We used to laugh at the rather obvious (and feeble) attempts by the Soviets to "crop" people out of photographs (and sometimes to add extraneous items). Now, everyone does it, and photos no longer provide documentary "proof" in courts of law. Perhaps most folks are familiar with the Stalin "re-image" that removed now-undesirable Nikolai Yezhov. In fact, during Stalin's purges, every photo that contained images of Leon Trotsky were ordered erased.

Western North Carolina is in my opinion, a lost treasure. I have vacationed there off and on for the past 25 years. Banner Elk, Beech Mountain, Blowing Rock, Grandfather Mountain and Boone (just to name a few places) are wonderful, scenic, and mostly relaxing places to visit. Some people think "Outer Banks" when the name North Carolina crops up, but for me, give me the western "triangle:" Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina.

Thanks for the reminder photo!

A wonderful specimen. Captured superbly!

Ah, yes. The original "small block" 265. A few years later, it gave way to the powerhouse 283, which was found in many of the "Tri-5" Chevrolets.

I have both ON1 Photo RAW 2024 and Luminar Neo. I like them both. They have similar capabilities, but their approach can be a bit different. I've taken to using them (ON1 more recently) than Lightroom and other editors.

I shouldn't be surprised that Leica and Hasselblad come in #1 and #2 best. However, I think the list is a little disingenuous, in that those two brands are likely not going to be on your average photographer's shopping list. A professional can amortize the cost, write off depreciation, and can justify the cost in many ways the amatuer, semi-pro and struggling-to-put-food-on-the-table pro can't.

Nice! The early muscle cars were pretty much standard models (Chevelle, LeMans, Galaxie, Satellite, etc.) that the makers beefed up with larger, more powerful engines, transmissions, suspensions, and so on. It wasn't until the racers began adopting them and purchasing them in droves that they became their own niche. I feel that some makers lost their way a bit, and later models didn't quite fit the bill. The early GTO (technically, an abbreviation for the Italian Gran Turismo Omologato (Grand Touring Homologated*) was sometimes tagged with the slur, "Gas, Tires and Oil."

*Homologation is the term given to a classification of cars for categorization purposes. According to CarBuzz, "Homologation refers to an approval process whereby certification is issued by a federal entity giving a certain vehicle permission to be sold in a specific market. At the same time, the definition of homologation can also refer to the process of getting cars accredited to compete in motorsport events. Both instances require the vehicle to adhere to specific regulations and technical standards, with market-related homologation requiring the vehicle to undergo stringent testing, too."

I'm guessing it's just a driver difference. The card slot driver knows and expects a memory card, but a USB port can accept any form of USB connection, and so is more generic in use.

There's more to it than just megapixels, but consider: Each pixel contains ALL of the information needed to produce an image. So, sheer numbers suggest more is better. Still, you have to take into accout pixel size, data contained within each and so on.

OnTrack data recovery services. They've been doing this for 35 years, and have rescued data off drives that had all been but destroyed. They aren't cheap, but if the photos are that valuable, then saving them is cheap by comparison.

https://www.ontrack.com/en-us/data-recovery/hard-drive

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One thing I'd add to the conversation is this (opined on another thread): Technology isn't foolproof. If it were, there would never be updates! And the more complex a piece of technology is (today's cameras are a great example), the greater the chance of some form of future failure. Metal fatigue and "planned obsolescence" are like rust: They will slowly eat away the goods until some day, things snap.

It seems not a week goes by when someone on this forum barks about an updated piece of software (no names here) no longer working on their ten year-old Windows 7 laptop, or requires a new CPU chip. Sorry folks, staying current is the price of admission in today's world.

Gorgeous! Plitvice lake is a theme on many of the TV "wallpaper" programs. Well done!

A 40-year career in the data processing field has revealed some ugly truths about technology, marketing, and "experts." I remember when hard disks were sold boasting incredible technical values, like "Mean Time Between Failure" (MTBF). Shown in hours, if you did some quick math, sometimes these numbers would represent hundreds or even thousands of years! How were they able to test these??? And why were hard disk failures so common?

I have come to believe that if you want to preserve your photographs, the best thing is to do what the pros do. And have done forever: Print them on acid-free paper, enclose them in glass, or store them in climate-controlled storage. I have photo albums that belonged to my parents that have childhood photos in them -- these are now 100 years old. I seriously doubt my grandkids (or their kids) will be able to view my photos if I store them on USB/hard drives 100 years from now.

Mechanical devices will fail. The only question is, "When?"

Software is rarely shipped on CD-ROM anymore. It's too costly for the developers to burn, package, and ship. Thus, you are severely limiting your options if you make that a requirement. As for finding free or low cost photo editing software, it's not difficult to search sites like MacUpdate or Alternative To.

IMO, Facebook is a scam. I stay as far away from it and its kin as I can.