The Affinity Photo website has over 100 tutorials available that are all free. On YouTube, if you search for "Carl Surrey", you will find additional tutorials.

The shutter speed will affect the ambient light exposure and the aperture, flash power, and flash distance determine the exposure of your subject. The movement is frozen because of the short flash duration which is much faster than the shutter speed.

I have and run Luminar 2018 on windows and it works fine for me. All tools are not available yet but are supposed to be coming to get it up to date with the MAC version. I also have "ON1 Photo RAWb 2018.1" and I find it to be better and with far more capabilities. It now, with version 2018.1, even has thering capabilities if you use a Nikon or Canon camera. It costs a little more but if I was only going to get one of them I would recommend the "ON1 Photo RAW 2018.1".

If you have Nik plugins you can try the "Silver Efex Pro" plugin. It does a good job. I don't have Photoshop 7 installed any longer but I did use the Nik plugins with it. The Google Nik collection as far as I know is still free so you should be able to download them. Other than that you can try converting the picture to grayscale and then work on it with levels and/or curves adjustments.

Both will do a good job, but I'd recommend that you take the D500.

For someone that feels they always have to have the absolute newest version and all the updates even if a lot are things you don't and may never use, then it would be a good idea to pay the $10.00 per month. Not everyone is that way. In my case, I used Photoshop 7 until I decided to update to Photoshop CS3 and then for the last time to Photoshop CS6. I used Lightroom 2 until I decided to update to Lightroom 5. In all cases, I find there were improvements but none of them important enough for me to be constantly updating to a new version. I have no need for new camera definitions if I don't have, use or plan to buy any of the new cameras covered by the new version. I am retired and I don't need or want any unnecessary ongoing expenses. I still have my Photoshop CS6 and Lightroom 5.7 that I can use if and when I want and without continuing to pay for it every month. So it isn't a matter of the $10 per month being too much to pay, it is just an unnecessary expense. With good replacements available that we can just buy outright like "Affinity Photo", "Luminar 2018" and "ON1 Photo RAW 2018" we aren't stuck with everlasting payments. For those that think the monthly fee is a good deal and want to use it that's fine, enjoy. Rather than paying a fee to use Photoshop I would rather just buy Photoshop Elements which I have done before.

Unless you want to pay a monthly fee to use Adobe Photoshop & Lightroom, I would recommend just buying "Affinity Photo", "ON1 Photo RAW 2018", "Photoshop Elements" or "Luminar". Gimp is also available as a free editor.

I would try using neutral density filters or bracket your shots to ensure having detail throughout your finished picture. If you are not shooting in RAW, and have it available, try shooting either straight "RAW" or "RAW + JPG" and use a tripod.

I haven't used Bay Photo but I would imagine that you would want to opt out of the color correction if you are processing your pictures on a calibrated monitor. If your monitor isn't calibrated you probably should allow them to do color correction. If your monitor isn't calibrated there is a very good chance that printed photos from just about anywhere will probably not match what you are seeing on your monitor.

I don't think there is any difference when it comes to JPG, TIF, RAW, PDF or PSD files. I have a number of windows machines which I use most of the time and I also have a "MacBook Pro". Several friend have windows or MACs and we use each others photo CD/DVDs all the time and have never had any problem with and type of photo file or PDFs.

I have and use "Skylum Luminar" (windows version) as well as "ON1 Photo RAW 2018" and Like both. I also have, and use, "Affinity Photo" as a replacement for Photoshop. If you are leaning toward Luminar and are running windows you need to know that the Windows version is not yet complete. Skylum is working on it and putting missing components in as they become ready but it will be a little while before the windows version has all of the MAC version components. Neither version has a DAM available at this time, but one is supposed to be coming soon. I generally find that I use the "ON1 Photo RAW 2018" much more than Luminar. If I want to work in more of a Photoshop type environment, I use "Affinity Photo". At this time I would recommend "ON1 Photo RAW 2018" and/or "Affinity Photo". If you are running a MAC, the Luminar is good now and will get the DAM free as soon as it is ready to go.

Use them all the time. Essential if you want the ability to get the absolute most out of your shots. If you feel you need JPG either shoot in "NEF + JPG" or use a program like "Instant JPG from RAW" to extract the JPG from the NEF file.

Definitely weather sealed.

My first camera when I was about 9, was a plastic snapshot camera with just a knob to advance the 620 roll film and a shutter button. Then in Jan. or Feb. 1964 my grandfather bought me a 2 1/4 x 3 1/4 Press Camera with all of it's attachments a cable release, a lightmeter and a tripod so it was manual all the way. I had the booklet what came with the camera and lightmater so I read them and taught myself how to shoot with a manual camera. I was fairly comfortable with the lightmater and camera within about a month or a little less. My next camera was an Argus C3 "Brick" that I bought in 1965. I shot all manual until I bought my first digital camera in Jan. 2002, a Sony Mavica FD92 which was pretty much all Auto. I bought my first DSLR, a Nikon D3100, specifically to get back to being able to shoot in manual again.