My new macro lens, first attempts

Mike B said:

Until you start trying to remember where the stairs are!  

I did the same when I went to Whitby in June. As I unloaded the car, I put my case and bags at the back of the lounge, thinking I would take them upstairs later. Then when I looked for the stairs I remembered that I was in a ground floor appartment ...

One of the things that Lightroom does is replicate the old-style 'darkroom'. Dodge and burn and all that sort of 'old-school' stuff. It also permits virtual copies of an image, and then edits are only applied to that virtual copy. And that virtual copy can be virtually copied and new edits applied. (which, in some ways, avoids backing up intermediate versions).

The standalone version back (whenever) was about the level of the current monthly subscription. The standalone version is now a bit silly (IMO). But I doubt my stand-alone PC would be able to even imagine a connection to the interwebz anytime soon. The OS is not fit enough to experience the modern internet.

I can't comment on modern versions of Photoshop. I toyed with it when shooting chemically processed media, which were then scanned at a resolution below that because that was the limitations of digital intervention. Scanning negatives was always an interesting colour-balance experiment.

There will have been improvements in the software on cameras in the past decade or so, possibly making JPGs much more than they used to be. And sensor ISO ranges have extended, which together with the onboard s/w on the camera might explain why.

(I think the current Lightroom Classic subscription version may pre-date my CD version)

Then there's my brain-fart idea that metadata could be encoded within JPG images. That may be rather hard to find in the 'noise'.

Billysdad said:

I do all my editing in Photoshop, because I can't use any other. I think that flitting between editing programs make you not very good at any, instead of concentrationg on one and becoming reasonable.

I'm kind of with you there - I do all my processing (rather than editing) in Lightroom as I simply haven't worked out how to do it in Photoshop. I use Photoshop when I actually want to "edit" something, create a collage, physically change the contents of a picture - things that you can't do in LR

I began editing yonks ago using Photoshop Elements that I got free with a camera. I used it for a few years then my brother-in-law gave me a spurious copy of Photoshop. I suddenly found that I went from being able to use 80% of Elements to using 10% of Photoshop, but what I had been doing was more or less the same with additional features. Some other stuff I couldn't do then and still can't as it wasn't my area of interest  - more graphic design. What did help my learning was that on a forum years ago there was a Photoshop Challenge, where someone would post a picture and the others would do some kind of edit in Photoshop. I used to think of an idea, then google how to do it. I moved on eventually to the subscription version of Photoshop - I think I pay about £115 per year, which is about £2 per wek and I do use it regularly, so not bad for the latest editing software. I can probably use about 30% now, but that is a good part of what i want to do, and if there is anything I can't do, I just google it ...