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- Edit My Images
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My software journey has taken a strange turn, so I thought I might post details here in case anyone wants to enjoy criticizing me for hypocrisy.
I tried Lightroom and Photoshop. I got mad at Adobe because they were dishonest, incompetent, and difficult. Also, I found Photoshop useless. Not that it's a bad program. I just don't find myself thinking, "Wow, I need to run this through Photoshop." I ranted and made Adobe refund my money.
I found Faststone and started using it for culling. I got Excire Foto for organizing and locating. I started using Photolab for editing. I was very happy.
Then Photolab sent me an update. It crashed my computer over and over. Windows Security told me some process or other was not trusted. I got black screens that would not go away until I banged on the keys and got the PC to let me log out and back in.
I tried to get help from AI because I did not want to deal with going back and forth with DxO people if I didn't have to. I have done that with other companies, and my experience has been that they hire reps whose only real goal is to send off facile responses that don't work, just to show their bosses they're busy so their stats will look good and they won't be fired. The AI help was not useful.
While all this was going on, I got tired of trying to fix skin issues with Photolab. Overall, I greatly prefer it to Lightroom, but I often need to fix skin problems, and Photolab is not very good for this unless you're a Photolab virtuoso. Lightroom does it instantly. So now I was mad at DxO because my PC kept crashing, and I was also thinking how nice it would be to have Lightroom to repair skin quickly.
Bottom line: I decided to crawl back and resubscribe to Lightroom for one year. Meanwhile, by digging in DxO's site, I found a suggestion. It said I should set my Windows page swap file setting to "auto." I gave that a try, and now Photolab SEEMS to work. So if anyone else has this issue, this may be the answer.
Now I had a new challenge: creating files I liked in Photolab and moving them to Lightroom for skin repair, without losing the Photolab look I created. It turns out using DNG is a big mistake. Lightroom will display the file incorrectly, and while it may be that it will be fine once you go to another program to view it, why take the chance? The answer is to create a huge TIFF. Lightroom can redo skin in TIFF; it doesn't need raw.
I don't know if this was an intelligent solution or not, but it is saving me colossal amounts of aggravation and failure.
I tried Lightroom and Photoshop. I got mad at Adobe because they were dishonest, incompetent, and difficult. Also, I found Photoshop useless. Not that it's a bad program. I just don't find myself thinking, "Wow, I need to run this through Photoshop." I ranted and made Adobe refund my money.
I found Faststone and started using it for culling. I got Excire Foto for organizing and locating. I started using Photolab for editing. I was very happy.
Then Photolab sent me an update. It crashed my computer over and over. Windows Security told me some process or other was not trusted. I got black screens that would not go away until I banged on the keys and got the PC to let me log out and back in.
I tried to get help from AI because I did not want to deal with going back and forth with DxO people if I didn't have to. I have done that with other companies, and my experience has been that they hire reps whose only real goal is to send off facile responses that don't work, just to show their bosses they're busy so their stats will look good and they won't be fired. The AI help was not useful.
While all this was going on, I got tired of trying to fix skin issues with Photolab. Overall, I greatly prefer it to Lightroom, but I often need to fix skin problems, and Photolab is not very good for this unless you're a Photolab virtuoso. Lightroom does it instantly. So now I was mad at DxO because my PC kept crashing, and I was also thinking how nice it would be to have Lightroom to repair skin quickly.
Bottom line: I decided to crawl back and resubscribe to Lightroom for one year. Meanwhile, by digging in DxO's site, I found a suggestion. It said I should set my Windows page swap file setting to "auto." I gave that a try, and now Photolab SEEMS to work. So if anyone else has this issue, this may be the answer.
Now I had a new challenge: creating files I liked in Photolab and moving them to Lightroom for skin repair, without losing the Photolab look I created. It turns out using DNG is a big mistake. Lightroom will display the file incorrectly, and while it may be that it will be fine once you go to another program to view it, why take the chance? The answer is to create a huge TIFF. Lightroom can redo skin in TIFF; it doesn't need raw.
I don't know if this was an intelligent solution or not, but it is saving me colossal amounts of aggravation and failure.