Faster viewing, organizing, enhancing and sharing capabilities significantly increase the speed and ease with which photo enthusiasts can manage their digital photos

VICTORIA, British Columbia -- ACD Systems International Inc. (TSX: ASA), makers of ACDSee photo management and creative editing software and Canvas technical illustration software, announced the release of ACDSee 9 Photo Manager for photography enthusiasts. With the release of ACDSee 9, ACD Systems once again sets the industry standard for both speed and usability in a digital photo management software.

With the release of version 9, ACDSee continues to be the fastest and most powerful software available for viewing, organizing, enhancing and sharing digital photos. Impressive new features in ACDSee 9 include Quick View mode, desktop Showroom, the Shadow/Highlight tool, Private Folders, Auto Categories, Calendar Events View, and more.

The Quick View mode in ACDSee 9 allows you to see your photos onscreen instantly -- whether you're opening an image attachment to an e-mail, or double-clicking on a JPEG from Windows Explorer. ACDSee continues to lead the industry with innovative advancements in photo viewing. ACDSee Showroom brings photo memories right onto the desktop. All a user has to do is set a folder path to their favorite shots, then sit back and watch. A sleek movable window appears that displays their photos in sequence or random.

ACDSee 9 also has a powerful new editing tool called Shadow/Highlight that saves photos you would've probably deleted. The Shadow/Highlight tool provides stunningly easy, instantaneous, and effective automatic photo correction for photos that are either too dark or too bright. In ACDSee 9 users can also fix red-eye with a single click using an improved red-eye reduction tool.

Private Folders protect personal photos in a secure area so only the user with the password can view them. If you have photos or files that you want to remain confidential, just move them to a Private Folder, set a password, and ACDSee Photo Manager keeps them under lock and key.

ACDSee 9's Auto Categories takes the pain out of organizing your photos by doing it for you. When Getting Photos from any device, ACDSee now automatically matches your photos up into convenient categories based on their camera information, IPTC data, ACD database information, and file properties.

The Calendar Events View automatically organizes your photos based on the date they were taken. That means your photos get displayed in an organized event list, which you can personalize with a unique description for each event.

"The major industry trend in photo software is toward creating simpler and faster applications combined with increased power and effectiveness. ACD is leading the trend with its newest release of ACDSee 9, a program that is easier-to-use than any previous versions without compromising the company's commitment to adding innovative features and time-saving solutions," said James Latham, vice president of Marketing for ACD Systems. "ACDSee 9 is an excellent combination of our legendary speed and some exciting technological innovation. An example is ACDSee 9's Auto Categories feature, which makes it much less time-consuming to organize photos; or the new Shadow/Highlight tool - a powerful feature for instantly correcting poorly exposed photos."

Hardware Requirements

Intel Pentium III / AMD Athlon processor or equivalent (Intel Pentium 4 / AMD Athlon XP or equivalent recommended)

256 MB RAM (512 MB RAM recommended)

100 MB free hard drive space (1 GB recommended)

High Color display adapter at 1024 x 768 resolution (1280 x 1024 recommended)

CD/DVD Burner -- for creating CDs and DVDs

Software Requirements

Windows 2000 or Windows XP

Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0.0 (6.0.0 recommended)

TiVo Desktop Software to publish images to your TiVo

Microsoft DirectX 9.0 for Microsoft DirectX file format support, and to create slide shows and screen savers

QuickTime 6.0 for QuickTime file format support

Ghostscript 8.0 for PDF support

Windows Media Player 9.0

Pricing and Availability

The full version of ACDSee 9 Photo Manager is available in English for $39.99 (USD) via electronic software download and $49.99 (USD) in select retail locations. Upgrade licenses from previous versions of ACDSee are available for $29.99 (USD). Volume licensing for ACDSee 9 is available with discounted pricing starting at five user licenses. For more information visit the website at http://www.acdsee.com.