Two weeks ago I was treated to a visit by an immature Green Heron.

I spotted the bird on my neighbor’s porch around 75 yards away and prepared to capture some BIF shots if it came in my direction. It launched directly towards me from deep shadows (no BIF shots) and to my surprise, landed on my upper deck railing around 10 feet from where I was sitting.

Unable to get a shot with a 1200mm equivalent focal length zoom lens set at max zoom, I somehow managed to zoom out and rotate my camera without disturbing this gorgeous bird. The heron subsequently offered me great portrait shots, initially from my deck railing at 10-20 feet subject distance; then at around 15-18 feet subject distance when it hopped on my deck where it was backgrounded by a colorful ceramic planter; and finally at around 35 feet subject distance when it hopped down to my ugly rock backyard.

Green Herons are secretive by nature and although they occasionally land on my lower dock to fish offering me look down shots, I could not believe this one conveniently positioned itself for me for almost an hour on much more favorable backgrounds.

For story telling purposes, these images are in the sequence captured. I hope you enjoy viewing these shots as much as I did capturing in them.

Bubba

It depends on the software used to process the raw data. You have to do that in both cases.

A) To create the camera JPEG the camera's embedded software must process the raw data.
B) To create a usable image (assume JPEG) software on your computer must process the raw data even if only by applying a set of standard defaults.

So, same raw data but two different renderings because of the processing software.

Camera JPEG processing software is variable across different camera brands and your answer is in that brand-dependent variability. As a general rule the camera software operates at a disadvantage because of the requirement to complete the processing quickly -- the user could press and hold the shutter release.

Without that in-camera requirement to work quickly software on your computer has the option to use different processing algorithms that take longer but also perform better.

Here's an example:
This is the SOOC JPEG from the camera and so rendered by the Nikon EXPEED processor: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/otkdu77fy8oirweqpeb36/DSC_0716.JPG?rlkey=vbk30sgmhxnxywfyssp27d5w3&dl=0

This JPEG is rendered by DXO PL-7 with minimal processing:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/keefnv3qg8bmeudqgahno/DSC_0716_DxO.jpg?rlkey=1qg56ckgevmonevrmaepy2j8v&dl=0

The PL-7 processing does a better job with the high ISO (6400) noise filtering and fine detail rendition. The Nikon software would take too long to apply competitive processing and that disadvantage shows upon close inspection.

While I have done Adobe Photoshop, it's been a long time. Since I am just getting back into this, I'd prefer to hold off on making a major investment.

I've been playing with some free programs, the last being Pixlr. There's so much on the web that it gets overwhelming, so I thought I'd throw it out to all of you to get your opinions.

Since I have a lot on my plate, I would prefer a solid program but one that doesn't involve a steep learning curve.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!