If you use LrC (and I assume ACR however you access it) be aware that it includes a number of excellent B&W profiles that you can try by simply hovering over a thumbnail. Easy to use and dramatically different. Unfortunately they are applied behind the scenes so I don’t know has to learn what they do. There is a strength slider that lets you adjust the amount of pop.

I see. I hope no one would be mislead to think it was a comprehensive tour of the subject. I have encountered more than a handful of people toting a decent camera that have no clue why they should depart from the P mode or worse and he covers that convincingly. Now I always shoot raw and depending on situation expose accordingly with ISO near base with highlights preserved to maximize dynamic range. But I would not advocate a beginner immediately launch into post processing. It is much better to to develop proficiency and confidence with the camera initially.

Well I would have recommended it because it covers the basic camera setting tradeoff aperture vs shutter speed at a given lighting and sensor/film performance in a very clear fashion with effective illustrations with photo examples. Regardless of using truly manual settings or camera automated “modes” the effect of these settings choices must reflect the photographers visualization before the shot. This is true regardless of the equipment used. I think mastering these simple concepts are the foundation of. successful photography. By no means does learning stop there but I can’t imagine how these skills would be harmful to the learning. If I am off base here I would welcome the discussion of why.

I do notice that someone who “strongly recommend against” something can’t bother to explain their rationale.

I will tell you that I find objection to a simple abstraction, exposure triangle, ludicrous (definition: laughably silly) and an indication someone has completely missed the point that the basics like the relationship between focus, aperture, and shutter speed need to be selected by a photographer consciously or unconsciously every time you squeeze the button. It is not the end all to satisfying photography but it is the start of all. Stop the BS and master those simple concepts before exposing your ignorance.

Why? I would likely have recommended it.

I would suppose that technically your eyes are OK but your sensor might be toast. Not OK. Unless you like seeing the sensor destroyed real time.

That is an actual fact. It’s too late.

As I was reading this a truly knowledgeable person on TV said, “See your first eclipse and photograph your second.” He has seen too many people spend their two or three minutes in the non-sun fiddling with their camera and forget to look up. No memories and no pictures.

Agreed. Re-importing is NEVER a good idea. At best it will double your trouble.

The core function of the database which is the Library module has not changed in at least a dozen years and is absolutely stable. Updates to this module over the years have been to the presentation adding features or displaying more information but never “breaking” the basics. However, the connection between the catalog and the physical storage location is an absolute requirement. If the full path to the file is inadvertently changed then it is game over. Be keenly aware that the information displayed by LrC is where LrC thinks the files are and is not where the OS thinks it is when displayed by Finder or Explorer. So the first step is to reconciliation is to look at both and find how they differ. Then we can see how the fix things.

I would suggest disabling both auto focus and auto exposure functions on the camera. We know the answer right here and now. The sun is at infinity for any practical lens and the exposure with your choice of solar filter is fixed. The distance to the sun and the brightness of the sun isn’t going to change. Anything the automatic systems change is wrong. Turn them off. AKA Manual.

I would assume this is with an ISO certified solar filter.

When I was choosing Flicker and SmugMug were separate and I chose SmugMug because it had better control over passwords and privileges. It also provided a publish “plug-in” for the Lightroom Classic Publish function which is fully integrated, maintained and provides full control of the presentation. Attractive if that works for you. I never revisited the choice in the dozen or so years since. I also do not use it commercially just for sharing with friends or relatives. I signed up with what was their second tier which provided more flexibility in site design and access control but didn’t include commercial ordering options. I believe my level includes using my url (I don’t have one) and a completely anonymous url. I have had many humorous responses from the younger generations, in their 40s and 50s. I exercise an option to block copying an image by selecting it. I get messages that it is broken. So I give permission to down load an image but it is not broken. Also nobody seems to think a password is case sensitive and should I say “Cat” don’t include the “” when entering the password. The only encounter I have had with their help was quite positive. I had some things missing so I contacted customer service via email (I probably didn’t have a smart phone then.) and the contacted me quickly to say the had a back room up grade that probably lost my stuff. Later that day the told me it was fixed and apologized. One persons view.

Nothing could be “better” than the actual focal length of a lens. I don’t understand how fussing about equivalent focal length, crop factor or megapixels produces a better photograph. Take camera and lens out of its display case and actually take photos process them, view result on screen or print and see what emotional response you get. Wash, rinse and repeat. Just saying.

No, cameras have zero persistent memory. The view on the back of your camera are stored within the files on your memory card. It is a little known fact that the Exif specifies the format of ALL file types written by cameras on their memory cards including JPEG, TIFF, Manufacture’s raw… .

Exif does not include a raw data “tag” which would make JPEG and all other file types enormous. My reference is the Wikipedia article “Exif” which is an abridged version of the JEIDA/JEITA/CIPA specification. Except for the usual opening paragraph the article quickly becomes difficult to casually read.

It really doesn’t make any difference. Depends more on how you use you camera. In my case the camera (I only have one at a time) is stored in a grab and go bag and my desktop computer lives in a different room. Also I don’t use large cards rather a number of 64GB cards which hold more than 1K raw exposures each. When I come back I swap a newly formatted card for the card in camera and take it to the computer reader to import and format. And, yes, I do format the card in the computer. The reason the manufacturer says to only format in the camera is to keep you from using wrong format and blaming them. By design rule for interoperability all cameras use FAT formats which differ by max file size. Windows format function defaults to the proper format for the card so it is hard to screw it up. Also I use the volume label to keep track of number of times a card has been formatted in the event the card fails. I have never had a failure even with one (SD) that is 15 years old and been through the wash once and not through the dryer. I have a little script that does a quick format and increments count that I run right after LrC completes the import. Given its UNIX heritage I assume the Mac OS can do the same. Whenever I put one of my cards in a Mac to be read it adds a file I do not recognize. It seems harmless, however.

I’m trying to avoid being harsh or judgmental but in this case you could have stopped with the first sentence. Sharpening and denoising tools should not be expected to save a photograph that is poorly exposed, out of focus, blurred by motion or impossible due to atmospherics. At their best they make an educated guess as to what is missing or corrupted and replaces the original image. Now some sharpening is necessary because the image as seen by the sensor is quite flat but just a little.

In the interest of full disclosure I will describe my current workflow not as a recommendation but so you know where I am coming from.

I shoot raw always with focus, aperture, shutter and ISO set as situation requires. I leave the white balance on auto just to record the cameras opinion since it has no effect on raw.

I Import into LrC using my no thinking process. From this point on the Library module is my dashboard. Everything I do is through the library. Even for complex stuff with Ps I do what I can in LrC then do edit in Ps returning file to LrC for safekeeping. Eventually I Export for end use.

Ideally I don’t need to fuss with sharpening and noise reduction. Since these operations are a trade off I work them together. Often I move to Ps when masking is needed. With the recent improvements to ACR I expect to avoid Ps mostly.

Two years ago with rave reviews for the Topaz programs and FOMO I yielded to one of the “exclusive” offers and purchased the three programs. After two years of updates I came to the conclusion that it didn’t improve my results and declined to subscribe for another year. Recently Adobe upgraded the noise reduction function which I do appreciate. The Topaz stuff seemed to generate undesirable artifacts before useful improvement in noise or sharpness.