VICTORIA, BC - With the release of ACD Systems' latest installment of their signature Photo Studio product line, ACDSee emerges as a solid contender to Photoshop CC and Lightroom. With ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2018 you can edit RAW images seamlessly, all within the one application with GPU-accelerated layers. The release introduces Smart Erase, giving Adobe's Magic Wand a run for its money, and making it easier than ever to remove unwanted people or objects from photos.

"We're excited to provide our users with even more creative editing tools that remove limitations from what they can do with their photos," said Mark Cosgrove, ACD Systems' Director of Production. "Smart Erase, for example, lets the user remove what they want from the image, and Photo Studio will fill in the area with a natural background. Liquify can be used to move pixels without changing them. And ACDSee Mobile Sync is going to jump-start their workflow by getting the images into ACDSee Photo Studio wirelessly."

ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2018 is available for a lifetime license for $149 USD or through a subscription starting at $69/year, which provides users access to regular updates and upgrades. The program is currently only available for Windows-based computers. http://www.acdsee.com/en/products/photo-studio-ultimate

ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate's fundamental features include:
- RAW photo editing
- Digital asset management
- Parametric image editing (non-destructive editing)
- Layered editing with adjustment layers

In a blog post by ACD Systems (http://www.acdsystems.com/en/community/post/ultimate2018), you can find an overview of ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2018's innovations and features, including:
- Smart Erase: Select unwanted objects for removal and use the Smart Erase function to fill in the area with a matching background.
- Liquify tool: Allows you to distort objects in images without compromising quality.
- ACDSee Mobile Sync: Wirelessly and instantly send photos and videos directly to ACDSee Photo Studio from your mobile device.
- ACDSee Actions Browser: Manage recordings, and batch apply any of 125+ pre-loaded recordings to multiple images at once.
- Frequency Separation: Smooth out flaws without losing texture.
- Pixel Targeting: Select and mask by targeting specific brightness ranges and colors within the image.
- Polygon Selection tool: Select around edges and irregular shapes.

"Photo Studio Ultimate streamlines my workflow, allowing me to spend more time shooting, and less time editing," said Manfred Baumann, world-renowned photographer. "I never need to purchase and run multiple applications; ACDSee does it all."

For a complete list of new features, performance enhancements and other improvements, please see the ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2018 release notes here:
http://www.acdsee.com/en/support/photo-studio-ultimate-2018/release-notes/2018-0