I did shoot some macro, a few years ago. Don't really see doing it now. Can't remember why I stopped, either. Something to do with equipment...

I haven't had any of my cameras out for over a year now...

Oh, I'm still here! Health issues have pretty much killed my photography, and the astro side of it was the most difficult to do, so... I check the digest every day, and post every now and again.

You wouldn't be a Welsh dentist, by any chance?

Guys, I really want to thank you all for the advice. Many threads here dissolve into verbal abuse - or at least advice on doing something else which was not asked for. This one has been a great help to me.

I followed along on some of it, and downloaded Affinity Photo - at $25 it was certainly worth a try! I then took the plunge and cut the cord with Adobe. They offered me 2 months free, but what would be the point?

I did find it amusing that the instruction manual or 'work-book' for Affinity is $45 - almost twice the (discounted) price of the program! I should be able to figure things out without that. There's always youtube if all else fails.

Thank you all again!

Thanks for posting that! It helped clear my mind of some worry. Just being able to export is a relief. Unless I come back to things later (in which case I would probably sign up again...), there really isn't a huge amount of editing that I would ever want to do to my 'masterpieces'.

The main reason is to avoid using xps files (the sidecar thingie). LR is supposed to store editing information in the dng file itself. At least, that's how I understood it. I do have the SOC originals stored, but it would be a pain to have to edit everything from scratch - always assuming that I wanted to do that.

I was scanning through my image files this afternoon. My working storage is the dng file, which I have exported (some of them) to jpeg. There are also a bunch which I have saved as tiff files, but I have no idea why...

I also checked, and Irfanview *does* handle dng files, which is good news. That has been my goto 'basic editor' for several decades, for doing resizing and simple editing. That was all I had before I hitched myself to the adobe wagon and started shooting in raw...

I use Irfanview for general access. I was talking about being able to edit. I have all the original CR2 files, untouched. I then imported them into LR as dng files, which of course were subsequently edited. I want to be able to access the final edited versions. I don't thing Irfanview works with dng files - although I could be wrong. I have been once or twice!

Oh, I have backups... To 2 different external drives - one of which is kept unpowered and unplugged to avoid any electrical snafus. Also to another hard drive which is kept in a safe deposit box at my bank. Oh, and carbonite too! Burned once, never again...

I have 2 trombones sitting on stands in the corner, but it has been over a year since I played, and that was just a piece for church.

I might have worded my original message badly, but a lot of you saw what I meant. There is obviously no problem with keeping the photo files. I do want to have access to all the work I did on them, though.
I suppose I could go through them all, saving as TIF files. A lot of them are saved post-editing as jpegs, but not all. Over the years, I have spent a whole lot of time working on them, and I would like to keep that result around.

I normally imported into LR as dng files, so the metadata is stored within, not in a sidecar file. I always thought that was an unreliable way of storing anything... Do any of these other editors work with dng files? That would be a great help, but I guess dng is an adobe standard, so possibly not.

I am grateful for all the suggestions, which I will ponder at length. No matter what, I will continue to be on UHH - I need it for my daily jokes, which I pass on through facebook to my other groups of friends around the world! I plan to keep my 5DII in any case, so that if things improve a bit, I still have the capacity to take photos. A lot of my gear will probably going up for sale, but I am not sure if it is a good idea to be selling/shipping stuff during this present bit of unpleasantness...

If anyone sees something they are particularly interested in, please consider making me an offer. It is all in pretty-much as new condition. The 24-105 F4 has literally been on the camera one time. The 100 2.8 macro was only used a couple of times - maybe 3 or 4 hundred shots, so the glass is certainly not worn out!

My health issues have basically killed my photography. It's been over a year since I took a photograph with my 'proper' gear... At some point, I will see about selling some of the camera stuff, but that isn't my current worry. I have had the Adobe 'photographers package' right from the very beginning, but I really do not need to be paying every month for it any more. I know it's not a lot, but it now seems to be a waste.

My biggest concern is, what happens to my existing collection of photos, if I quit the subscription? Not storage - they are all on my PC, not in the cloud. I have thousands of photos, mostly CR2 or dng formats.

Will I be able to still access them if needed, once I cut the cord with Adobe?

Thanks in advance.

Not my photo, got it from the web somewhere...

Way-Hey! Another Geordie on here! Where aboots are ye?

(Born & bred in North Shields, but now living in the US)

I am on disability, and I got mine last week...

What is the delivery time on these? I ordered some masks online weeks ago, and paid for expedited shipping - they are due next week!

My own thoughts on masks like this is that they are as much use against a virus as a baseball bat! However, I was informed by my local grocery store that they will not allow anyone to enter without a mask... I do still want to eat, so...

I found this picture on the web...

Most PCs with video 'on board' can be updated. You just have to tell it to use the card which you just plugged in to one of the slots. Maybe a dip switch somewhere on the motherboard. If it is clever enough, it may even detect the new card and default to it.

Is that the same car 3 times?