Some of us here are over fifty, and there's a rumor going around that people over a certain age have to "exercise" their brains to keep them working properly. I think I've stumbled on a pretty good way of doing that.

I know that most of us have different brands of cameras, and they all have different Menus and controls. I like to switch between Nikon, Sony, and Fuji to mix things up and remember how to use them. Bringing all three with me in the car and driving somewhere to shoot is a fun way to not only use different cameras, but also to exercise my brain - remembering how to use the different controls and Menus.

I wonder if such travel could be considered a medical deduction.

I, in my infinite blundering, have managed to get every single picture on my computer into my Lightroom catalog, this includes all the buttons and any type of icon in what appears to be all of my programs.
I have played around trying to solve this but have not had any success and am thinking about contacting Adobe for help before I remove all my photos and reinstall the ones I want. I've not heard of this before so thought I would put it out here for your entertainment and to see if any knows of an easy fix.

I also recommend having a desktop built by MicroCenter. I am not a techy person, but the staff at Micro Center is. They can tell you the best way to maximize how your $$$ get allocated. I also agree that reading the articles on Puget Systems website is something you ought to do. I get mine at their store in Houston.

https://www.pugetsystems.com/solutions/content_creation/photo.php

If I were buying a new desktop today for photo editing, I would make sure that it had a SSD drive. You will want a NVME (also described as an m.2 SSD) drive which would be the Samsung 900 series. It's faster than a traditional SSD.

And a video card with at least 6 GB of RAM.

And RAM on the motherboard, as much as you can afford.

And an internal HDD, for image storage, 12 TB to 16 TB.

If you will be adding additional internal HDDs, have them install any needed parts when the desktop is built so you can just plug in the added internal HDD when needed.

And extra silent cooling fans.

We keep hearing the hubadubs that DSLR is dead. Maybe it is time to look beyond the news and advertisements.

Manufacturers want sales. That is what all this noise is about. Everyday we encounter advertisements and press release all pointed to that direction - sales.

It's always a miracle product that will bring heaven to earth and to hell and back being shoved up all our senses and body openings. All for sales.

It doesn't matter to them if we need it or not. They will lie and hustle the green out of our hands.

So why listen? Why do we believe the press releases and the ads? Why not have a look beyond?
Stand on your own and Have a different view.

Here is my own. Warning, its not mainstream and may touch some egos and probably hate. But this is just me talking out loud, speaking my own.

DSLR is dead!!!

Well maybe that is what they wanted. All the hype and misdirection pushes the mirrorless wonder product so far ahead of the DSLR that it is obsolete- so they say.
Be truthful. Is it? When you bought that mirrorless, did your photography improved by 10 folds? 100? 1000 times better? Or were you just conned out to get the latest gear?

Manufacturers are always looking to produce with the least cost and sell at the highest price. If mirrorless is sold with the same "cost to sales" premium, it will cost about 3/4 or at extremes 1/2 the price of an equivalent DSLR. Why? Because mechanical parts, materials like magnesium bodies and actual assembly of such, cost more. Electronics, molded plastics and smaller amount(size) cost much less.

Imagine a single button on a Toyota. What if that button cost dollar? If i produce 1 million cars, that is an extra 1 million dollars of investment. Meaning if i design something without buttons, I save millions. Suddenly touch screens makes a lot of sense!

A mirrorless is basically a dumbed down video camera. They made it look like a DSLR so it can take its place. Instead of shooting video they made it shoot slower, then advertise that their camera shoots 20 frames per second!!! Faster than your DSLR!!! Yea right...

So it shoots 10 - 20 - 25 frames a second, how many are in focus? 50%? 25%? 1 image?

The technology of the mirrorless has been around since the invention of the tv and are just getting repurposed. Innovation as some would say. It is not new, that is just hype. Don't buy into it.

Am I against mirrorless? Nope, not at all. But let us see things the way they really are. Cut the bull, forget the advertisement and hype. If it fits your style and improves your photography, then by all means buy as much as you can. Help the manufacturer so they can go back to making better cameras.

But if you are buying just for the hype, you are feeding the money train instead of supporting the production of better equipment.

Ask yourself, If they can put 4 cameras in a celphone and sell it for half the price of a mirrorless, what did you miss? Have you just been robbed?

I would like advice about putting permanent labels on SanDisk Extreme Pro SDXC memory cards.

1) What ink/pen should I use? Is a Sharpie Permanent Marker with an ultra fine point the best? I am concerned about the writing rubbing or washing off. I assume that there are no "safe" stick-on labels.

2) What naming scheme do you suggest? I need to handle a two week safari (non-photographic). Each image will occupy about 25MB. I expect a lot of images, but do not have a good handle on the number. I don't expect t use the memory cards for permanent storage.

Thanks

Hi all- recently returned from a winter Yellowstone tour. Wanted to share some photos with other travelers. I have all their emails. I made 3 "albums" on Google Photos of roughly 145 photos in each album. I copied the address link to each album and sent them off to the travelers. Some folks can access and see the photos, some have said the "file did not exist" per google, some were not able to open the files at all. When I send the links to myself or my wife, different email accounts, they turn up fine. Is it necessary for the recipient to also have a Google account in order to open the links? Or what else can I do so these people can view the pictures? Google does not give any clear instructions on how to do this. They mention "sharing" in various ways but it does not describe what I wish to accomplish. Thanks!

I have the Canon 8800 and had the same problem with slides.
My solution was to flip the slide (If the side that says 'this side towards screen' was down I flipped it so it was up). The images are all backwards so you need to flip it back in post processing. That eliminated the mysterious color splotch for me. Must be something on one side of the slide that catches the light weird.

For scanner software, I use Vuescan. It has a lot of options for saving (jpg, tiff, dng), 3 levels of dust/scratch removal, color options... Almost too many options to sort through.