Introduction

IntenseJason

IntenseJason

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Good Evening,

New member, but not a new photographer. I have thousands of mono negatives from the 90s but nothing new of note since I picked up a D70 in the early 2000s.

So I need to re-learn mono, as really I have not been happy with anything I have done digitally in black and white, the tones never seem rich enough. Standby for stupid questions.
 

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Hi there,

Up until last week I was using Aperture, I knew its days were numbered, and an upgrade to my computer finally killed it last week; I can't now install it on my new Mac.

I dislike the subscription model the Adobe use, so I messed around with Darktable for a few days. But the lack of documentation has beaten me, so I signed up with Adobe this evening. So I have Lightroom, Photoshop etc available to me.
 
IntenseJason said:
I dislike the subscription model the Adobe use, so I messed around with Darktable for a few days. But the lack of documentation has beaten me, so I signed up with Adobe this evening. So I have Lightroom, Photoshop etc available to me.
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You'll find plenty of advice on here regarding those programs but to get going I strongly recommend that you follow the tutorials from the Adobe Evangelist Julieanne Kost, which you can find HERE. Often imitated but still the best.
 
IntenseJason said:
Up until last week I was using Aperture, I knew its days were numbered, and an upgrade to my computer finally killed it last week; I can't now install it on my new Mac.
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If you have a clone of your disk from before the upgrade (you did do a backup before upgrading, didn't you? ;)), then you can simply boot from that to use Aperture when needed.

Otherwise, you could restore the backup clone to a Parallels virtual machine, which you can run from the new version of macOS. I used to regularly (and still can) run Windows XP in a Parallels VM.
IntenseJason said:
I dislike the subscription model the Adobe use, so I messed around with Darktable for a few days. But the lack of documentation has beaten me, so I signed up with Adobe this evening. So I have Lightroom, Photoshop etc available to me.
Click to expand...
Rather than succumbing to "the dark side", I use DxO PhotoLab Elite for most of my work - it really is something special.

The only thing it doesn't do that I want is clone stamping and, extremely occasionally, dropping in a part of another image, but the only time I tend to need that is when asked to take group portraits at our local elderly mentally infirm residence, where trying to get everyone looking towards the camera at the same time can be a bit tricky, so the odd head has to be "transplanted".

In which case, I go to Affinity Photo, which is a very good Photoshop clone, although it has that uncanny valley feeling about it where things are the same but look different.

Both products are buy once with costs for major upgrades, not subscription.
 
Hi Joanna,

Thanks for your comments, I will look at the Dxo and Affinity options you mention, I am still in a trial period with Adobe, so it would be nice to examine other options before I get locked in.

Unfortunately I back up in a different way - all my media files sit on a RAID NAS, completely independent from any of the computers attached. I dont ever back up the OS or application files.

To be honest though, the time had come, no new cameras are being added to Aperture now, so next time I upgrade a camera it would have become unusable for RAW development.
 
I have RAWPower on my Mac desktop and the results seem good though I haven’t got into it deeply. Also affinity photo is an alternative to Adobe
 
Digital Finger said:
I have RAWPower on my Mac desktop and the results seem good though I haven’t got into it deepl
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That looks interesting but, IMO, not as comprehensive as DxO. One feature of DxO that is highly rated is their noise reduction tool; I take a lot of pictures at jazz concerts, where I have to use 10,000 ISO. Take a look at my series I posted here All that Jazz to see the results.

Another thing I like about DxO is that you can edit the RAW settings at any time, unlike most other photo software where you have a "development" phase followed by other treatments; but where it's a one way process that you cannot revisit.
 
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I tried DxO but preferred the tonal and colour subtlety of RAWPower. I rarely take night shots so haven’t tested the noise abilities of it
 
Digital Finger said:
I tried DxO but preferred the tonal and colour subtlety of RAWPower. I rarely take night shots so haven’t tested the noise abilities of it
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Would you be so kind as to send me a file that you have processed in RAWPower, that I can proxess in DxO, so that I can make a comparison?
 
Not near my desktop sorry Joanna, but you could just download a demo

Anyway, thinking about it, comparing my edits with yours wouldn’t tell you a lot about the program
 
IntenseJason said:
Standby for stupid questions.
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There aren't any. Ignorance was never a crime, just a temporary state of being which is why questions are asked. Forums like this are here because many and various ignoramuses (all of us at one time or another!) want answers from the (more or less) knowledgeable. Just don't get me started on deliberate, wilful, criminal ignorance......:mad:
Welcome to the forum!
 
Digital Finger said:
Not near my desktop sorry Joanna, but you could just download a demo
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That's OK. I was just interested to see the kind of picture that you thought worked better.
Digital Finger said:
Anyway, thinking about it, comparing my edits with yours wouldn’t tell you a lot about the program
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No, but it would be interesting for me to see whether my familiarity in DxO could achieve the kind of results you expect without getting into yet another RAW editor ;)
 
Joanna Carter said:
That's OK. I was just interested to see the kind of picture that you thought worked better.

No, but it would be interesting for me to see whether my familiarity in DxO could achieve the kind of results you expect without getting into yet another RAW editor ;)
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Forget it !!! I just downloaded the trial, pointed it at a folder, selected an image to edit and pressed the button to show the editing panel…

5 minutes and counting and I had to force-quit to get rid of it.

I'll stick to DxO :cool:
 
Well, I managed to play with RAWPower by choosing a folder with Canon G10 RAW files (since it didn't want to play with large Nikon ones).

I'm sorry but I was not at all impressed. It's sluggish, reminds me of Apple's Photos app (it uses the same engine). The adjustments are very basic and and crude compared with DxO and the noise reduction (very necessary for Canon files) is pitiful compared to DxO's.

Which version of DxO did you try?
 
Joanna Carter said:
That's OK. I was just interested to see the kind of picture that you thought worked better.

No, but it would be interesting for me to see whether my familiarity in DxO could achieve the kind of results you expect without getting into yet another RAW editor ;)
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Oh the differences would be subtle and probably only matter to me and only apply to colour

I had a shot of a live saver ring by the side of a river-can’t remember the right term for them- and tried a comparison with Lightroom, (which was the first programme I used and noticed the colour wasn’t perfectly as I remembered) and DPP , and affinity photo, and DXO, and RAWPower,.

Only DPP which has the worst UI in existance and RAWPower got the colour right. By right I meant as I remembered and visualised the combination of the colour and luminance . It was the precise balance of the two that made me take the picture so being able to reproduce it realistically was essential: only the two mentioned managed it whereas the others made it look forced or false.

After all the high accolades I had seen for DXO it was one I gave a good workout but was left dissatisfied

I tried equally hard to get Lightroom to do it so DXO is no worse than Lightroom in that regard. I spent quite some time on this. It really was a surprise that DPP RAWPower came out top.

However as said usability is something that also cannot be sacrificed and DPP fails miserably there which just leaves one usable, and very cheap, option if I want occasionally to obtain such a colour/luminance dynamic

Istill prefer Lightroom for usability above all others
 
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