#62, Justine, the XP-users who vote down my comments prove every single day that they are completely unaware of features in newer versions of Windows, just read the comments here. I've heard people say that their XP apps don't work properly on Vista+, personally I've never encountered that problem (games may be an exception), but part of it may be due to people thinking that computer hardware doesn't obsolesce along with the software, and not understanding the per-user virtualization which Vista+ perform on poorly-written apps. Microsoft essentially guarantees that software written for Vista will run on Windows 7, they make no such claim for XP software. Windows 8 is almost here, although I generally wait for SP1 versions of Microsoft products.

Windows Search never fails to find things. The files must be in an indexed location, they must have their indexing attribute set (backwards via the command-line), and you must understand how Windows Search works. I've repeatedly explained that with natural language queries and partial matching enabled, you should ensure that common words are not completely spelled out. A full match against a property name will result in the word being taken as such; most people want property values most of the time. A newly-created or modified file may not be indexed instantly, indexing is a very low priority service and contrary to some reports, it will not impact your computer's performance.

I have installed this but like many others, cannot get the activation key. Therefore, I am uninstalling. This is a sick joke, and last time I install Ashampoo anything.

GOTD should pay attention to what's going on here ... read the comment thread. The GOTD regulars can't get this to go.

In addition, there is a quite obvious and shameless spamming of the comments and voting by the vendor. It's very easy to see the continuous stream of nearly identical robot comments. This same pattern happens every time. It looks like the ravings of a cult.

As an example, especially for a bunch of grumpy dudes around here: Yes, I voted “thunbs up” even before downloading this. Because I use the previous giveaway of this program with great pleasure.

I agree with the majority of the comments insomuch that this offering is great software, packed with many wonderful features.

Having said that, I am puzzled by the fact that just above the comments column, the developer offers GOTD users a discount price on upgrading from this version, number 8, to the latest version, number 9, indicating that this version is not the current one. I was under the impression that the function of GOTD users, was to assist developers seeking to test the latest version of their products for usability and/or bugs etc. This is not their latest version and will very shortly be as obsolete as its predecessors.

thumbs up again to a-shampoo, this slow learner has made usual mistakes with gotd but with hindsight I now go slowly, use custom install & just select d/top icon to avoid new toolbar.As for moans about spam etc., all free tv & newspapers are financed by advertising, sometimes massive,free google, chrome, free a-shampoo financed by adverting but not excessive, as for keys & info make new folder to keep a-shampoo e-mails. gotd are FREE offers, you can still use DELETE.

Thanks Ashampoo! It has always been a good experience working with you folks and I can always count on a quality product many of which I use. It is great that you track my registration numbers and so easily recognize me when needed.

This time "setup" is not a yellow key, it's a blue box that weighs 95.6MB. It's Ashampoo Photo Commander 8 Setup application. So if we delete it as the yellow keys for setup can be deleted, is the program still operational and functional?

Important - I don't want to keep something of no use taking so much space on my computer. Thanks

Today I've got 4 new Ashampoo Utilities - for free
so now I'll make a redesign of my home and also prepare a slide show for my pals in the club - well, soon :-)

Thanks for the hint to #38, Paco !

Haven't tested it yet, but... The installation program detected my OS language (French) and installed in French. Very happy about that. Thanks Ashampoo and GAOTD!

Drat! - darn near forgot ...

Wanted to add that each and every comment made - either for or against a piece of software is good reading - I always learn a lot and especially love the tips and hints for use that so many are kind enough to add.

Wahoo! Thanks so much for offering this. Have PhotoShop and several other pro versions of programs but the ease of renaming photos alone would make this worthwhile.

Really apppreciate our great site here and a thank you once again to Shampoo for offering so many things.

Wow this software is very good with photo editing I have not used all the features yet but I am impressed. This one is a Keeper!!!!!!!!!!

Like Steve and Bull I can't get a registration key, and I've checked Spam. Should I uninstall/reinstall?

After reading the comments and web reviews, I agree it does sound like a great program. I am using Picasa 3 & Windows Live Gallery & I can tag photos, face recognition, create html web slide shows etc. Any extra comments about adding this & what benefits I would get would be greatly appreciated.

Wow! What a program! I agree with commentator #3. My bread-and-butter editor has been XnView, but this program has a whole lot more. This is a keeper for me, too.

I installed the pkg, requested registration key but I have not received email with registration code, I have tried 4 times. I have looked in junk folder also

I really wanted to like this as a faster alternative to ACDSee, but it seems to be buggy on my vanilla 32 bit Vista system. On a large (2560 pixel wide) monitor when viewing a single image half the frame displays as black. Problem disappears on a standard width monitor. Unfortunately the whole point of a large monitor for me is photo viewing so if this software can't handle that, out it goes.

Like #60, I have installed but not received registration key. And yes I have checked my spam box.

#63 -- I checked my inbox, my spam, my trash but so far (20 minutes) nothing has arrived. What is your suggestion for my next step? (I've retried asking for an email and am still waiting.)

@49 Steve

http://www.ashampoo.com/frontend/registration/php/regpopinstall.php?session_langid=3&edition_id=wvrkdwaitruitccom1r9uhtisgcohqc0

FILL IN YOUR EMAIL AND SEND

Beware. Installing this software may hijack your home pages, destroy your preferences file (especially in Google Chrome), and install additional unwanted toolbars. This company resorts to these bad practices and in a previous install I unknowingly clicked through the setup process as I have done in literally thousands of other software installs and the results were shocking. My home pages in Firefox, Chrome, and Internet Explorer were all changed. Toolbars were added to Firefox and Internet Explorer. Chrome suffered the worst fate, their changes corrupted my preferences file and I had to reinstall all of the extensions, change back the homepage, and spend a lot of time reconfiguring Chrome. It still isn’t as it was. This practice should not be allowed and this company is very sneaky for using this practice. The more people that send them this message, the more likely they will stop there hijacking ways by installing unwanted software on your systems. Good luck and again … Beware.

Just installed on Win 7 x64. Licensed easily and activation code is stored on Ashampoo's site, as well as local, in case it's needed for re-install. Much of the software from GOTD cannot be re-installed, wich in this case, is a definate advantage. The software worked great right from the start and is a keeper for me :)

Thanks GOTD and Ashampoo.
BigPotz

Sorry to be a simpleton, but any reason I can't download this onto a zip drive and just plug it in when I need to work with photos? 100 MB is going to fill too full a small laptop like mine and I do run 7 but it slows over much less and freezes over a drop of graphics!
I know I'm to old to pick up this technology gracefully so forgive my gray hair intrusion but I would like to Thank GOTD for presenting software for folks to investigate at no monetary cost and Thank the fellas posting reviews here that inform and guide us old newbies... (even a frustrated highbrow intent on scolding can be helpful.)
Cheers! Keep an eye on your own ego if you find your important, mankind is but a duck fart in the universe!

at least the help file was in English and could find how to set it to ENGLISH

A quick question why the heck is it in Chinese

On a scale off 1-10, where 10 is best, this is 11 :-)

Anyone else has trouble downloading the zip file?
It doesn't seem to start and times out using both IE and FireFox

Any suggestions?
Thanks

I have Ashampoo Burning Studio (Free) and I'm totally happy with it and I registered on their website and I have never received any junk mail...

I won't be downloading this because I have no idea what it does that any other photo viewer can't do (I use Windows...).

However... just a few days ago another Ashampoo giveaway got SLATED because of the e-mails, the tool-bars, the browser hi-jacks, the pop-ups, the registration process.... (I even defended my burning studio).

After reading the other comments I decided to install this. The information on the website is very lacking, this is more useful and less harmful than implied, but it is 120 MB. It does have a database, but that's apparently just a cache. It does allow you to create virtual albums, personally that's a feature which I would never use, tagging is the preferred method and the one supported by Windows. As I noted previously, it lacks basics like automatic face tagging. The viewing/organizing isn't useful to me, I much prefer Win7's Windows Explorer and Windows Live Photo Gallery 2011. Windows Live Movie Maker 2011 will do sophisticated slideshows. For ease of use and some sophisticated features, I would prefer Windows Live Photo Gallery 2011, but Ashampoo Photo Commander has numerous features and is an all-in-one product. Zoner Photo Studio is much more sophisticated but the feature sets are different. I didn't find Photo Commander's automatic optimization to be very useful, in most cases the results were poor. Zoner generally did better in that respect, and Windows Live Photo Gallery has good automatic and excellent manual optimization features. For general editing, I like paint.net, it has layers which mike requires, it has numerous plugins and supports Photoshop plugins via a plugin. There was another editor like a stripped-down version of paint.net written in Delphi which mike found which was actually pretty good, but I don't remember the name right off, I liked its selection tools better than paint.net's. Ashampoo Photo Commander has a similar-picture finder, but it's hopeless, I strongly recommend PictureRelate. Although I probably won't much use Ashampoo Photo Commander, except for the space requirements it's a good application to have in case you need a specific feature which it has, as it has many. It did go away at times, but by the time I clicked on Task Manager on the Taskbar, it came back (or doing so caused it to). The installer says it's installing drivers, but the "driver" files are just large XML files with parameters related to a vast number of CD/DVD burners.

#40, ric, Lightroom isn't directly comparable. It has excellent algorithms in general (automatic color processing had problems before version 3.5), but it's designed for batch processing and isn't an image editor. I find that the parameters behave very differently from other image processors. You're paying for the Adobe name, the quality (although the installer isn't very good), and good RAW support. It keeps track of your adjustment history per image, which must be imported. I got it cheap, I wish that I could get Photoshop cheap but the lowest sale price I've seen is $450, which is more than I'm willing to pay.

#42, Jefrow, PictureRelate can display multiple similar pictures side-by-side.

#48, Joe T., I've revised my comments in this post, Ashampoo Photo Commander isn't bad but it does take up a lot of space, and as I noted, I still prefer Windows and free Microsoft tools for most tasks, but Photo Commander has specific features which may be useful (more so for others than for me). I was serious about not hiring people who are stuck on XP, I would expect anyone that I hired in any position other than a janitor to be reasonably up-to-date with computers. Most of the comments about Photo Commander seem to be about its organization/viewing features, and Vista+ and the free Microsoft tools are already much better at that.

Thumbs up for Ashampoo products and their staff, I have been using many of them for a long time and I have been very happy with all of them and the services they provide, I will be adding this one to one of my laptops, after reviewing this one, they get another thumbs up, thanks to all...

Installed on Lenovo laptop with Windows 7. I've been very happy with Zoner from an earlier GAOTD, but thought I'd give this a try. Zoner sometimes has difficulty moving files to and from folders on external drives. I'm hoping Ashampoo works, but can't test that till later today.

One minor issue was that the file associations did not take when I set them within the Ashampoo settings (Configuration -> Settings -> Associations). I put checks by all graphic files for Ashampoo, but Zoner was still the default (even after a reboot). The workaround was to right click on the major picture file types in Windows Explorer (.jpg, .bmp, .png., .gif, etc.) and "open with ..." then "choose default program."

#60 BULL - CHECK YOUR SPAM MAIL !

#48, I don't mind blunt assessments or differing opinions and I don't particularly like Vista either.

I think there is a way to be blunt without coming across as condescending. It's presumptuous to say that a person who likes XP isn't up with the times in general. People can prefer something that another finds antiquated without being behind.

I happen to have some pretty good software that I like that runs best on XP, not so well on Vista, and is useless in Windows XP mode since graphics cards are limited in XP mode. And I am certain there are companies and government agencies that may have had customized software that would be useless had they migrated to Vista. Plus it may not have been a financially sound move and server issues may have prevented it.

Oh and I have found that the powerful Windows 7 Search tool sometimes cannot find a file located within the directory in which I am searching so it's sort of hit and miss. Just as System Restore seems to work initially and then after a time it can no longer work without going into safe mode (which can also be hit and miss). And of course some of this functionality may also vary from system to system.

It is entirely possible to say you find a piece of software complete rubbish without seemingly insulting anyone who may disagree.

This seems to be a very good software. Used Ashampoo products sometimes back but none installed right now. As for this one- I will have to compare it with ACDSee and keep the best one out of the two.

I have everything installed but it refuses to give me a registration key. I click on the bar that reads, "Request FREE Full Version Key" and nothing happens. :(

@Steve (#49):
You may want to check if you have some security software running that's blocking your registration; in my case everything went smoothly with my AV, firewall and anti-spyware running.
If you still have problems try and contact ashampoo @ http://www.ashampoo.com/uk/usd/sde/0000.

Good luck

I don't know whether my comments will show up in time to be of use to anyone because it takes a while and it's already close to 9 am PST.

First, thanks GOTD for listening to those of us who requested that you go back to providing a link to previous giveaways from the same publisher.

#44 is right. You never have to buy most of these Ashampoo products at any where near full price since they have discounts quite often. I would wait for the $10 or less ones depending on the software.

I have Zoner 13 and Photo Commander 8 on my desktop and it's not a case where one is a direct substitute for the other. Just because someone may not see a use for this software does not mean it is not useful to anyone except XP users. It has some creative options not found in Zoner that some may like. I agree that version 9 is not worth buying for $50 when you can find superior photo editing software for that price but this is free and simple enough for people who don't need to work in layers and want to create fast and easy photo collages, etc.

I do not particularly like the crop tool. I also do not like that the white border that appears around photos. But I am certain that people who want photo software that is easy to use and won't frustrate them when trying to do a really simple task, might find this suitable.

#14: "... This program is huge..."

:-) just as a reality check, The GIMP portable = 135 MB -- my P/Shop CS4 32 bit program folder = 619 MB [not including all the other stuff it installed], with another 350 MB in the 64 bit folder -- the program folder for Corel PaintShop Photo Pro ult X3 [again not including all the other stuff it added] = 691 MB -- CorelDraw X5 = 988 MB & so on. OTOH I've got older graphics apps from companies like Macromedia that total out in the 20 GB range. Big hard drives mean software developers don't worry 'bout that stuff nowadays. :-)

* * *

#25: "I’ve used the free Gimp program for this sort of thing. Would someone please give a comparison and is it worth changing to this? THANKS."

You can do pro work with The GIMP -- while your results with Photo Commander can be quite good, without layers & plug-in support there's just a lot you can't do. OTOH I'm one of those people who feel that using The GIMP is just not very intuitive -- IMHO Photo Commander is Much easier. If you get along in or with The GIMP right now, there's likely little reason to change -- if you find it harder than it should be, & can get away without using layers etc., go for Today's GOTD &/or upgrade to 9.

* * *

#51: "The only suggestion I have is for this program to support more media formats. MOV is not recognised. "

The help files for both v. 8 & 9 both list mov as something Photo Commander will read but not write. As a container like avi or mkv however, not all mov files are created equal, & mileage will vary based on what's inside that mov file. If you like Photo Commander & want/need to import a particular type of mov files, you might try v. 9 to see if it works any better, or check the actual content format & see if there's an easy way to change it to something else without a re-encode... if you've got Quicktime Pro it may be as simple as a save-as, or you might find that ffmpeg will re-write it in a new avi container just fine.

I was very happy to see another Ashampoo product today and installed and activated it without any problem (Win7/64bit), and yes, it's very easy NOT to install the unwanted search engine, etc, just by paying attention. I really like the Ashampoo music program given away recently and this one looks like a keeper also. Though I'm not a professional photographer and only played around with a few family photos before posting this, I have to say they really look SO much better! Thank you GOTD and many thanks to Ashampoo for a chance to try another one of their great products.

This is a customer oriented software vendor with some really nice software. I have purchased many of their offerings over the years. They will keep you updated through e-mail about new products/versions, but I am OK with that. This particular software is fantastic and I have had previous versions so no doubt I will be downloading and using this as well.

Ashampoo Photo Commander is a great app -- I've got a copy of v.8 that I bought & installed on my wife's PC -- but it's not for pro or semi-pro image editing, nor does it claim or try to be. It's extremely easy to use, & while it comes with a decent help file, I don't think many (most?) people will really need it. One of the reasons that I like Photo Commander so much is that its design is completely up front & honest... no matter where you are in the program you can easily see what you can do, what tools or options are available. You don't have to step through a wizard just to find out that it didn't do what it claimed it would. You don't have an overload of *helpful* hints that always seem to be talking down to you, as if you're an idiot. Ashampoo didn't try to hide or bury features out of fear that you might get confused or get less than perfect results. And you don't have to try & figure out what something actually does because some designer felt that a dumbed down, cutesy name somehow made whatever function easier to use -- you may be less experienced but you're not 5 years old.

Photo Commander is an Image Editing app that can also help you manage your image collection -- while it does do well cataloging your images, if all you want to do is catalog/manage your collection, you might prefer software that focuses just on cataloging &/or database creation/management. Roxio, Nero, & Adobe for example all have separate apps for that [bundled with other products], &/or you could use whatever database app to keep track of exactly what's important to you. If OTOH what you want is a quick, one click image enhancing app -- you want your images to look better but don't want/need to spend time editing -- Ashampoo has their Photo Optimizer 3 & 4. If you want/need to do light to medium duty editing [there's no layer or P/Shop filter support], Photo Commander should fit the bill, & IMHO is one of the easiest, most common sense apps you'll find.

Installation adds the "\Ashampoo\ Ashampoo Photo Commander 8" program folder with 777 files, 27 folders, ~120 MB, a 2nd "\Ashampoo\ Ashampoo Photo Commander 8" folder under User\ App/Application Data, a "Ashampoo Pictures" folder to My Pictures [with 17 sample images], & a "ashampoo" folder to All Users\ App/Application Data. I recorded 714 new registry entries, though most all of those are in 2 Ashampoo keys + 1 for uninstall, so easy to remove. The Ashampoo web site has a Plugin Pack [ashampoo_photocommander_plugin_pack_sm.exe -- ~4.4 MB] adding your choice of: DDS PlugIn (APC_DDS.dll) ... HDR DDS file format (*.dds), EXR PlugIn (APC_EXR.dll) ... Industrial Light&Magic HDR file format (*.exr), FPX PlugIn (APC_FPX.dll, fpxlib.dll, jpeglib.dll) ... Kodak Flashpix file format (*.fpx). Installing all 3 meant 2 new "PlugIns" folders, one at C:\ & 1 inside the program's folder, + 3 uninstall files in C:\Windows\ , while the registry got an uninstall key. Photo Commander v. 9 installs alongside of v. 8, has almost identical impact on Windows [it's ~40 MB bigger], & doesn't change or overwrite anything from v.8, so it should be both fairly easy & painless should you install the two for a side by side comparison.

Personally I've come to rely on layers an awful lot, so when I'm working with images I'm usually in one of the Corel apps or Photoshop. But P/Shop's too expensive [I only upgrade when I have to (or else I'll lose upgrade pricing)], & Adobe has become known for installation issues, as in too often their software either won't install or has to be re-installed periodically [e.g. Encore]. Corel's PaintShop Photo Pro is nice [& the old v. X3 is now cheap], but there can be install issues [Google/Bing for examples], & it falls all over itself, is more confusing IMHO because Corel tried too hard to make it easy. Corel PhotoPaint is an old favorite I've used for years & years, but the last time I upgraded it broke Windows Installer, & anything I print from it tends to have a bad color cast from their built-in color mgmt. And I find The GIMP a bit confusing -- to me it's very non-intuitive based on my other graphics apps, so I always lose time. Long story short anything I'd recommend for really serious image editing comes with a significant Gotcha.

For less involved editing OTOH I have no trouble recommending Photo Commander at all. I personally prefer it to Adobe Photoshop Elements as well other home user-oriented image editing apps, in no small part because of its straightforward design. Some of the freeware image editors are as capable if not more-so, but I believe by definition home user apps should be very intuitive & easy to use, & a great many like XnView aren't really all that friendly to a novice.

#40 Ric "The AShampoo metadata pane has a squashed column which you cannot adjust the width and the font is too big"
That's the reason I uninstalled PC8, I did tried out PC9 and it's
better in this regard

Thanks GOTD & Ashampoo. The only suggestion I have is for this program to support more media formats. MOV is not recognised. :-( Other than that the lay out is nice and easy to use, perfect for beginners. I love the way it shows your video in a small screen on the left of the thumbnail list.

Last time Ashampoo offered "Photo Commander 8" it was the version 8.3.2 (2010-10-18) here on GAOTD.
Todays offer is "Photo Commander 8" and this is version 8.5 !
Thanks Ashampoo ! I wait 6 months and get "Photo Commander 9" for freee here at GAOTD !

Hi,

Can someone paste the link for the page where you request of the registration key, please?

I keep pressing the button on the startup screen, but nothing happens.

Thanks,
Steve

Thanks Fubar, as usual. Always good for GAOTDers to not clog their PCs with things they might not need. Calling out this special thanks because you're getting marked down quite a bit, perhaps by those who don't like blunt assessments, or don't like differing opinions (cognitive dissonance, anyone?), or by receptionists who don't know Vista.

Your posts are always appreciated (but obviously not by everybody).

just to add to my last comment I also owned v8 it also ran great on my win 7\64 amd 6x pc. And to say Photo Comm and Zoner are about equal is giving Zoner a big vote because I do like Photo Comm much

Unfortunately I will not have access to an internet connection with my computer in time to download this GOTD version of Photo Commander v.8, so will have to wait for it to come round again! Rats!! :-(

I'm afraid I will pass on testing this software. I have tried Ashampoo products in the past, and while the products themselves were fine, the amount of email from them was not. I understand you can unsubscribe. I shouldn't have to. Message to Ashampoo: Cut down on the inbox noise.

Many thanks to Rob *(#4 above)for the discussion about "albums".

I have owned Photo Commander 9 for several months now (caught it during one of those "It's the Ashampoo mail clerk's birthday" sales back in late spring / early summer. It is really fantastic, albeit sometimes quirky, but so what.

Later in the summer Cyberlink offered that incentive whereas if you participated in their beta testing, you could get a free license for a copy of their all-new Photo Director 2011 .... But --gak!-- it wants everything in "albums". Other than that little deal-killer, Photo Director is quire sleek and fun to use.

Rob, thanks for the low-down about albums. Yes, they are hazardous to your PC health. I keep Photo Director only because it has some very interesting and well-engineered slideshow capabilities (not that Ashampoo's Photo Commander doesn't).

BTW it is definitely worth your time and money to get on Ashampoo's mailing list and wait them out a while. I am sure that soon it will be the office janitor's birthday, and they'll do another one of those $10 for any software sales.