Thanks for the suggestion - interesting comments (but a bit like watching a convention of TV weather forecasters - the ones who never look out the studio window before their broadcast <grin>. Still, fun to imagine tomorrow.

Among my cameras I have a Nikon p&s P7000. Have found it to be a high quality advanced compact for travel and general use. Like the P7000 well enough to consider upgrading to the Nikon P7800. Others in contention include the highly reviewed Sony RX100MIII, the Leica D-Lux 6, and the Canon G16. As good as the Nikons have been, there are certain weaknesses the reviewers keep harping on. I suspect Nikon is not ignoring the criticism. SO...is anyone hearing any rumors of a new Nikon advanced P&S model? I'd rather not buy "my next camera" only to read 48 hours later that it has been eclipsed by something else. No, I'm not as shallow as to be totally into "the next big thing", just don't want yesterday's technology. Too much of a parsimonious Scot - Lol.

In the Apple MAC version of Adobe Lightroom 5, Prefernces are NOT under the Edit tab. They can be found to the left of the File tab under the application name "Lightroom". When you give directions, please be aware there may be a difference between your PC and their MacBook.

Bob - Great creative images! This is a shot that may lend itself to selective color where the predominant image is b&w, but a few portions are rendered in color (or vice-versa). There are other examples of that among this forum, hopefully with commentary about how it is done. B&w conversion can be a powerful technique when it takes the distraction of color out of the equation and helps (or forces?! Lol) the viewer to SEE the architectural shape and texture of the subject.

I followed up on the idea of changing Preferences to Prompt me when starting - on the Mac the Lr preferences are under:
Lightroom/Preferences/General

Here's a sample image from a nearby street fair yesterday - a painted image on an 'antique' wooden chair - with minor cropping and tweaking in Lr. Hopefully it will come thru.

Rooster chair

Thanks for the insight, Gene.

Hi - I recently invested in Lr5 and have experienced exactly the same problem where Lr persists in going to a Catalog I don't want it to use rather than to the new Catalog I set up for my latest series of images. I'll follow this message thread and look forward to learning right along with you. Years ago I tried PS Elements and found it to be as non-intuitive as Lr is proving to be.

I also invested in the online Lr tutorial offered by Robert Steele (Steele Training) - I'm hoping it will provide some useful insights. Meanwhile, as a fallback I have been editing images on my MacBook using tools in Apple iPhoto - results are pleasing, tho iPhoto is allegedly not "as powerful" as Lr.

I have a Nikon 28mm f/2.8 D AF on my old, much loved Nikon N8008s film camera and got great results. Light weight, compact, 'tack sharp', excellent contrast. It became my 'go to' lens when I didn't need the capabilities of my much slower Tamron 28-300 macro zoom. I have not tried the digital version so can't comment on that, but Nikon certainly used to build 'em pretty well.

Tracy - Canon lenses are excellent, but I suggest you also look at high quality lenses from Tamron and Sigma. I had a great experience using a Tamron zoom on a Nikon SLR film camera. You may find these alternatives to be less costly and/or surprisingly fast compared with those from the major camera cos.

Possibly an unnecessary expense, unless you are into collecting lenses (smiling in friendship) or expect to shoot many images in the 300 to 400mm range. How frequently has the lack of a long zoom prevented you from capturing an image? Have you tried shooting with a shorter zoom and a tri/mono pod and then using 'cropping' to enlarge the final image - could be less expensive than a new lens. Just sayin'