Brian

That is BAD. Very Bad. Move those images off that TM Drive. Keep your Time Machine Drive separate from everything else. While technically you aren't "breaking" anything, the more Icons / Files / Folders (aka CRAP) you have on your desktop, the slower your Mac runs. The only thing that should be on your Mac Desktop is the HD Icons and shortcut files called an Alias. Now granted, I myself will put things on the Desktop to keep things simple. The problem is when people use it for long-term storage. "I haven't had any problems..." Yeah, I get that a lot. A person could also say they routinely drive 100MPH / 160KPH and have never gotten a speeding ticket. LOL!! It's your Mac. It's important to stay current with CleanMyMac. The current version is CleanMyMac X. What trips people up is they hold onto say, CleanMyMac 2 or CleanMyMac 3 and run it on a modern OS. Then they come in hear wondering why CleanMyMac screwed up their computer. In 2022 the days of holding onto software for 10+ years are over. You must stay current for the best results, or at the very least don't upgrade things (which causes problems eventually all by itself,) to keep all the version levels even. Talk about complicated. Ask any Engineer, the more complicated you make something, the greater the chance of things going horribly wrong. Pick something and fix it. Start moving Photos off the TM drive and personally I'd recommend formatting the TM drive and then run a fresh TM backup will fix the TM issues. But I can understand if you don't want to nuke that drive. Still, get those photos off of that TM drive. Put them ANYWHERE but the Mac Desktop and the Time Machine Drive. Also, BackBlaze and other Cloud Storage Services: They are NOT Fool-Proof. You must read the fine print. I think it's BackBlaze that will delete files automatically after 30 days if they aren't stored locally on your computer. So you might think things are backed up, then clear stuff out of your HDs...only to find out two months from now those files are GONE. So make sure things are where they are supposed to be. At least for the really important stuff. If I'm wrong, perfect. Your files are still there and your world is happy. If I'm right, then you have discovered something and can be pro-active. APFS is Apple's newest Partition Type. It's perfect for SSD (Flash Based) Media. Spinning Platter / Traditional HDs? It's best to use MacOS Extended (Journaled). The Windows equivalent to that Partition Type is "NTFS." Hell to the YES!! I have Two G-Drives sitting on my desk as I type this. A USB 3.0 4TB G-Drive that is currently running a TM Backup and a Thunderbolt 3 12TB G-Drive that houses my photos / Data Files. G-Drives are my default recommendation. Especially the beefy Enterprise-Grade 7200RPM Models. I never cheap out on my Hard Drives. Big, Beefy, Robust are the ones I like. Yes, they cost more but guess what also costs money (and stress?) Data Recovery. Not the Data Recovery with free software...no, Data Recovery where they transplant HD platters in attempts to get your data back. Way more expensive than a $500 fancy HD.

Send the lens to Canon. Fine Tuning the AF is a little over-rated. If it's THAT BAD, send it to Canon to have them look at it.

Scientifically speaking, you don't. More info. Photography speaking, change the angle of your lights. PS: Thank You for posting in the correct group.

The rest of the PC is fine, but I’m not liking the “Seagate NAS Drive.” You really want a 7200 RPM Drive.

I’m viewing this on my phone. What video card did you choose? Because you are about $1000 too low in 2022. Today’s modern photoshop uses a dedicated Video GPU and dedicated Video Memory as a performance boost. So look for a NVIDIA RTX 3070 8GB as a starting point.

Oh, the fancy 24” M1 Macs can’t be calibrated, the screens are incompatible. I predict new Calibration Devices soon to compensate. The SpyderX Series was recently on sale and the only time they do that is when they are trying to clear out stock. As to when new devices will be out, not sure.

I know. Apple JUST quietly removed the 27” Intel Based iMac. I’m going to have to rethink things. The bad news is, there will be less choices and you will end up paying more. When it comes to a M1 Mac, you need to purchase all of the upgrades at the time of purchase, no upgrading or replacing things after the fact. The good news is, M1 chips treat RAM a little differently and 16GB is like having 32GB on a Intel Mac. My day job has me quite busy this week. New articles will be written. I can say this: Start saving and prepare to BUY NOW because China is in another lockdown and that means supply problems starting in the next month or so. Like 2020 and 2021, it really sucks to be in the market for a new computer in 2022. I think we are past the point of no return, plan on replacing your computer every 3-4 years going forward. Supply Chain issues are our reality for at least 3-5 years. COVID isn’t going away and the world has gone insane.

Yeah, Mojave is a very stable OS and at this point, if all of your devices will run it, it's worth considering to match all of your devices. Things change once you get to Catalina and CS6 will flat-out stop working.

Are you talking about configuring a PC that's already built? Or building-building a PC? In either case, what is your budget? Because every time I try selecting parts for a potential build, I always end up more than $3000, and that's before the jacked-up prices due to the supply shortages caused by COVID-19. But to answer your question, yes...I can guide you either way. Edit: I will forewarn you, the biggest difference between building a PC yourself and buying/configuring one is you do not have the option of buying in bulk. Prices are still triple what they should be and a Video Card that is "Good for Photo Editing" will run you $1700 all-by-itself in 2022. Plus the cost of everything else.

Thank You!!

The ONLY thing I would bump up is the Warranty. The basic is just that, basic. Meaning you are shipping your computer to Dell for Warranty work. I'd get the Premium Support (Middle Column) for 2 Years for an extra $199. This way a Dell Tech will come to you. Everything else is fine. So the new cost will be $2,778.99, plus tax and possible shipping.

Buy it!

Because it's already a GPT Type. See how the partition is WAY bigger than 2TB? Plus it says "Convert to MBR." That only shows up when it's a GPT Disk. Continue onto Step 10.

Yep. You need to update to a newer OS. Keep in mind, this is a one-way thing. If you want to go back, for whatever reason, you will need to format your HD and reinstall the older OS. No downgrading for you.

Oh, I love my G-Tech Drives and recommend them over any other drive. The problem is, they tend to be on the expensive side and people don't like spending $600+ on an external drive. Why? 🤨 I personally recommend a program that has been around forever, SuperDuper! Seriously, it dates from the 1990's. It's not fancy nor slick-looking, but it works very well. Yeah, sometimes if you keep using the same drive for years without trimming (killing) the really old backups, you can run out of room. The only thing I can recommend is to delete the snapshots that are really-really old, OR just format the Time Machine Drive and start all-over again. A Time Machine Drive needs to be twice the capacity of the internal Mac Drive. (Well, you could get away with 1.5 the size, but it's just easier to get a larger drive.) A 4TB Time Machine Drive backing up a 1TB Macintosh HD (Internal) is perfect. BUT!! You need to maintain it, you can't just let it do its thing for years without consequences. Oh, one more thing...if you are storing crap on your Mac Desktop...stop doing this. Each time you put a file on the Mac Desktop, it kills the performance of your Mac AND Time Machine backs up the desktop each time it runs. You might have tons of temporary stuff on your Mac Desktop which then gets deleted; the funny part is, your TM drive still has a copy and that can cause you to run out of space. So in the end, it may be better for you to Nuke the TM drive and start all over. Yeah. This is going to be an involved thread. First, I want to get your TM situation fixed. That TM drive should be all-by-itself, with no other files or backups on it. After that gets straightened out, then we will work on your EHD issues. Again, I will move this to the Macintosh Users Group when I see that you have responded in some way.

I'm moving this thread to the Windows Forum. Edit: Crap...You have a Mac. *Sigh.* This should have been in the Mac Users Group. I will move it to the Mac Group after you respond.

CS6 works fine up to MacOS Mojave, which is just after High Sierra. Catalina changed the rules, and CS6 doesn't work at all. Sometimes you can get it to install, but then it immediately crashes, so don't bother using CS6 and Catalina or above. So you should be fine upgrading to High Sierra. Or you can upgrade to Mojave. With computers running older Operating Systems such as yours, please for the love of all that is good-and-green...MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A FULL BACKUP AND HAVE COMPLETED ALL CLIENT WORK BEFORE MESSING AROUND WITH YOUR COMPUTER. These types of upgrades can go smoothly, or make your computer a complete mess. Also, make sure things like PS Actions, Brushes, License Keys and such are backed up somewhere else other than your internal HD. Even if you throw them on a Thumb-drive. Also figure out how your e-mail is setup and see if you know your e-mail passwords. I can't tell you how many times I've been in your situation, and have the computer blow-up in my face! No fault of my own, it's just something that happens. So make sure you can afford to have it blow up in your face un-expectedly. I don't want to see any panic posts begging for help after I have warned you. Here is Apple's Links to older Mac Operating Systems. The only thing that you need to do is use the Safari Web Browser when clicking on the links. The links on that web page will NOT work if you use Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Opera...or whatever web browser is your default choice. You MUST use Safari!!! How to get old versions of the MacOS Click on the appropriate MacOS Link and it will take you to the software download from the App Store.

The important thing is to not go too quickly!! Follow them step-by-step. The other member must have read it too quickly and was on the wrong blasted HD.

I found a recent thread with someone in your position. Follow my instructions in the lower half of this thread, I give step-by-step instructions on setting up a EHD in Windows: External HD Issues

Moving this thread to the Windows Forum.

Perfect. I'm moving this to the Windows Hardware Forum. Let me know when you get that external drive.

Checks all of my boxes. Enjoy your purchase.

Yes. And Yes. Many External Hard Drives come partitioned in a format known as exFAT. The reason is that it works with both Windows and Mac. Sounds really good right? Wrong. Hard Drives using exFAT are not bullet-proof, not in the slightest, and I would not recommend that partition type for your average computer user. A Techno-Geek who doesn't care if their drive goes Ka-plooey? Sure. You and me, nope. If your are on a Windows Computer we need to convert it with a GPT Partition Type and a NTFS Partition. It sounds more involved than it really is, this whole process should take you about 5 min or less. If you are Mac, we need to do a similar process, but format it for use with the Mac. Which computer do you have and I will move the thread to the appropriate forum.

Budget? (Hint: Needs to be at least $3000 just for the computer in 2022.) Did you take a look at the Pinned Articles at the top of this group?

Oh, an i7 would work "fine" for Photoshop in 2022. But I build my computers with a 7-8 year time-frame in mind. An i9 will get you to 7-8 years, a i7...probably 4-5 at most. So plan on buying a new Mac in about 4-5 years or so, for when Photoshop CC 2027 is released. Remember, each and every update to PS, Adobe makes it more bloated and incompatible. LOL!!