Schewe,
sorry to have missed introduction and apologies for the missing C.
About myself:
I an a mechanical engineer, live in Rome, Italy, photography is for me is a passion more than a hobby.
Started when I was ten, giving a lot of trouble to the only artigianal photo lab of my little town (many times, visiting him, I did not pay full attention to the black curtains introducing to the darkroom).
My first reflex was an all manual russian Zenith (could not afford anything more).
I developed and printed myself BW, color negs and slides (Cibachrome) for 40 years. After a lot of initial resistance eventually I moved to digital. At same time started to scan a selection of my traditional photos: a long work, but a nice way to revive the past in no hurry.
My equipment: Canon 5D, 20D and 300D with a few lenses, a Panasonic Z50, a few Sony compacts for quick notes, a Nikonscan 5000ED and an Epson V700.
Computers: Dell 9150, 2 G Ram, and, sadly I admit, Windows. I love the Macs of my sons and friends that I use often, but I need full compatibility with the office and ... I have mixed feelings with Aperture.
I have not completely abandoned film: I use sometimes my Fujica W645 scanning the negs that I still develop myself. Sadly I don't use much my old Canons and their many FD lenses. When job time will allow I will retry them in BW. My darkroom equipment is taking dust in the attic.
My favourite subjects: Family (including the very day I met my wife), Landscape (for this I love Luminous Landscape), stitched panoramas; would like to do some reportage, but that has to wait my retirement.
My son has started a web site with some of my scans of his choice:
www.glcphoto.com. Critics to him not to me.
Raw processing:
started with DPP, used a long time RSP, then ACR, then Lightroom, then tried Silkypix, C1 and .. . eventually after several thousands conversions I found RawTherapee so good that I was surpised and taken by enthusiasm. I have redone with RT most of my previous conversions: maybe just because I learned a lot meanwhile, but for sure I get consistently more pleasant results. Post process: Picture Windows Pro, Norman Koren has been my guru.
My intention with RT is to get opinions from those more qualified than me, along with suggestion to Gabor for improvements. Frankly to qualify a proposal to try and a few tips for first approach as "blatant evangelizing" is a shade too much: why use such less then gentle terms: shouldn't courtesy be part of the forum etiquette ?)
No grudge anyhow, compliments for your Web site (the selfportrait is a bit intimidating a rebuke from you has to be taken very seriously !) and, mostly, your beautiful works of art.
Gabriele