Great photo! I applaud those who boldly stood on their window sills. Neat story, looks like a solid old building too.

Thanks for that info. I've no experience with them at all.

I've almost, but not yet, committed on the PC choice. But I'll look for Max and Vadim Yuryev on YouTube. Thanks!

Yeah, I'm guessing Copyrat is referring to his tower desktop PC in that reference, not a laptop.

Thank you. Noise or heat any issue with the Xeon Dell in your experience?

The more I research it, the less I can debate your point. However, it looks like I'll be giving my MacBook Pro with i9, 16GB and 1TB SSD to my daughter, selling my desktop HP, and buying a new laptop... most likely a fairly high end Windows creator-design laptop for both home (with external monitor) and travel. Maybe something like ASUS ProArt StudioBook Pro 16 OLED W5600 16" WQUXGA Mobile Workstation, AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX 3.3GHz, 64GB RAM, 2TB SSD, NVIDIA RTX A2000 4GB, Windows 11 Pro, Star Black... perhaps from Adorama. If I keep researching, I'm likely to go for something that will look just like my present laptop, but with the M1 inside. At least I'll have no choice but to adapt to Mac since I'll have no Windows desktop at home. LOL

I actually had 3 IDs in my own name. I've only ever used one that I can recall (thus calling the other 2 "ghosts"), but somehow in going through the original set-up procedure, I managed to create 3 different Administrator Level Users. In my tech session with Apple "looking over my shoulder," we determined there was no data tied to either of those other User accounts, but that doesn't mean software couldn't have had some linkage. Luminar 4 has some tricks up its sleeve, I've learned. I've learned that, having begun using the internal 1TB SSD as the location of photos I'm editing, when that drive began to fill up and I began using an external 2TB SSD, Luminar would frequently crash. Turns out certain files must be written to any drive being used in the editing process; not for backing up finished files, of course, just during edit.

I bought Luminar 3 then upgraded to 4 directly from Skylum, so I know I'm going to have to work directly with them again to fix this. I may uninstall the software and reinstall as a first step to see if that does the trick.

Also, paying attention to your suggestion about leaving plenty of SSD space free for processing activity, I need to archive a bunch of files off the internal SSD perhaps. I only have about 16GB of space remaining available. I originally used my external 2TB SSD primarily for easy movement of photo files from laptop to desktop (that Sandisk is so small and handy), but now it is my primary workspace when editing photos on the Mac laptop - requiring the addition of the Luminar instruction file to the Sandisk. Meanwhile, I continue to do my HP desktop Luminar edits on its internal 1TB SSD, but I've already archived old files off it to maintain space... but I see I'm down to only 137GB right now. Time to archive some more.

File management becomes a bit of a chore, huh? Especially with 2 computers. I used to have one laptop and bring it home to a workstation with two large monitors. Not sure why I discontinued that.

ZOUNDS! I've just tried to launch Luminar on my MacBook and the program crashes as soon as it begins loading the library. I've no doubt this is related to the removal of the two "ghost IDs" I had created on my computer as I began learning to use it. I feared there would be some unintended consequences, but I was thinking in terms of lost data, not lost software linkage somehow. Grrrrrr

Good question, of course. My main computer is an HP Pavilion 590 i7-9700 CPU with 16GB memory, 237GB usable HD space on C drive (programs only), 1TB SSD data drive, and the 27" HP monitor. When I come home from a motorhome trip (or sometimes auto or plane) with the MacBook Pro 16 (i9, 16GB, 1TB SSD), it goes in the basement at a dedicated work station with its own Viewsonic monitor. But at home I most often use the desktop PC. I transport a 2TB SSD with the Mac on trips and transfer my photo files to the desktop computer where I have a set of back-up drives. While I will do some photo processing when on the road with the Mac, most of it is done back home on the PC.

The only external monitor for the Mac that I'll carry with me on trips is a small Lenovo 14" ThinkVision. Very crisp with nice color, but too small to be a great help. Good for running a browser while editing or something like that. Of course the motorhome has TVs, but none are good enough for me to want to edit photos on.

Primarily, I use Luminar 4 and/or Photoshop Elements 2021, which is loaded on each computer.

BlingRunner, in the case of every post I've ever made here, I believe, BurkPhoto has always been one to reply with very comprehensive information specific to my questions. I've always been confident I have been well-advised.

Oh. I just meant that I paid for both extended Apple Care and Best Buy's Geek Squad (2 other computers + TVs and other devices covered too), yet doors at both places were closed to me the day after purchase. Pandemic crapola. I didn't need to send the new Mac off for repairs. I needed to sit in a class or have a one-on-one with a knowledgeable tech now and then just to get started. Instead I bought a book and winged it. Yes, I should have used the phone sooner, but as I've said, I really hate phone calls, sitting on hold, listening to muzak, talking with some nice person in Bangladesh whom I am unable to understand, etc. When I made the call to Apple Support finally, other than hours of delay, the call was nothing like my bad experiences with phone tech support, and my biggest frustrations were resolved within 40 minutes. Stubborn bites.

Ah the price of pixel-hunger, I suppose.

I love the picture. I don't know how to solve the problem if what has already been said does not work.

I must confess that I am not an enthusiastic phone user. When I pay for a service contract and the seller includes consutative assistance (I did, and both Apple and Best Buy did at the time I made my purchase), I want to talk face to face with a tech. Beginning the week after I bought, that was unavailable from either source. However, listening to Mickey, Cheapshot, and others, I finally tucked my tail between my legs and put in a call to Apple service this evening. Some of my biggest concerns were resolved in a 40 phone consultation. It'll still be a struggle on some fronts (where gray cells have gone dark perhaps) every time I hit the road with my Mac and again when I return home to my HP Desktop with a glorious 27" screen. But maybe spin up will be faster with the changes the tech and I made tonight.

On the other hand, the Mac is 2 years old and I've been out kicking tires, so... who knows. Maybe Razor or MSI has a 17 incher with 32 GB and a 2TB SSD and my name on it. ;^)


For those who sought to be helpful: THANKS!