ACDsee is bucking the trend for combining photo-editing and management tools in one application. Photo Editor 4 does just that, editing. If you want to organize your photo library you’ll have to pay extra for Acdsee 10 Photo Manager. Having said that, Acdsee Photo Editor is around half the price of some of the other applications in this group test and there is a special bundle price for the two applications on the ACDSee website which still comes in well below $50. So the choice is yours and it is good value either way.

So to the Editor which, at first glance, has a bit of a retro look about it. The central image window is surrounded on three sides by a toolbar, image basket and on the right a palette dock containing how-to guidance, adjustment filters and an object palette. Expanding the how-to palette reveals ACDSee’s hidden treasure: a stack of guided projects covering the gamut from basic editing to photo fixing and creative projects.

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Web design falls into one of two camps: the first type designs the entire site, including content and design, in one place, the other designs a select few templates and relies on content management software to put articles in place. Webplus falls firmly in the former camp, but this does not mean that it passes up on the latest design possibilities.

You will be happy that layout uses CSS, not tables. This helps keep the layout of the pages as simple as possible, making them more accessible to mobile browsers and visible to search engines. The formatting information set with CSS is embedded in each page, which is a slight disappointment as using an external style sheet helps keep file sizes down.

Several master pages can be created as templates, helping to keep a consistent look across a site. The site manager tool is also useful for planning, and navigation bars can be created automatically.

The design heritage is clear from the ability to link text boxes together to flow copy from one to the other. There is even an automatic flow tool for creating as many boxes as are required on following pages. There are also plenty of attractive text tools with effects, including flowing text along lines.

There is a blog tool, but it can only be updated from within Webplus and is rather inflexible in design, as is the RSS viewer.

You can also insert HTML code fragments, which will come in handy when using tools that require small snippets of HTML, such as Google Analytics.

Ecommerce is supported for accounts with Paypal, Romancart and Mals, and HTML forms can be inserted for reader feedback. Webplus would suit sites with relatively static content, but if you frequently update or have several contributors, there are better options.

Click for more : Webplus

There are no radical enhancements in the latest version of Sage Instant Accounts, just considered improvements focused around making the package easier to learn and use. Those include a new welcome page giving access to sources of help and support, and a practice mode that lets you experiment without affecting your own live data. Some of the interfaces have also been tidied and tools moved around. All of which is good, although we did still find it a little difficult in places.

The Sage Line software, on which Sage Instant Accounts is based, is popular with accountants and other professionals, but can be baffling for those unfamiliar with things such as control codes and ledger postings. Fortunately, jargon is kept to a minimum in the Instant version although, behind the scenes, you still get a full set of sales, purchase and nominal ledgers. Together these let you generate invoices for products and services, raise purchase orders, keep track of your cash flow, reconcile your bank account and so on, all the things small companies need to run smoothly.

Vat accounting is also provided for, with everything to do with Vat now collected into one area. As you might expect, small-business schemes are well catered for here plus there’s now full support for online reporting to HMRC.

Stock control isn’t included, but there is a Plus version with this as an option. Similarly, it’s possible to pay employees by adding Instant Payroll and to accept payments by credit/debit card by subscribing to Sage card payment services, support for which is now built into the Instant Accounts application.

Installation is straightforward, with an improved wizard to guide you through the process of entering information. You can also import existing customer and product details, although only in CSV format. Alternatively, you can choose to work on your own practice data, either starting afresh or returning to the point at which you left off. There’s no substitute for learning from your own mistakes and it’s reassuring to know you’re not working on live data.

There’s nothing fancy about the user interface, which is good and, for the most part, we found it very easy to follow with clearly defined task options plus links to lots of supporting help and advice. Most of these links are gathered together on the always-available welcome page, giving access to instructional videos and online e-learning workshops together with PDF guides and suggestions for both getting started and performing common tasks.

On the downside, the user-friendly lets help the novice approach isn’t followed across all the tools, and some jargon does creep in. We found the revamped report designer particularly heavy going, which could be an issue as it’s used to customize invoices and other forms as well as design reports. Likewise, we would have preferred to see error correction integrated throughout the application rather than implemented via a separate dedicated module.

The package comes with telephone support for the first 45 days as well as online support and optional health and safety advice for a year. Automatic updates and a Sage newsfeed are among other additions and, despite a few remaining rough edges, Instant Accounts now has just about everything a small company needs to keep on top of its finances.

Click to learn more of Sage Instant Accounts

Paint Shop Photo Album blends the functions of a folder browser and an image database. Keywords can be assigned using a hierarchical tree that can be as simple
or as complicated as you want it to be. There are some basic but effective image-enhancing tools, plus various projects like e-cards, books and calendars. You can also create slide-shows, web albums and video CDs. There’s only one Photo Album database, though, so you don’t have the flexibility of multiple catalogs. It’s also PC-only.

Version 5 is a very neat looking program. There are four main tabs (Organize, Enhance, Create and Share), and in the Organize tab, where you’re likely to spend most time, you can view by Folders, Calendar and Keywords.

Keywords are easy to set up and assign, and can also be used for quick searches. Although there’s no provision for any metadata already built into the image files, it’s nevertheless a nice looking program at a good price.

Via Paint Shop Photo Album 5 Standard Edition

ACDSee 7.0 is a PC-only cataloging and image-editing tool that’s supplied in a bundled form with some digital cameras. You can use it as a folder browser with a standard directory tree, in a date-based calendar mode; add categories and ratings to images; and quickly display matching items.

ACDSee is a powerful and versatile program. It’s also complex and, with such a wealth of options, you may never have the patience or the concentration to absorb them properly. For example, you can organize images by keyword and category, but the online help never quite explains the differences and how or when you might use them. It uses a single image database file, so you can’t create separate, specialized catalogs, though you can choose folders you want specifically excluded. Tagging and finding images is easy enough once you’ve grasped the basics, but ACDSee remains a fussy application.

Click for details: ACDsee 7.0 Photo Management

Photo Explorer is the cheapest of all these image cataloging programs. Indeed, if you buy Photo Impact 10, you get it free. It works, essentially, as a folder browser, in the same way as ACDSee and Jasc Paint Shop Photo Album.

You don’t get a system of hierarchical keywords, but you can enter image descriptions and search for text. This is also a PC-only program.

Photo Explorer is cheap, but it’s likely to leave you frustrated in the long run as your photo collection grows. The main problem is the lack of a decent keyword tagging and searching system, since free form text descriptions are slow to apply and too arbitrary for a systematic filing system. Searches take quite a long time, too. On the positive side, the image-enhancement tools are good, incorporating a barrel distortion fix.

Beginners might benefit from the simplified Easy Access display option.

More at Ulead DVD PictureShow 2 + Photo Explorer 8

iView Media 2.6 offers the efficiency of Portfolio, but with the simple, user-friendly interface of Elements. You can create catalogs, importing selected images or folders into each. At the same time, it can import any metadata stored in image files. You can organize images using catalog sets with a hierarchical system of tags, and there’s a pretty good built-in image editor.

The main advantages of Media Pro 2.6 are its speed, clarity and ease of use. You can display Media Info, or an Organize palette listing keywords, catalog sets and more. If Media Pro has a weakness, it’s the way it blurs the boundary between data embedded in the image files (metadata) and information stored in the catalog (category sets). As with Extensis Portfolio, you can add metadata tags and then synchronize them with your image files. Overall, it’s a perfect blend of professional power and simplicity.