I was in SLC over the weekend visiting family. Years ago I did business with Pictureline, a camera store up there. They were so nice, and I've always wanted to visit them. We went. It's a beautiful store, with lots of floor help and just about everything one would ever want IN STOCK! i asked about the R3 because I wanted to just hold it and look at it. I bought it! I had to go back because I found out it requires a different card than what I had. I'm still figuring it out. One downside: I was excited to see there was a book in the box. However, it's nothing but Canon disclaimers about how they aren't responsible if one does stuff wrong. So I have to download the instruction book, which I hate because they aren't convenient to put in a camera bag. But so far, I love it! The eye-controlled focus works! And the eye-finder works. I pointed it at a bird across the street, and the focus point went directly to its eye! Maybe I won't get any more black blobs!

Oh, and BTW, it was on sale, and I got some other stuff discounted as well. These guys are great!

I have a Western Digital back drive that is no longer working as it should and WD has stopped support for this drive. I'm looking for backup software that will monitor my activity and when I generate a new data file (photo, document, spreadsheet, etc.) I want the backup software to automatically generate a backup file with no intervention from me. There has been a lot of chatter on this forum about Sync Back. I looked at it but I was unable to determine the capabilities of this software. Does any of you know if Sync Back will do what I want? If not, can you recommend back up software that will automatically generate a backup without me initiating the action?

Before I begin my question, I have checked the search feature on UHH.

I am looking for software that can edit photographs. I have several photographs that were given to me. Since they were not taken by me, I had little control over the photograph or the photographer.
I have a website for my Charitable Foundation. Some photos are blurry and some have artifacts that I wish to remove. Some group photos have people who “photo-bombed” and I would like to remove them if possible. Does anyone have recommendations?

I'll start:

> The cost of subscription software — Either subscribe or buy a stand-alone license for something else.

> The fact that subscription software is a thing — Developers have to eat, too.

> The cost of decent lab prints — If you ever worked in a lab, you would know why good prints cost good money — especially in today's low volume environment!

> The cost of ink and inkjet papers for dedicated photo inkjet printers — Do you want the best? Yes? Then hush. It's five times the price of silver halide, and worth it.

> The cost of film for film photography — Run the prices through an inflation calculator. You'll be shocked at what a bargain it is — IF you still use film. I know I paid more than $3.26 a roll for the same film in 1980 that costs $12.00 a roll today. But I'll take a $12.00 64GB SDXC card over a roll of film, today.

> Raw vs. JPEG — They both have their uses as workflows. Life is full of trade-offs. Pick yours today!

I would appreciate some feedback on the new upgrade to Affinity Photo 2. I have a 27" 2020 IMAC, 8 core, intel core i7 with 32 GB running Big Sur 11.7.4. For about 5 years I have been using AP 1 but a few weeks ago I decided to upgrade to AP 2. I understand AP 2 has some good features but as far as I am concerned they really only apply to advanced users. To date I have only used AP for basic editing for exposure, contrast, black point, brightness, saturation, vibrance, white balance, etc. I do use the clone, inpainting, dodge, and burn tool and perspective when I need to but that is about it. Really have not mastered layers, masks, and other tools. I have been meaning to be more competent in using AP but the program has a steep learning curve. In competing for photography competitions with my photography club I dont have the time to spend learning the advanced features of AP so for me I am wondering if I should keep AP 2 or just continue using AP 1. I still have AP 1. I must decide by March 2 if I want to keep AP 2.

Affinity Photo is a very good raster editor at a fantastic price -- not doubt a lot of bang for the buck. "ANYTHING possible" is a huge exaggeration -- nonsense.

AP has numerous weaknesses depending on what you want to do with your image editing. It's raw conversion capability is quite limited and for many people inadequate -- some people do want to process raw files. We all set different priorities for how we want to edit/process our images. I for one place a raw workflow that is 100% non-destructive and non-linearly re-editable very high on my priority list. AP fails to be 100% non-destructive in a raw workflow.

In the new version 2 just released they thankfully addressed the most glaring fault in their raw conversion component -- the fact that it discarded all work done in the raw module once the conversion was completed -- but they made almost no other improvements in the raw processing module so some pretty big concerns still remain. For example something as basic as an HSL tool is still not provided in the raw conversion module.