Brian

One more thing. You are going to want to read "Part 2" of this article: It covers how to get your mounted devices, like memory cards in readers, as well as external hard drives to show up on your Mac Desktop. It makes things really easy to deal with when you have external devices.

i hate Seagate Drives with a passion, so you won't see them recommended by me. What do I use with my iMac? G-Drives. The fancy Enterprise-Grade ones. The cool part is they come Mac Formatted and include all necessary cables in the box. The downside is they tend to be a bit pricey, but this is my data we are talking about, I'm not going to purchase a $79 Special from a Box Store, only to spend $2000 on Professional Data recovery when the damn thing dies. Don't cheap out when it comes to your data!! Buy it Right - Buy it Once! Since you are running a 2013 iMac, and probably have Thunderbolt 2 ports, I'm going to recommend a USB 3.0 Based G-Drive. Why not use the Thunderbolt 2 Ports? Because the HD manufactures really don't make TB2-based drives anymore, they have moved onto Thunderbolt 3. The good news is, that whatever drive you choose, you can use it on your new Mac. So you might want to spend a little more now and get a much larger HD than your current needs dictate, so that when you do upgrade your camera / computer, you won't have to fork out the cash a second time. As for which one, I'd recommend getting a USB 3.0 4TB G-Drive. The Good? It's pretty affordable at $140. The bad? It's only 4TB and these days that's not a lot of storage capacity. The good news is that 4TB could easily meet your needs and when the time comes for a new Mac, you can re-purpose this 4TB EHD as a Time Machine Backup Drive and purchase another external to house your Photos and such. Which leads me to my next point... You do not want your Time Machine Drive also being used as a Data HD. Keep the two separate and be sure to configure Time Machine to exclude the other EHD. All sorts of bad things can happen if you "cross-pollinate;" I've know of several Mac Users had their TM drive backup EVERYTHING, including their large Data Drive. The TM Drive started corrupting itself and caused all sorts of hell. So let's avoid that, life is too short. Time Machine EHD is just for Time Machine. 2nd (and larger) EHD is for Photos and Data. Here is my old computer from a few years ago. My 12TB EHD is on the left, and the 4TB EHD is on the right, and that's my Time Machine Drive: I've since upgraded to a 27" iMac, but the configuration is the same. ONE MORE THING!! In case you haven't heard, there is a chip shortage happening now and supplies are limited across the board. Not only for things like Ford Pickup Trucks, but things like Hard Drives, Computers, and other Peripherals are also affected. Prices are a lot more now than they were in 2019. The $500 computes from yesterday, are going for $1200 today. Same thing goes for Hard Drives. If you see in stock and you can afford it, BUY IT! Because in a week or two there will be a good chance that it's out of stock for 6 months, or even longer. If you are looking for a really expensive, beefy and most importantly Future Proof, then look towards a larger EHD like this 18TB Thunderbolt 3 & USB 3.0 Drive or this smaller one the 14TB Thunderbolt 3 & USB 3.0. OR! You can split the difference and get something like a 6TB Drive or a 10TB Model. See a theme here?

Three copies of the file. Those three files are stored on two different storage mediums and one of those mediums is off site. This is one of those industry-standard things. Honestly, this is over-kill for most. If you just back up to a HD, and then copy that HD to another and keep that one off-site, that should cover your bases. OR two different storage mediums could be a EHD, one kept off-site AND Cloud Storage. On servers it's usually a RAID Based HD and a Tape, etc. Basically you want redundancy; again, this depends on how critical your data is and how paranoid you are. It's not so much as a "Large Camera" in the physical sense, it's THE MEGAPIXELS in those cameras. I could buy a Nikon Z7 II Camera at 45MP or whatever OR a Nikon Z6 II camera. Both are similar in physical size, it's just one is 24MP and the other is 45MP. The more MP, the bigger the Raw files because there is more data contained within the Raw file due to the higher MP. Make sense? If you had a 60MP or 100MP camera, those files would be way larger than one that's 45MP. When you upgrade your camera body, and it has a higher MP, you will need to have the infrastructure in-place to support the larger files. These days, consumer-grade / entry-level cameras START at 24MP, which just a few short years ago was only available on a Nikon D3X. As for taking photos off of Pictures, you mean your "Pictures" folder or some sort of program called "Pictures?" I think I misunderstood. That will teach me answering questions at like 1AM in the morning. If it's just your pictures folder, that makes me feel a lot better in your case; I thought you were using one of Apple's stupid built-in programs. If it's just your "Pictures" folder, make sure you COPY AND NOT MOVE / CLICK-AND-DRAG when you back them up on a EHD. Also, the Pictures Folder is backed up when Time Machine does its thing. So you do have a back-up, even though you might not realize it. Why Copy / Paste? When you Cut and Paste or Click and Drag, you are MOVING the file. If anything were to screw up during the data transfer, it is a lot easier to cancel the process and start over again. If you cut/move, you are deleting the source material as it's doing the data transfer. Understand?

Sorry, It's you. You are shooting in Hazy Light, pointed directly at the Sun. Remember, your camera needs something with contrast swing to lock onto and not all focus points are created equal. So while you might have put the AF point on the eye, it seems that you are a good bit back from the subject, and your camera is focusing on this little tiny eye and I'm sorry, your camera can only do so much. Even my fancy 2014 Flagship Model Camera, a Nikon D4s, would have blown focus on this photo. So what do you do? Move closer. Or pick something else to focus on, like an arm in this photo and stop-down to f/5.6 or somewhere around there to get the Depth of Field deep enough for both the arms and face to be in "Acceptable Sharp" territory.

It's fine to use. The only "Bad" thing I can think of, is if the solder joints are flaky or the slot goes bad, you are either looking at an expensive motherboard repair or switching to an external card reader. For me, it's more of a PITA inserting it into the back of the Mac, and I find that using an external USB 3.0 Card Reader is faster to download my images. At some point, I will get another XQD Reader that also does CF Express, and that reader will use the Thunderbolt 3 port.That said, feel free to keep doing what you are doing, or purchase and external reader and use that. It's a flip of a coin in your situation. Right now I'm not happy with your current situation when it comes to your Mac. The 21.5" models are not easily upgraded after the fact, your video card is under-powered for today's modern Photoshop, it's an i5...so in reality, you need to start saving for a new computer rather than forking out the money for a card reader. Why? Because as of right now, I'm sure your computer works perfectly well with your D750, but as soon as you go and upgrade that camera body that has more MP, you will find out just how "slow" your iMac is. I went through a similar situation when I bought my Nikon D850 and it's 45MP. For the longest time, I shot with a D700 and then was able to get a Nikon D4s for a very good price. My 21.5" 2009 iMac worked "fine." That's because the D700 was from the 2009-era and the D4s was from the 2014 era, so things just "worked." Until I got tired of everyone making such a big deal about my D4s. "Wow! That camera is huge! You must take really nice pictures!!" "That's a nice camera! It's huge! How much did that cost? I'm sure it's expensive." "What type of camera..." blah-blah-blah. Yes, the D4s and it's sister bodies are quite large and even though I got a crazy stupid deal on it, having a Bullseye on the body and f/2.8 lenses really made me self-conscious. So I bought a D850. Biggest regret / Buyer's Remorse of my life. That stupid camera has costed me so much money. My 2009 iMac came to a screeching halt performance-wise, because my Raw files were closer to 100MB instead of 26MB or so and I also had to buy a larger external HD, a 12TB model, in order to save all of those large images. Then I had to buy two new lenses, because my images were crap in the corners, on-and-on. So before you go blowing money on what you think you might need, at this point I would take a hard look on what you are going to be shooting with in the next couple of years; just having more MP with a new camera body introduces things you never would have expected to spend money on. Anyway, back to your question. I'm really-REALLY concerned about you using "Pictures" for your photos. That's bad. Really bad. It is much better to copy the files via a card reader to a folder on the HD, internal or external and use a program like Adobe Bridge to cull (even use Photomechanic if you choose to) and then edit the images in ACR. Not only will you get to work with all of the data, there isn't a stupid catalog that Apple's products seem to use. It's worse than a LR catalog. At least with LR, the images are stored in folders on your computer, the edits (and the edit history) in LR is stored in your catalog. Pictures ingests the images and does whatever it does to them. So you will need to go through Pictures and export all of your photos of of it. At least I would. I haven't used Photos and its current form, Pictures, since 2009. So I'm no help since I know that program is evil and can really mess with you if something goes wrong. In fact, I almost never use ANY of the built in software that comes with the Mac! Yeah...you are getting low on space. Are you aware of a program called, CleanMyMac X? it's from Macpaw.com I've been using it for years and it's totally worth the $40 (or whatever the current price is) to keep things cleared out on your internal Macintosh HD. I run it weekly, if not every couple of days. Well, the SD/XQD Combo Card Reader that I recommend is no longer being made, but I did find this one: GNARBOX XQD 2.0 Reader with UHS-II microSD/SD. There is a XQD/CFExpress B Reader, but I'd hold off for now, you have bigger fish to worry about with your current Pictures and HD situation. See What Card Reader do you Recommend for more info. Ideally, you want to embrace the 3-2-1 Backup Strategy. Three separate copies of your important data files. Stored on Two different devices / storage medium. One copy kept off-site in case of fire/flood/theft/extreme situations, etc. You need to be careful with Cloud storage such as Backblaze. It's not as a "Permanent Cloud Storage" as one would think, unless you for out the extra $$$$'s for that feature. You see, if you delete a bunch of files on your HD, within 30 days, Backblaze will delete those same files that are stored on their servers. Surprise!! People have had nasty surprises when they delete stuff and then try to recover files a few months later, so before you go deleting stuff, and you should, make sure you have all of your proverbial "Ducks lined up in a row." No. Not anymore. I've owned LaCie Drives and used to recommend them, until I had several users complain about failed drives. LaCie used to be good a long time ago, now I think they are made by Seagate or primarily use Seagate Hard Drives...and not the high-end kind. I've had more problems with Seagate HDs than any other brand in my 28 years of being a computer tech. Well, Maxtor I've had more problems with, but now Seagate owns Maxtor and those same crappy drives just have Seagate Stickers on the drives now. I wouldn't use Seagate HDs even if you paid me. As for which brand I recommend? Thunderbolt G-Drives, or at the very least a USB 3.0 Version. I have a 4TB USB 3.0 Drive that I use for my Time Machine Backups, and a Thunderbolt 3 12TB G-Drive for my image files. The cool part with the G-Drives is they come Mac-Formatted and include all necessary cables to hook up to your computer in the box. I also tend to purchase the "Enterprise Grade" versions since I want my Hard Drives to be big & beefy and stable as hell. I would never-ever-ever recommend someone purchasing a $79 Special from a Big Box Store. Unfortunately, G-Drives tend to be very expensive. Since they no longer make the 12TB version, here is the 14TB current model of what I'm using. The sad part is, it's the worst time to be in the market for ANY computer device or peripheral, due to the world-wide chip shortage. Everything seems to be out of stock and costs a few hundred more than their 2019 counterparts. Even "Computers that are Good for Photo-editing," both Mac AND Windows are around the $3000 price-point. That's right, a Windows computer that is meant to run Photoshop really well will set you back close to $3200 or so. I'd never thought I would see the day of this happening. Bottom Line: Don't purchase anything right now, at least when it comes to major hardware. Use what you have. Well, except for getting CleanMyMac X, I would go ahead and get that. Maybe a 6TB G-Drive that can act as your main external storage for now, and then ultimately that drive would become your new Time Machine Drive for a new Mac sometime in the future. The problem is, you have a 21.5" iMac and I know they seem more "Affordable," but the truth is, Apple CRIPPLED that model. Think of it as a "iMac Mini" instead of a full-fledged Macintosh Computer. If you want speed, you are going to need to invest in a 27" iMac, and not just any version; a tricked-out and expensive model. Check out my pinned posts in this group, you will know my thoughts and what to look for. I hate 21.5" iMacs as much as Damien hates Lightroom.

That combination is the most stable at this point. If you can update to just Catalina, please do. That said, IF you take the plunge, than PS CC is in your immediate future. If you can download PS CC 2019, which might require calling Adobe since it's no longer in the downloads list with the PS CC Module, go that route. Of course Adobe will say that 2021 is perfectly fine, but I have enough members complaining about it to contradict that opinion. Again, we are living in the Era of a Chip Shortage with COVID-19 still around. it is THE WORST TIME TO BE IN THE MARKET FOR A NEW COMPUTER. Windows Computers that are "Good for Photo-editing" cost around $3000 or more. That's right, Windows Computers are $3000.00+!! If I was buying a iMac, right now, here is the configuration. I wouldn't go to Best Buy or another store, order from Apple.com directly. Start with the 27" iMac for $2299 and change a few things to match this: That configuration will cost you $3229.00 Plus Tax and Apple Care. Then head to B&H and purchase a 16GB Memory Kit. This will increase the RAM from 8GB to 40GB for way less money that Apple would charge you for the same damn thing. Crucial 32GB DDR4 2666 MHz SO-DIMM Memory Kit for Mac (2 x 16GB) - $176.99. Just in case you are about to ask... Is there a better configuration that's cheaper? No. That said, you could go for the smaller / standard keyboard and save yourself $30. Other than that, the computer's configuration itself remains the same. Do you recommend something less expensive? No. Are you sure that I shouldn't buy a 21.5" iMac? Yes. They are a complete waste of money and can't be upgraded after the fact. Wow, that's expensive! Are you sure... That's what I would buy for myself. I hate wasting money. This configuration should last you about 7-8 years. But that much? Sheesh! Yep. It sucks.

Thank You! He forwarded me the donation. Those instructions are fresh off the press. I’m glad they worked out for you.

Head to HP’s website and see if there are any Graphic Card Driver updates for your system. When you purchase a store-bought computer, often you will need to use the Manufacturer’s drivers. I think HP has a scanning tool: https://support.hp.com/us-en/computer

No. Chances are, the on-board video shares the Video Memory with the RAM. This is not ideal. Have you tried updating the Graphics Card Drivers? The separate video card, in this case the GT730 graphics card, should have it's own dedicated video memory. Before I send you down the wrong path, what make/model computer is this graphics card installed in? If it's a Dell, chances are we will need to use the Dell Drivers, which are probably severely out of date.

Deleting a Windows Partition and creating a new one is pretty straightforward, and just takes a few minutes to complete. No special software is needed, especially software from the Hard Drive Manufactures; all that is required is built into the Windows Operating System. So let's begin! Right-Click on the Start Button and select Disk Management: This will bring up the main Disk Management Utility Window. Make note of which hard drives are currently mounted: Now insert the EHD into your USB port and allow it to mount/spin up. It should appear in the list. In this example, note "Disk 1" that appeared in the list. This will be the drive that I will modifying; your Disk Number might be different. There is no difference, it's just another number in the list. It could be listed as "Disk 3" or even "Disk 5," THE IMPORTANT THING IS THAT WE CHOOSE THE CORRECT DRIVE! Select the Partition that you would like to Delete. The box will go from a plain white background to one that has slashes in it and should be highlighted. This is Windows' way of letting you know which Partition you have chosen: Now Right-Click on that Partition and select Delete Volume. It should go without saying, that you really-really-really want to be sure that this is the correct Partition to delete. A Warning Message will appear asking for permission to delete. If the Partition was created on another type of OS, such as a Mac, this error message will appear differently. This is completely normal, just click "Yes" and wait a few seconds. Error Warning with a Windows-Created Partition: Error Warning with a Macintosh-Created Partition: Now your Disk Management should have your EHD as a large, solid/continuous black line: At this point, if your HD is 2TB or smaller, we can continue with the Wizard to create a new Partition. If your EHD is 3TB or Larger, then we will need to covert the Drive from a MBR Disk to a GPT Disk. This step ONLY affects those with EHDs that are 3TB or larger. GPT is meant to create a single partition that is larger than 3TB since MBR has a 2TB maximum limit. Make sense? To convert it to a GPT Disk, right click on the Disk # in the left column you are modifying and select "Convert to GPT Disk" and follow the prompts. (Click OK, OK, etc., etc.) Note: I do not have a 3TB Drive hooked up for this document, and am using this next example as a guide. Your 3TB HD will be larger in capacity than my smaller one that I'm using in this tutorial. The important thing is to right-click on the Drive # box that you want to convert to a GPT Disk: After Right-Clicking on the Drive # square in the left column, select "Convert to GPT Disk" and follow the prompts. Again, this is only for the folks who have 3TB or larger Hard Drives! Now for the fun part, creating a new Partition! Right click on the area that has a black stripe and select, "New Simple Volume." The Wizard should appear, click Next: Specify the Volume Size. For the majority and this example, we will leave it at the default, which is the maximum capacity of the drive. If you are going to create multiple partitions on this Hard Drive at different sizes, I'd use an online calculator tool to create the size you need. For example, if you wanted to create a 6TB partition, you would enter 6,291,456. But to keep things simple, leave it at the default and click next. Assign a Drive Letter. This is the spot that you can assign a drive letter if you choose. For example, if this EHD is one that will contain personal files. we could change the Drive Letter to P:\ for "Personal Drive." Again, this is completely up to you to decide. There is no right or wrong answer. If you'd like all of your EHDs to be the "E Drive" (i.e. E:\ ) then change the default to E by clicking the Down Arrow next to the Drive Letter and selecting E. After making your choice, click Next. We will leave it at "D" for this example. The next screen is very important. It's the "Format Partition" selections. For today's modern Windows Computers' hard drives that are meant for permanent storage, you want to use NTFS. Some devices like Thumb Drives, you would want to use FAT32. Again, for this example we will leave it at the default of NTFS. The Allocation Size should be left at the default and it is highly recommended that you give your HD a name, to keep things organized. "Data," "Photos," "EHD #2," etc. are all examples. Keep is short and simple. Before clicking Next, be sure to click the check-box next to "Perform a quick format!" Otherwise it will take HOURS to format your HD! Leave the "Enable file and folder compression" UN-CHECKED. Click Next. A Summary Window should appear with your selections. Confirm them if you'd like and click Finish. The Hard Drive will begin the process and Windows will assign it a letter and name. This process should take less than 30 seconds, but this depends on the speed of your computer and Hard Drive. Some complete this task in as little as 5-7 seconds, others take longer. When completed, the Disk Manger should have the drive in the list, along with the name that you chose for the drive: Exit out of the Disk Manger and either use "This PC" or the "Windows Explorer" to use the new Drive. With any new Hard Drive, now is the time to think of a Directory Structure on how you want to organize your Hard Drive. This is completely up to you, but I would take the time and think of how you are going to store stuff, rather than it becoome a dumping ground for your files/images. Here is one example: You could also keep things very simple, and have folders that are just the year: The sky's the limit! So make your Directory Structure a good one!

I'm going to move this to the Windows Forum since it's really not a "Gear" question. I will post the instructions on how to delete / create a partition in the next comment box.

It's not the HD per se, they always have been pretty straightforward. it's just the stupid freakin' software that gets included with the drives that trips people up. This has been happening for as long as I remember; in fact, I can share similar stories from Hard Drives in the early 1990's and that's 30 years ago. LOL!!

YES. What I would do first, is to get any files out of that stupid vault program, then delete the whole partition...create a new one and format it. I can help you with this if needed.

Welp, that's a bit old by today's standards. How large is your internal Mac HD? I'm assuming you have a 1TB internal HD? Also, you have Thunderbolt 2 ports, which is what I was afraid of. Things have moved on to Thunderbolt 3, and the port is a USB-C Style. That said, there is hope yet! To start off, I'd HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you increase your RAM up to 32GB. 8GB is just not enough by today's standards. the good news is that doing this upgrade you can do yourself for not a lot of money. Here is a 32GB Kit from Crucial. I'm surprised you have lasted this long on 8GB. Now for the Hard Drives. To answer your first question of the difference between CMR or SMR, It's almost like the difference between a DVD-R+ and a DVD-R- Compact Disk. Well, not exactly, but I think you get my point. It's how the data is written to the hard drive platters. CMR - Stands for Conventional Magnetic Recording. This has been the standard method of how data has been written to hard drives since they were invented in the 1950's. It would be the method that I would use if I was actively backing up data as well as accessing data on the HD. Since we are photographers, and not some large corporation that has Petabytes of data, we don't need to worry about the lower cost of the SMR method. Which brings me to the next answer... SMR - Stands for Shingled Magnetic Recording. This method is the newest today and it's designed to cram more data on a Hard Drive platter, thereby reducing the cost of storage. SMR is better when you are archiving...not the way you are thinking about backing up your data, ARCHIVING, archiving. As in, back up your data and then store in in a vault in a off-site location. Chances are, you aren't doing that. So what is the difference? When data is written to a Hard Drive Platter, with CMR, a small gap exists between the chunks of data, which allows the hard drive to freely write and overwrite data at will. By using this method, you don't have to worry about the data itself as much...a Hard Drive works like it always has. With SMR, there are no gaps in between the data files, and things are stored sequentially. The data blocks look like "Shingles" on a roof, instead of books neatly organized on a shelf, hence the name. What happens is when you store something on that the SMR HD, it will pick a spot where there is no data and then write to it. After the data is written, the HD will enter a "Reorganization Mode" in where it figures out how to move the data around so that it can be stored sequentially. Idle time is essential with a SMR Drive. You put files on it, and let it run for hours while it does it's thing. Of course, it's pretty quick, and it allows you to put more "stuff" on the HD, but you need to allow more time on the back-end to let it organize your data. As I've said before...for us, IT'S BETTER TO STICK WITH A CMR DRIVE and be happy. Back to what the heck do you buy. Personally, I like G-Drives when it comes to my Macs. They come Mac Formatted and include all of the necessary cables. I'd use Time Machine to back up the internal Macintosh HD and tell Time Machine to ignore the other HD that will store your image files. 4TB should be more than enough room for a 1TB-2TB Internal HD. With it being USB 3.0, and it backing up things every 15 min or so, things run quite smoothly. The longest it takes is when you either upgrade the OS or create the Time Machine Backup for the 1st time, but it runs in the background and you really don't notice it. Like I've said above, Apple has perfected backing up your Internal HD with Time Machine. Now for the RAID. Yes, you do want at least a RAID-1 setup, which is "Drive Mirroring." As data is written to one HD, it is automatically "Mirrored" or Synced to the other HD, instantaneously. The nice thing about RAID-1 is if one HD fails, you can replace that failed HD, tell it to rebuild the new HD and then things go back to normal. The bad part about RAID-1, is if you delete a file, OR a file gets corrupted on one HD, THAT FILE IS CORRUPTED OR LOST ON THE SECOND HARD DRIVE IMMEDIATELY! So instead of thinking you have "Two Hard Drives," think of it as a single hard drive with a redundancy or "Plan B" in case if something bad happens to ONE of the Hard Drives. Please bear in mind, that if a water pipe in the ceiling above your computer bursts and that External RAID-1 drive gets soaked while it's still on, those drives are dead and you are looking at a very expensive Data Recovery Service. Same thing with a House Fire and such. That's why having an off-site backup is critical if you are that paranoid about your data files. So what do you buy? In your case I would get a 2 or 4 Bay NAS. The difference? If all you want to do is RAID-1, a 2-bay NAS is fine. If you are looking for more redundancy with RAID-5/RAID6 or RAID-10, then you will need at least a 4 bay NAS, preferably one that has 5 bays or more. It all depends on how far you want to go. Keep in mind, that storage does come at a cost, and if you have two 4TB in a RAID-1 configuration, you don't have 8TB of data available, but only 4TB (or slightly less after formatting) since the drives are Mirrored. With a computer as old as the one you have, a new iMac will be in your near future in a couple of years. I'm sure a new camera that has more Megapixels will also be in your future. Bigger. Better. Faster. More. It never ends. The reason that I'm bringing this up, is you need to "Buy it Right...Buy it Once" in terms of capacity. For the majority of folks out there, I highly recommend looking at at least 8TB or more when it comes to a "Photo Drive." I personally have a 12TB myself. So while you might feel that 4TB is more than you'll ever need, think BIGGER. You don't have to go out and blow money on 18TB Hard Drives, but you really should consider something in the 6TB-8TB range, or just go for broke and pick up two 14TB Hard Drives and Mirror them. Why so large? I want you to invest in a EHD setup that will carry over to your new computer. This NAS system should be around for at least 8-10 years or more. That's why we are spending the money now. What HDs do I recommend for your NAS? Skip the Western Digital Red Drives and go straight for the Western Digital Gold Line. Overkill? Absolutely! But I don't cut corners with my data. I want my Hard Drives to be friggin' power-hungry Enterprise Grade Drives and I want them to LAST. Don't ever buy a "Green" or "Eco Friendly" Hard Drive, chances are it will fail and end up in a landfill somewhere anyway, since China doesn't want our E-Waste. Which NAS do I recommend? This is a bit trickier. I used to always recommend a Synology NAS, but lately they are using really cheap plastics with their stuff. These suckers vibrate with 7200RPM Drives and are LOUD. Like I wouldn't want it next to my desk kinda loud. Fortunately with an Ethernet Based NAS, you can usually find another place to store this drive, provided that you have Ethernet Connectivity via a patch cable or plugged directly into your Router/Switch. Here is a 2-Bay Synology 220+ NAS that I would buy. That unit is fast enough to even work off of. Here is the Synology 920+ 4-Bay Version. Why Synology? Their Wizards are pretty good when it comes to getting your setup, and there are a TON of YouTube Videos providing step-by-step instructions in setting up your RAID Configurations, and which things to turn on and off. The other NAS Brand I'd look at are QNAP. Here a QNAP TS-431KX-2G that looks interesting. Oh, whatever system you choose, be sure to use a Category 6 or Category 6A Ethernet Cable for the best performance. Cat 6 Ethernet is meant for Gigabit Ethernet and the good news is the cables don't cost THAT much more than the Cat 5e stuff. Maybe a few dollars difference.

I use Sandisk Extreme Pro Cards myself. Here is a 2-pack of what I’d use if I had a D610: Sandisk Extreme Pro 32GB (2-Pack) Now before you say “…32GB is too much, that’s too many eggs in one basket, blah-blah-blah,” First, they don’t make smaller cards that much anymore. 32GB is the smallest you can typically purchase currently, and even that size’s days are numbered. Second, just because you have 32GB at your disposal, doesn’t mean you have to fill it.

One more thing, someone commented that a faulty Hard Drive could cause this to happen. It's plausible, but extremely unlikely. I'd start with replacing your cards first.

I'm on it Chief!!

This is because the image you see on the camera's LCD IS NOT THE RAW FILE ITSELF, but rather the JPEG Preview File that is embedded within the Raw file. This is why your image goes from #Amazeballz to #Blah in ACR or LR. The "Blah" file is the Raw image; well technically speaking, it's Adobe's Camera RAW Plugin's interpretation of the Raw Image. But really...tomato, to-mah-to. The Internet Trolls who want to correct me can suck it. SD Cards go bad all the time. Flash-based Media wears out, usually without warning. It just does. Personally, I tend to refresh/replace my cards every 18 months or so. If your two cards are the only ones you own and they have lots of usage on them over the past couple of years, I'd swap them both out, pronto. Especially if they were bought around the same time. What camera body are you shooting with? It could be possible that the slot in the camera is starting to wear out, causing this issue, but I'm leaning more towards the cards themselves. Also, it is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED...PRACTICALLY REQUIRED BY ME, to use a CARD READER and not use a damn USB cable attached to your camera. Don't ever use the camera to transfer your images. Way too much can go wrong, and usually at the worst possible time. I don't care if you say "...but it's always worked!" Card Readers tend to be between $20-$30 on the average, so the cost won't kill your wallet. Give this article a read for more clarification. So what can you do? If the images are really important, there are JPEG Extractor Programs that are available. What these programs do is pull that image you see on the back of the camera and create a JPEG. Granted, it's not 100% fool-proof, but if you are in a bind and NEED SOMETHING, it's better than nothing. Oh, keep in mind, this is a JPEG file that is extracted, not a Raw image. There is only so much data contained within that JPEG Preview, so you won't have as much wiggle-room as you would to recover something in ACR. It's always better to nail exposure in-camera just in case you are forced to do something like this. I've recommended this webpage in the past, see if one of the two Extraction programs that they recommend will work for you.

OK, I'm back. Before we begin, what is your current iMac? Year/Make/Model.

Probably the BEST way to backup your internal Mac HD is to use Time Machine. Hands down, Apple has perfected backing up. I will write more later after I study the Red Drives. Personally, I prefer the WD Gold line over the Reds. Keep in mind, that the NAS enclosures such as a Synology NAS (2 or 4 bay) are being made with really cheap plastic which has a tendency to vibrate, a lot. Not that it affects HDs; it’s just loud and is more annoying than anything. I do have a few other recommendations and will link to them tonight. Fortunately the store that I link to does ship to OZ.

It's not going to work the way you were thinking. That's because it doesn't have built-in speakers. From what I can tell by reading the manual, all that monitor does is take the audio from the DisplayPort or HDMI and forwards it to a set of external speakers of some kind. Here is the page that I'm referring to: "Port 8" is a 3.5mm jack, but you need physical speakers with their own power source, headphones will not work in this port. Only 2-Channel Audio is the audio that comes out of that display. My advice? Skip using this display for audio and get yourself a decent set of speakers and hook it up to the computer's audio ports. If you must use the monitor's pass-through ports, these Bose Speakers should work. I bought my wife a set of these for Christmas a few years ago and she likes them. They should work with either your display or computer. If you want something more, like a 2.1 system, I highly recommend getting a set of Klipsch THX 2.1 Speakers. This is what I have on my desk and they are on sale!! Normal price is $140 and they are going for $89.99...which is $10 less than the Bose Set.

OK, that's what I thought we were talking about. A few things come to mind: You will need two lights at a 45º Angle on each side of your camera. At this point, I'm thinking of Continuous Lights. You will need two Softboxes as Modifiers. Sizes...either a 36" x 48" or maybe a 24" x 32". Personally, I'd get a pair of Westcott 3x4 Silver Softboxes or a pair of white Impact 36" x 48" Softboxes. The difference between the "White" and "Silver" is the Silver ones have a bit more contrast / punch and they can take a higher temperature of continuous lights. Which is a good thing, since we don't want to start any fires. :D Speaking of Continuous Lights, the ones I was going to recommend are no longer made. While you could use a light like a pair of Einstein 640 lights on a stand, I'm thinking a kit like this might be more something you are after? It comes with stands and lights, you'd just need matching Softbox Modifers, which I linked to above. Your camera is fine. Shoot at a the base ISO, and your model is probably around ISO 100. Shoot at f/8 or f/11. Do not use f/22. What happens is when shooting at f/22, you get something called Diffraction, which in layman's terms, you take a image quality hit. I know you are thinking of a "Deep Depth-of-Field," but it's more important to have the artwork as flat as possible against the wall, not leaning slightly off the wall due to a hook & wire AND have the camera dead straight on when pointed at the painting. You do not want any "angles" from either the Artwork or Camera. You will need a nice and robust tripod, complete with steady ball head. Here is one that shouldn't break the bank the Manfrotto MK055XPRO3-BHQ2 Tripod with Ballhead. Since you aren't lugging that tripod around, it will work really well and not break the bank. The tripod that I'm looking at buying is over $1100, and that's just for the legs! So $400 is very reasonable for a sturdy tripod with a Ball Head. Plus the model's center column switches to a horizontal mode, which is great for table-top photography. Oh, buy the Nikon MC-DC2 Remote Trigger for your D5600. Camera Shake is the enemy. Using f/8 or f/11 and a long-ish exposure will help things. Don't be afraid of 1/60th or 1/30 for a Shutter Speed. You are mounted on a tripod, so this will work for you. Your 24-120 will probably work really well. That said, you might want to invest in a Nikon 105VR f/2.8G Macro Lens, but that can come later. Final thoughts, at least for this comment box... COVID-19 HAS REALLY SCREWED UP A LOT OF THINGS. I have never seen so many things on back-order or just plain discontinued in the lighting dept. I guess with Photographers out of work, and nobody was buying, Westcott and other Lighting Companies orphaned a lot of their products and modifiers. So this process of finding the best lights that work for you might take a few months.

If it installs properly, it should copy the settings from the older version. Photoshop will install next to the older version of Photoshop. YOU have to manually initiate the un-install of them. What changes is the current version will be on the Dock Bar, and the older versions will be in your Applications Folder. So go ahead and try it. If it doesn't work well for you, then use the older version. One more thing, whenever ACR Updates, it almost always changes the default in ACR from sRGB back to AdobeRGB (1998). So when it doubt, use my instructions to verify things: Setting up Photoshop

Lenses really do not perform well at f/22! f/11 or even f/8 should be more than enough. Cut your ISO to 100 as well. It's a painting, it's not going to get "tired." Can you post one of the images so I really can get a visual? Even if they are crappy.

It has all sorts of glitches. I'm running Catalina and PS CC 2021. Not sure how well it will play with Mojave. Honestly?!? It's not that much of a big deal; in fact, you really aren't missing out on much. Unless you are interested in the fancy tools, but the stuff that photographers need can be accomplished in CS6! The most stable Photoshop CC is PS CC 2019. Hands down that works with just about everything, including older plug-ins and such. Personally...I'm thinking about going back to 2019. The cool part is that Adobe doesn't delete the older versions, they are still on your HD if you upgrade. So if you do go the PS 2021 route, you can always load PS CC 2019 in case if things get wonky.