Andy! I dislike that this discussion is getting away from the original topic, but so be it. I do think most PS/LR users do indeed smugly belittle other products - but certainly I had no intent of singling you out. As to your other comments I find little to disagree with.

That however does not mean that I - or anyone else - has to accept the status quo.

I do hate the subscription model for mature products. I quit using MS Word when MS Office went to the subscription market, and switched to Word Perfect, which suits my needs perfectly and was offered for about $50 for a student/home license. Truthfully, Office 95 would have suited me to this day, except that it is questionable about how well it works with Windows 10. All the future tweaks and upgrades for MS/Office are unlikely to benefit me even in the smallest way - why should I pay $10 a month for that?

And the situation with LR/PS is not much different.

I guess I have a strong streak of rebel in me. Frankly this discussion is making me think a little deeper into by own commercial prejudices, and that is no bad thing. I'm not changing my mind as yet, but I am understanding myself a bit better.

For what it is worth, I co-owned a smallish company that manufactured professional photographic equipment for about 30 years. I am NOT anti-business.

Cheers

Bob

Yes, the subscription model for software evens out a software company's cash flow, and helps fund R&D. But, in the case of Adobe, will that R&D be for post processing software, or something totally unrelated to photography?

I think the germane question here is - is Adobe going to dedicate that cash flow from LR and PS into major improvements in LR and PS?
Yes - right after pigs grow wings and fly. LR and especially PS are very mature products. The underlying code, especially for PS, is likely quite old and a bit creaky. The money spent on subscriptions so that the user can get the benefit of the latest bug fixes and camera profile updates is almost pure profit. When was the last really serious update to PS - one that expanded potential in areas that most users would find valuable, or made it significantly easier to use?

What your rental really consists of is Adobe reaping the rewards of having managed to get just short of a monopoly. Proof of point - so far as I know they don't even bother to advertise the products.

I strongly suspect Adobe carefully watches competitive products, steals good ideas from others, and looks for ways to sue anyone getting too close to their turf. Or, if necessary, buy them out before they can become a real threat.

The best thing we can do for ourselves is encourage competition, instead of smugly belittling it.

Cheers

A side note: Several posts here have referenced "filters" being used in Post Production software. To a newcomer the term is not intuitive. But for example, the haze removal tool is considered a "filter". As is the sharpening tool.

If you are going to work in a collaborative environment exchanging work in progress with others, you pretty much have to go with Photoshop. If that is not the case, I suggest Affinity. US $50 once and done.

Another point - if you learn Affinity well, and then have to move to Photoshop, the learning curve is hugely simplified. The effort to learn Affinity is not wasted.

You will find that there is a certain smugness and in some cases outright arrogance from some of the Photoshop users. I am old enough to remember the same thing among Leica users in the 1950's and 60's. Then Nikon came along, first with decent rangefinder cameras that challenged Leica, followed by the then legendary Nikon F-1 SLR. And with that came a whole new set of acolytes who became a new smug and arrogant herd.

Yet, somehow, other brands developed and some survived - Pentax, Olympus, Fuji Canon as examples and of course of more recent date Sony.

Each brand, whether it be software or hardware, strives to develop and then maintain critical mass, necessary for long term health and survival, and of course continued product development. Some users of a given product belittle the efforts and products of competitors, partly to reassure themselves that they made the right decision.

But I digress. Bottom line here - you won't make a mistake going with PS, except perhaps in your billfold - but there are other very valid approaches and the very fact that you are asking advice suggests you are open to them.

A warning - any powerful PP program is going to require a lot of learning to be able to use all its capabilities. But that said, even a relative novice can do a lot. And, if you are serious about digital photography, the pay back for the effort is huge.

The Adventure Continues!

Very much above the ordinary. Actually, I down loaded it and scanned it left to right. I suggest you might consider making three pictures out of it - the left, the middle and the right - print them and mount on flush boards and present them side by side - I propose they are actually more powerful that way than as a single panorama.

In any case, a great picture. Congratulations and compliments.

I have the recent Sony 18-135 OSS APS-C lens for my Sony A-6000 and am delighted with it. I have always been a big believer in prime lenses but in some circumstances that really limits me, so I bought the zoom. I have not regretted it at all.

I recently did a small boat cruise in Alaska and that was the lens I took. It was a great choice. There were a couple times a longer lens would have been a real plus, but the additional size and weight of a longer lens would have been counterproductive.

I find the lens a bit soft at the edges at 18 mm, but by 24 mm if is excellent, as it is at all longer focal lengths.

The lens is not very fast. I set my ISO at 1000, set the camera for aperture priority at f/8 and clicked away - that worked very well for me.

What really surprised me was how well the optical "Steady Shot" feature worked. Beyond doubt it added one or more stops to my unsteady hands.

The lens is relatively inexpensive, and a fine performer. Had I to do it again, I would not hesitate to make the same choice.

The adventure continues!

I am 75 and have the same issues. I am just back from a small ship cruise of SE Alaska done without tripod. Of about 500 exposures, less than 10 turned out to be too fuzzy from movement to be good.

I used an ISO of 1000, set aperture to typically f/8 and let the shutter speed fall wherever, and mostly it was an absolute minimum of 1/500th, usually higher. It worked for me.

But! If you do decide on a tripod, spend the money to get a good one. It will be a tiny fraction of the cost of your trip, and if photography is a major part of the reason for the trip, don't be too cheap. Plus, buy a remote wireless or infrared trigger - eBay is full of them for peanuts, and whenever possible use that to take the exposure after letting the camera and lens stabilize for a few moments before shooting.

Have a great trip!

Myself - if they are not close friends I'd sell them the print only for $95. There are lots of framing options - let them choose - and you don't frighten them away with the added cost of the framing.

Good luck!

First, I will avoid whenever possible buying or using anything from Adobe. That attitude dates from very ugly memories of Adobe from the days of the font wars when I was in the book publishing business.

In any case, if you expect to work in an environment where you share work in progress with others, well, Photoshop and Light Room are the lingua franca and you may have no choice in a collaboration. Plus, there is huge support in the Internet.

But if you are going to work independently where the output is a finished file of your own making, you are free to use one of the excellent competing programs.

Personally, I use Faststone Image Viewer, a free and very useful tool for Windows computers. Download their manual and spend a day or two working through it and you are there. For heavier tasks I use Affinity, available for Windows or Mac, offered for US $ 50.00, one time and no rent. There is a lot of support for the program on the Internet, an excellent learning manual available separately as a printed book, a free trial, and it will do everything Photoshop will do except for some 3D stuff - but I don't do 3D so no problem for me.

And as others have said - Thank You For Your Service!

FastStone tutorial:

http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDownload.htm

It is on the listings of downloads.

Cheers

OK. I am 75 and got back into photography two years ago after many years away, so the digital world was new to me.
Anyhow, I strongly recommend the Post Processing program "Affinity". It is not free - it is US $50. Once. Period. It will do everything that Photoshop will do except for some 3-D stuff which I have no interest in doing. Like all PP programs, the fancier capabilities of Affinity have a steep learning curve. But there are loads of helpful Videos and also they publish an excellent book. There is a lot of stuff about it on the Internet - take a look.

A less powerful program but still with many very useful features is Faststone Image viewer, which also is great for organizing your photos. I believe it is Windows only, but that works for me. Again, there is a learning curve, but it is relatively short and well worth the effort.

I would say that with these two programs and a bit of study there really is nothing else you would need.

Anyhow, have fun!

I think Gene51's comments neatly sum it all up.

A beautiful picture for sure. I would get rid of the light above her head, and if you could possibly add a little light to the top of the harp that would be nice. But those are nit picks. It is a lovely picture.

Your computer should be able to tell you how much capacity is left on your SD card. My PC uses Windows 10. Go to Windows Explorer and if the SD card is plugged into the computer Windows Explorer will tell you how much of the card memory is used and how much available memory is left.

Cheers

Thanks! And we may well have met at Dayton. Went for many years.

Anyhow, I am convinced that today the real limits of personal computing for most personal users are the speed of one's internet connection, and in the case of still photographers, the monitor and its resolution. A fast computer from 5 or 8 years ago is still an extremely capable machine for today. Gamers need speed in their computers, video cards and monitors. Cad/Cam users and many other graphics users need processing power. People doing PP in video need power and speed too.

But I, at least, don't need the latest and greatest. Frankly I had a lot of fun getting the subject computer set-up together. Now I am having fun learning Affinity though I have to confess the learning comes slowly. I am 75 years old, finally fully retired two years ago, and now learning how to smell the flowers, take pictures of our beautiful world, and hopefully make them look great.

Life is good. The adventure continues!