What software do you guys use?

Dunlin wrote:

Thanks for taking the time of writing all that detail (that good BTW).

I'm feeling really bogged down with my workflow and DAM. I have several thousand unprocessed RAWs that need doing + DAM. I can't really be bothered.

So you don't use keywords/tags at all?

No but I'm not a high volume shooter at all. It appeals to me from a tech / OCD viewpoint, but I don't end up making use of them.

I used Adobe LrC, but it was too slow. I'm sorta using digikam right now for DAM.

Darktable is sorta my enemy. I want to be sure I really want to overcome it before (if) I do. It's a lot of time to put in, plus it would be slower to do the actual editing. But, perhaps that's a good thing. I feel like I should perhaps focus on taking a few great shots, instead of 40 standard ones.

To be fair, I'm not running a monster computer. It's a 16 GB laptop with an 8 core AMD Ryzen CPU and embedded GPU (shared memory). Hardly a heavy duty graphics machine.

I'm not a darktable evangelist (nor FOSS evangelist) - I just use what works best at the time. I'm not opposed to Adobe products but given how little I shoot paying a monthly fee for them to sit there unused doesn't make too much sense.

But in all fairness, darktable (and to a similar degree RawTherapee / ART) offer a LOT of power for free. Neither of them (especially DT) are 'mass market' products, even in the limited sense LR might be. I'm not a LR user, but they offer some powerful capabilities that from reports by LR users LR often can't touch. That is, in a raw editing context, not necessarily DAM. RawTherapee / ART are DAM-less.

But make no mistake - You'll only benefit from them if you invest the time. In my case I just had to get the bit in my teeth, start reading docs, watching videos, etc., etc., and work with the software. Go to PIXLS.US for their forums.

I'm no expert at either. It's just been recently when I seem to have turned that "soft" corner from investing to reaping, so to speak. And I have a long way to go.

Anyways, thanks for sharing Len. I really appreciate it.

NP.