sorting through the photographs, in sweeps, which are progressively more demanding, deleting those which I do not want to spend time processing. One of the most important parts of my workflow (Oops! did I just admit to something?) is the culling process. Libraries, collections and the like, clearly work for some, but I import to my date/location file structure, then into Lightroom from there. It might be a consequence of having used computers since before The Ark, but I still tend to think in terms of named and dated folders.
You might be glad you tried ACDSee for this reason alone. That might just prove to be a very useful safety net one day. The first copy can be imported to one folder and the second copy can be imported to another location. Presuming that you leave your images on the card in the camera, ACDSee gives you the choice to make two copies on import and to give you those second and third copies of your images. The extension of that thought is that you do not actually have a backup until you have a third copy. I am a huge believer in the adage that “Data only exists if it exists in two places”.