My suggestions (my perspective, which may be wrong, it often is!) are:

1. Yes, replace that fine old, bullet-proof Toshiba. It's obviously done a sterling job for you over the last 7 years, but with a screen failure, there's a better than average chance that the motherboard or other components will be next... And it really isn't economical to replace those old failing parts. Any known & respected manufacturer (I personally like HP, Toshiba, and Dell), with an Intel Core I7 processor, ideally a solid state hard drive of at least 250 Gb . This will be a little faster than a bigger but spindle-mounted drive like a 1Tb; however sometimes these bigger, standard drive laptops are offered with excellent discounts.

2. Buy an external mobile hard drive, as your back-up device (I'm sure some folks here will recommend you buy two; they are relatively cheap). I love the Western Digital Passport Drives at the moment; not only do they have bullet-proof backup software ready to go & a 3-year warranty, but they are also being discounted quite heavily to corner market share. I just upgraded my backup hardware with two of these in the 2Tb size, for less than $80 each.

3. Once you have a good working hardware platform like this, you can then experiment & decide on your software upgrade? You might also want to/need to buy a cable or two, to connect laptop to your larger monitor/TV; again, that's down to your personal preference & how you like to work on your hobby.

Hope this advice helps, and have fun with the digital photography experience!

Hi,

You have equipment you like; you have software you like; yes, a new computer is always needed, one that is fast with lots of memory for quick operation and a couple of large external storage drives; I use a Mac so no info on what to buy. Sounds to me like you want to work on the artistic side of your work and this takes little in the way of camera equipment or computers. It takes a lot of work with learning composition and all other aspects of photography, from the technical skill of how to use your camera to what makes a good piece of art. After you accomplish this, then look for other equipment as needed. BTW, Lightroom is both a digital asset management program and a processing program so it's a sort of "two-fer," I suppose. I like LR a lot and have been using it for several years, along with other programs. There are also other programs that provide both benefits. It actually sounds like you know what you have been doing that is not so-right, so just change that and your photography will most likely improve.

Your digital asset management program - iMatch - is fine. No need to replace it. Phototools is a mature company and their product is extremely well thought out, based on the trial I downloaded. It has many of the features of Lightroom's catalog and management, but is a more "open" product that can manage all sorts of files.

A thought about Photoshop. It is the best supported photo and graphics editor in the industry. 90% of those using it are likely only using 25% of its capabilities. So, it is logical to thing that it is more than you need, but that is fairly typical for a piece of software that is so broad in scope and deep in capability. It is more like a spreadsheet - you can use it for a million uses - from scientific and financial analyses to inventory management, project management, or simply keeping a simple flat list of "stuff". It's capability should not be a disincentive for getting it. But it has a raw converter (Adobe Camera Raw), file browser (Bridge) and the best editor in the business. There is nothing you can't do with it. Will you ever "need" all that it offers? Most likely not. Can you learn it easily enough to use it for your specific needs without having to master all 600 commands and thousands of techniques - of course you can. There are countless videos, tutorials, demonstrations, courseware etc, much of it free, that will help you learn what you need to know.

A computer to run this stuff is simple - i7 quad core cpu, 16 gb ram (preferably 32, or at least room to expand to 32), a solid state system drive, USB 3/3.1/C connectivity so that your external drives will have a fast connection, and a discrete graphics card with 2 gb VRAM (not Intel CPU based graphics which shares memory with the operating system and programs). A laptop will cost you about 30%-50% more than a comparable performing desktop.

External drives like Passports and My Drives and other packaged retail solutions are universally horrible. They fail at an alarming rate. Better to get a SDD (expensive, lower capacity) or a Western Digital Black drive which has a 5 yr warranty, and install it in a case that you can buy for around $25 - make sure the case has at least USB 3 connectivity. USB-C is better and faster. Installing the drive in the case takes about 5 minutes and you will only need a screwdriver - very easy, and much much better than the 4 TB Passport drives you can get at Walmart for $100, and may not make it beyond its 2 yr warranty.

I like Sager laptops - gamers use them as a lower cost alternative to Dell's Alienware - and they are fully customizable and as fast as most desktops when properly configured.

https://www.sagernotebook.com/home.php

My background is about the same, as in "Old guy, retired, strictly amateur, but an avid picture-taker..." I used to think that the "peak" of my photography fun may have been my Tri-X days and the darkroom I built. A job change forced a move and I lost the dark room. I spent a couple decades dreaming of the old darkroom and shooting with a Canon Elph when I had to take a picture of something. But, it was not very exciting.

After retirement, my granddaughters showed some photography interest. I decided to help. The tables turned as I started answering their questions. I forced me to look beyond the Canon Elph.

The BIG DEAL for me was the discovery of Lightroom and RAW shooting. Sure, a few people hate Adobe and their CC rental plan. I'm not one of them. I one of the several million that joyfully give them the $10 every month. Like the old darkroom, Lightroom and Photoshop give me endless opportunities to learn and use both new and old techniques.

SRT101fan, I encourage you to fix your computer issue and then commit to the Adobe plan. Don't try to conquer it all at once. Shoot a few dozen RAW shots and discover the adjustment (development) capabilities. Odds are you'll have more fun with photography than ever.

Just to be sure I say it, Adobe's stuff is not better or worse than the others. But, as king of the mountain, the learning options are exponentially greater than for all the other photography tools combined. Don't commit to the Adobe rental plan because it is better in itself. It is only better because there are so many avenues to rich learning experiences.

Get your computer fixed, good luck and have a lot of fun!

Spend decent money on a monitor and a calibrator (DataColor Spyder5Pro+ or similar item from X-RITE). A good calibrated and ICC-profiled monitor is a necessity for accurate color imaging, whether the destination is screen or printer. Monitor and calibrator together should run about $500 for full sRGB color gamut, and more, if you want Adobe RGB.

A faster computer is in order. AT LEAST 8GB RAM, 2.5GHz dual core i5, 1TB hard drive, etc. Get something that would work for gaming... It's usually fine for photo editing. Consider getting an SSD drive for it. SSDs are an order of magnitude faster than conventional hard drives, so I/O operations (reading from and writing to disk) go MUCH faster. Photo editing is fairly I/O intensive. Video editing is even more I/O intensive.

As others have indicated, look at Affinity Photo. For $50 or so, once, it is a bargain. Photoshop does everything, but probably is overkill for most hobbyists/enthusiasts. I use Photoshop and Lightroom CC, but I do professional level work, and grew up with both of those tools. If you sell your work, $10/month is a bargain. If not, well... do you get that much value from it?

Getting a decent monitor and calibrator really isn't intimidating. The key is calibration (linearizing the output of the monitor so it produces perfect gray at all brightness levels from black to white) and profiling (telling the operating system's color management system EXACTLY what YOUR SPECIFIC DEVICE can do. With a calibrated and profiled monitor, you know that the color you see is displayed as accurately as it can be on your equipment.

I have an iMac. I calibrate and profile it once a month. The procedure is quite simple — I plug in the USB "hockey puck" (colorimeter). Start the software. Follow instructions on screen. Review the results. The software verifies that my iMac displays slightly more than the sRGB color space (pretty much the standard in most of the photo world). So my prints match my screen...

I use the same calibration kit to profile the other Macs and PC in our house. We can trust our monitors, because they are all calibrated to the same standards.

It matters when you are preparing files to send to a photo lab, post on the Internet, or print on your inkjet printer with quality inks and photo papers. And yes, it matters when you work in black-and-white, because it gives you that linearized view of your grays.