paddler4

" I spoke to a Customer Service Rep from Adobe the other day and he said he could upgrade my computer to Windows 10 for free as long as I subscribe to their Cloud Photoshop package which includes the Latest Version of Photoshop and Lightroom. It cost about $20 per month " This is what I was referring to, but you only need to spend half that much. $20 gets you 1TB of cloud storage. I have never used any of their cloud storage. You can get the same software with 20 GB of cloud storage for $10. See https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/photography/compare-plans.html. All of this runs fine on Windows 10, which I use, but I' not sure you can update from Windows 7 to Windows 10, given that Windows 11 was released a year and a half ago. Maybe there is still some way to upgrade to Windows 10. Any decent editing software will offer at least basic color management tools. You say you have Affinity Photo and ACDSee. I believe both offer color management. See: https://digital-photography-school.com/color-management-in-affinity-photo/ https://help.acdsystems.com/en/acdsee-pro-9/Content/1Topics/7_Options_configuration/Setting_options/IDDH_OPTIONS_COLORMANAGEMENT.htm

You can also use Adobe's free DNG converter to convert your raw files to DNGs that old versions can read. However, if you are selling your work, $10/month for up-to-date software would seem like a very good investment, given the enormous improvements that have been made in the software in the 13 years since CS5 was released. In addition, you would get Lightroom thrown in. Then again, it's not for me to say how other folks should spend their money. From your post, I think you may be missing a bit of how raw converters work. When you edit a raw file in what are called parametric editors, all the software is doing is accumulating commands for editing and rendering the image accordingly on the screen. In Adobe products, these changes are stored either as XML "sidecar" files or in the Lightroom catalog (if you set Lightroom to do that). The actual image data are not altered until you store a new file in another format, such as JPEG or TIFF. So, when you go back to the parametric editor, you usually have a choice of whether to render the image with or without the stored edits. That's not the case with programs like Photoshop, which will alter actual pixels. I agree with Rodeo Joe: don't convert to JPEG, which is a lossy format, until you need to. Use TIF to move from a raw converter to anything else. In your initial editing, before you have to export for the web or some other purpose, you should use the widest gamut possible for your working space. What you have done in DPP is throw out all of the colors outside of the sRGB gamut. You can't get them back. That is, you can't display the entire Adobe RGB gamut if you've limited the image to sRGB. Beyond this, I can't figure out what the cause of your problem is. Note that if you don't have a wide gamut monitor, you can't get more than sRGB on your monitor, no matter how you set software. Most monitors can't display more than sRGB, if even that. Photoshop should have no difficult reading a file that has been assigned any of the standard color profiles, and it should manage colors appropriately. The exception is that if the color profiles (in the file and expected by Photoshop) don't match and you choose the wrong option, colors will look off.

I don't use DPP, but I have a guess as to what your problem is. As Rodeo Joe said, raw files don't have a color space assigned. JPEGs do. My guess is that you have DPP set to assign Adobe RGB to JPEGs and you didn't have photoshop set up to use that assigned profile. If your copy of photoshop is set up correctly, it will correctly render whatever JPEGs you open. You can set photoshop so that it will ask you what to do if you open a file that has a color space assigned that isn't what you have set for your working space. You can keep that profile or change it. Go to Edit-Color Settings and check the boxes at the bottom next to "Profile Mismatches" and "missing profiles." "Color Temperature is not the same thing thing as Color Space, but rather its the variable settings on your camera such as: Sunny, Cloudy, Tungsen, Shade, Flash etc that are supposed to match the color temperature that you took your picture(s) in." Sort of. Those aren't fundamentally what temperature is; those are just labels for common temperature settings. Hues can be represented as a wheel, and when that is done, it requires position on two orthogonal axes (at right angles to each other) to represent any color. Any two orthogonal axes will do, but by convention, one goes from yellow to blue and the other goes from magenta to green. By convention, the first is labeled temperature (the reason has to do with physics) while the second is usually labeled "tint." If you watch carefully when you use a white (or neutral gray) area to set white balance, you will often see that tint changes, not just temperature.

Not the case unless you are shooting JPEG. If you are shooting raw, there is no color space, but the range of data is sufficient to be rendered as ProPhoto.

I've done some informal testing of Schewe's advice, using a Canon Prograf printer (native resolution 300/600 dpi). Schewe's advice is to avoid substantial downsizing, so to use the higher native printer resolution with a print that roughly matches or exceeds the number of dpi at the selected print size. Printing on coated paper, I was able to see slight improvement in the large images printed at 600 dpi when using a magnifying glass, but in actual practice, at least with eyes as old as mine, there was not an appreciable practical difference. As a practical matter, printing at 300 dpi is fine. One caveat: I print from Lightroom, which Schewe recommends but that many people disdain. It handles resizing very well and very simply You just make sure that the print resolution is set to one of the printer's native resolutions and let the software handle resizing.

A disadvantage of Silver Efex Pro: Lots of presets. I almost entirely gave up Nik because I had no idea what I was doing with it. It's for the most part a huge collection of "filters" that aren't described--that is, it's nearly impossible to find out what the ingredients of their recipes are. I had a very small number that I used fairly often (in particular, Color Efex Tonal Contrast), but I found it very frustrating that I didn't know what the filter includes and therefore couldn't plan how to integrate it into the rest of my edits. So, in that particular case, I experimented to figure out how to replicate the filter without Nik (local contrast with a luminosity blend, with saturation added to taste) and stopped using Nik. It's all a matter of personal preference, but like Dog, I prefer to roll my own. Speaking of local contrast: for the limited B&W I do, that's often a key part of the workflow. I use three tools: texture and clarity in Lightroom and Unsharp Mask with a very large radius in Photoshop. I no longer use clarity much because it mixes local contrast with midtone contrast and is a pretty blunt tool. Texture appears to be a pure local contrast adjustment, similar to sharpening but coarser (lower frequency). Like all tonality adjustments, local contrast increases saturation in RGB space, so when doing color, I often do the USM adjustment with a luminosity blend mode unless I want the boost in saturation. I haven't experimented to see what if any impact this has on B&W, but if the conversion has been done earlier, I suspect not much if any.

As I noted, a high CRI is insufficient because the CRI metric excludes many reds. Another issue is that many LEDs change color spectrum when they are dimmed. I have never seen a numerical metric for this, although one probably exists. I just did an informal test of two A19 LEDs, both nominally 3000K. One (nominally CRI=80) developed a slight sickly yellow-green cast when dimmed, while the other (supposedly CRI=95) turned a distinct blue. The Soraa BR30 bulbs I mentioned keep a consistent color when dimmed, but they are expensive. They do make an A19, but only 800 lumens.

I think what may be the issue here is that in some cases, Lightroom will give you the option of sending the new file to an external editor with or without Lightroom's edits. This is a key issue if you decide to go back to Photoshop a second time--not a great habit, but sometimes necessary. In that case, if you want photoshop to open the PSD or TIF with layers, you have to tell LR to open it without (subsequent) LR edits.

Durability varies a lot, as does the color accuracy. If you care about prints, accuracy is key, and most LEDs aren't very accurate. Some will give you a CRI rating, which is important but not sufficient because the CRI used (which is a holdover from fluorescent days) omits reds greater than R8. Good bulbs will provide both a CRI and an R9 rating, and some provide more. I use Soraa Vivid BR30 bulbs where I evaluate prints. These are CRI=95, R9=95. However, they are expensive, and I don't know if they are available on the east side of the pond.

The answer is obvious. There is no new data file created during editing. Not true of Photoshop. A few file is created only if you need it for other purposes.

The difference in underlying mechanics is clear, even though some aspects of editing in a pixel editor can be undone. Parametric editing changes the parameters in the editing algorithms but does not change pixels. It's as simple as that. Because all you are doing in Lightroom is compiling a set of xml commands--which the software doesn't even execute in the order you do them--absolutely everything can be undone. You can do hundreds of edits, and the data file remains unaltered. Is this the ideal terminology? It doesn't matter. it's what has become conventional in the photographic world. And unlike "non-permanent", "parametric" distinguishes the method by its underlying mechanics, not just its effects.

I convert and then process, making heavy use of the color sliders to emulate filters, e.g., to darken blue skys. I doubt the choice has any impact other than on what edits you decide to make. There are some exceptions, like spot healing, but for the most part, the order that Lightroom executes edits is not determined by the order in which you make them. However, your initial edits may lead you to make different choices.

For folks on this side of the pond: "white spirits" is what is most often called "mineral spirits" in the US, I think. "methylated spirits" is sometimes called "denatured alcohol" over here. For stubborn stuff, I often us a xylene-based solvent, but I have zero confidence that it would leave the optical coatings undamaged. Ditto acetone/nail polish remover. When I use alcohol, I typically use 70% isopropyl alcohol, which is more common now than denatured alcohol. Most drugstores carry it.

The issue of 1099s wasn't a Paypal decision; it was a new legal requirement. I think I saw that there has been some change in the requirement recently, but I don't recall. I don't think that would apply to selling to a vendor like KEH, but you could email them to ask. I often sell my stuff to KEH. It's effortless and stressless. In some cases, what they gave me was comparable to the average eBay sale price minus eBay fees, but in some cases, it's been lower. After all, they have to pay their rent and employees. But I find the simplicity and lack of worry worth it.

Not really. First, one can often only walk so far. On my last few trips, I took only a Lumix LX-100, which has a lens that tops out at 70mm FF equivalent. It simply wasn't long enough for a lot of what I wanted to shoot. Also, walking forward with a short lens provides a different perspective than using a longer focal length. It really all depends on what you shoot. For what I shoot, a longer lens is valuable, and this is my main dilemma in traveling: do I want something that I can stick in a fanny pack, or do I want to shlep a MILC with more than one lens? I usually opt for the former, but I've often regretted it. So I would start with which types of shooting you expect will be most important for you. for example, i don't do street photography, so my needs are very different from yours.

Exactly. Several years ago, I contacted half a dozen or more galleries to see if any would be interested in my work, with links to my website. Some ignored me, while others said no. One gallery director replied that she might be interested and asked me to bring her a box of prints. She was enthusiastic. Not only did she host a bunch of my images; she blew one up to poster size and placed it on the outside wall near the entrance. 18 months later, she contacted me to tell me that she would no longer show my work. She said she'd simply been wrong in this case about what her customers wanted and that although she really likes my work, she didn't sell enough prints, so she had to give the space to someone else. It's a business, after all.

I'm one of those people who leaves a clear filter on for protection except when there is a reason not to. Night photography is one case where I never use a clear filter. The reason is that one of the conditions where a filter can do harm is when you have light sources in front of you. Good anti-flare coatings will help, but there is still a risk of flare. So rather than take a chance, I do my night photography without a filter. However, my night photography isn't astrophotography. Stars are pretty dim. Perhaps someone who does astrophotography can weigh in about whether flare is an issue in astrophotography specifically.

The histogram shows the distribution of brightness in the image. Left is dark, right is bright. If the lab is correct that the histogram is darker (shifted to the left) in the second file, that means that you did something in your editing that made the image darker.

Not surprising given the superb AF tracking abilities of the best mirrorless cameras. Seems to me that sports photography is one of the genres for which upgrading to a new mirrorless body makes sense. For others of us, less so...

At this size, the stacking looks good, although the similar colors of the ant and the background make it a bit hard to see. What often happens is halos around edges, particularly if the surface behind the edge isn't close. There is no problem using a rail (in most cases) if it's what's most comfortable for you, but you can also simply rotate the lens to change focus a little between shots. That's what I do. If you get to very high magnification, that's another matter.

Rendering intent matters primarily if you have colors that are out of gamut. Perceptual rendering squashes the entire distribution to try to maintain the relationships among colors. Relative simply truncates (technically, censors) the distribution at the gamut boundaries. When you have no out of gamut colors in the entire color management workflow, it shouldn't matter much, if at all. I rarely find reason to use relative but try it just to see when I have appreciable out of gamut colors.

Mirrorless is obviously the future, but that in itself is no reason to change gear now. My DSLR gear works exactly as well now as it did when I bought it. At the moment, I would change only to get specific features that I would find useful. At present, there are two: far better AF tracking, and (coincidentally, nothing to do with mirrorless per se) an articulating LCD. Not enough to make me spring for it yet. I have been reading reviews of how well EF lenses work on mirrorless bodies with an adapter. The reviews are inconsistent, but taken together, they seem to suggest "pretty well, but not as well as native RF lenses in the case of difficult AF tracking situations". Given my age, I'm thinking more and more about switching to lighter gear, but if you actually do the arithmetic, you don't save all that much weight by switching to FF mirrorless, once you add in the lenses and accessories. Substantial decreases in weight at this point seem to require a smaller sensor, as well as lenses designed for the smaller image circle.

Diffraction is a function of aperture and pixel size. Coatings have nothing to do with it. See this: https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/diffraction-photography.htm However, a lack of coatings can result in more flare, which also reduces sharpness.

I do a lot of macro shots of bugs. It is a very difficult form of photography, the most difficult I do by a large measure, so be prepared to spend time studying and practicing. It's not for the faint of heart. 1. As posted, auto doesn't work. I most often shoot in full manual, f/13 or so, 1/250, with E-TTL flash to control exposure and ISO set to control how much the background is illuminated. 2. Your camera is fine; there is no need for fancy bells and whistles because everything is manual. 3. Focusing is difficult; I usually do it by setting the focus to the approximate distance I want and rocking the camera slightly on a monopod. This requires taking AF off the shutter button or putting the lens in manual focus mode. 4. 100mm on an APS-C camera is a very good length. That's my most common combination. 5. Depth of field is very narrow, but focus stacking with bugs in the field is very difficult and usually not necessary, if you keep the bug roughly parallel to the sensor and close the aperture to f/13 or so. 6. Extension tubes with a regular lens would be a cheap way to explore, but it will be very dark through the viewfinder. A screw-on macro lens (adapter) might be an alternative way to try this out. 7. Extension tubes are not necessary for shooting bugs with a macro lens, but they are for extremely close shots, that is, for magnification more than 1:1. I usually shoot with a 36mm tube on a 100mm lens. However, this is harder to do than shooting without the tube, so it's not what I would recommend for someone starting out. I only started doing this routinely after a few years of bug chasing. 8. Lighting is the big issue. I almost always use a highly diffused flash held very close to the end of the lens, although some people leave the flash in the socket on top of the camera. Sometimes available light is sufficient, but it often isn't and tends to be harsh when it is. I think this was shot with a 36mm tube: https://photography.dkoretz.net/Bugs/Bees-and-wasps/i-hddN9FC/A. No focus stacking.

David, That's precisely what I just did. I treated the C:\drive (an SSD) as a fresh installation and installed everything from scratch. I had most of my data on a second HD, and I replicated that drive. However, rather than restore the data drive from a backup, I simply cloned it to an external drive and then back to the new disk. One of my two "backups" is an external mirror that I create with a sync program (these days, the sync function in Directory Opus, which is a superb file manager), so I had that already to go; I just had to copy it back to the new drive.