How do you know if your current vehicle (image processing software) is functioning fine if you have never compared it to alternatives?
I guess because at some point I want to stop kicking tyres and just enjoy the drive in what I have.
Discussions like this are very helpful, but one size is not going to fit all.
For example I think what I have now works, and new features or cameras will not make me a better photographer. If I need to do something new, I want to roll up my sleeves and make what I have do the job.
I have no intention of cutting off my nose to spite my face, but I'd prefer not going the subscription route. Each to his own. It doesn't make sense for me workflow wise, or financially, but good luck to Adobe.
I only upgrade LR when I have a new camera. When I went to LR6 to see my Fuji X-T2 files, I appreciated the panorama stitching. Being able to quickly see how the stitches were turning out speeded up my workflow. I use stitching a lot to change the effective focal length and f stop of a lens.
On the other hand, lights out no longer works with two screens, so I have to turn one screen off for cropping. The tech chap at Adobe was working to a script and was unable to help. Also I see that Adobe have tightened up their verification in a tiresome way, and LR appears to want to report back to Adobe regularly. I've disabled this feature. There's to much snooping nowadays under the guise of "product improvement".
CS5 is doing everything I want. I can finally make it dance under my fingertips. I wouldn't mind having the the dithering option on masks in CS6 to deal to banding, but adding noise to the mask is effective. Using Tony Kuyper's luminosity masks, Margulis's workflow panel, Nik and sundry plug-ins are more important for me and I don't want to find some random upgrade has stuffed them up à la what we see with our operating systems.
Curiously, now I've switched to Fuji, I mainly use LR as a base to load other software. I do my raw conversion in other programs, never use the sharpening or de-noising, I use Autopano for detailed stitching, and white balance the highlights, midtones and shadows separately in CS5 setting the white and blackpoints for the specific paper and profile.
The only thing I really use a lot is the print module as it's faster than Qimage and mostly the quality is just as good if the file is properly prepared.
I'm so over new cameras and software. I want to focus on where that lens is pointing and translating what I see in my mind's eye onto a lovely piece of paper on a wall.
I think this camera will do me for a long time, and when I need to go to a new model there will likely be lots of options from Affinity, One1 and others. Though I will probably go to Capture 1.
David
