There is a on1 raw manual, you need to look closer

Luminar has some interesting post processing capabilities but it does not have a browse function yet. I would look at on1 Raw.

Actually the way I read the first article is with a 27' (what I have also) they are recommending the intuos pro Large... Which has a large price tag...I was hoping I could get by with the intuos photo small at $100.. Ugh

Thank you , I missed your post

Great topic but most people are only discussing size. I would like suggestions on model to purchase since there are so many: Intuos Pro, Paper, draw, art, photo, comic, 3d plus cintio? And older models . I am assuming photo is the best for photo? I have an much older walcom tablet but doesn’t have modern drivers so pretty limited (basically a pen mouse).

Interesting enough I was watching an online seminar by Matt Kloskowski. He was taking people images and processing them in Lightroom. My go to guy for post processing. He used to work for ON1 but has split off on his own. Anyway someone asked if he used Topaz plugins. He hesitated to say what was probably on his mind but did say he never liked them much. Main reason was their pricing model. When you buy a plugin you get upgrades free for ever. But to make money they put a ton of plugins out there which basically do the same thing so Matt said he always had a problem knowing which plugin to use. He used NIK until Google bought them (so did I but with Aperature) then moved to On1. He uses Lightroom as his main program then pushes out to plugins to do special effects. Mainly he uses on1 10 effects and PS.

Certainly LR 6 support both HDR and Pano. Very easy to use and I get great results.

I have the full Topaz suite which is really plugins to Lightroom for me. I also have the Nik collection but be warned it will not be updated from Google so its use might be of limited time. I get the feeling you are a mac user. If so IMHO you should look at ON1 Raw and/or MacPhun Luminar. Both are quite a bit less expensive than Topaz. Both are Raw processors plus all the things you would expect in a post processing application. Luminar can be easier to learn and use but has most of all the functionality except for lens and color aberation correction (they say it is coming). On1 Raw has all of that. Both can be used as plugins to Lightroom, PS and PS Elements as well as Apple Photos. Both have free trials and lots of videos for training. I had used the ON1 10 plugins extensively with Lightroom but am moving to either luminar or Raw (still deciding). Raw has some big hickups when it was first released but they seem to be working hard to correct and add functionality quickly. Latest version is pretty stable. Luminar fixed the big issue I had with them which was they created huge files in their own format. 24 MG raw files were becoming 500 MB copies. Now they are about the same size as the orginal. It has a very interesting new filter called A.I. I find it very quick to use for fast and dirty post but Raw has a bit more horsepower and creates very small metadata files (1 to 2 MB) rather than huge files like Lightroom, PS and others.

Try them out.. Worth the effort.

If you are on a mac, your icloud account will transfer up to 5 gb. If you arent on mac you can use dropbox or google drive or you can get a free account with a FTP server. Though if I was sending examples to a possible client I would not send the full size images rather compressed JPEGs at 100% size. That way you are protecting your IP better.

Try the Lynda courses. Probably the simpliest and most straight forward I've taken. If you have linkedin who owns them you might get a free month. Other choices would be Matt Klowaski

I haven't specifically looked at Affinity but there are lots of new apps which you should consider. Im a Lightroom user on a mac but have a number of plugins. In recent weeks some of those plugins have released new apps which are both image management (like Lightroom and Aperature) and image processing with their own RAW processors. My fav is On1 Raw which has some growing issues but is working quickly to fix them. It is very intuitive and fast with lots of processing options. It is non-destructive and keeps its actions in small files without affecting the orginal. This is huge when if I use Lightroom or PS to process I get huge files. Another app is from MacPhun and only works on MAC. It is less intuitive to me but has a smaller learning curve than Lightroom. It too has its own RAW processor but the downsize for me is it creates propriatary files that are freaking huge (like 500 mb). Until they fix that (they say they are working on it) it is a no go for me. I already have 8 tb of drives on my mac. Cheap or not 500 mb files fill up a drive really fast.