Brian

Personally, I don't recommend laptops for photo editing, but like LR users they won't budge. People still want stupid laptops. It's really tough for me to recommend laptops as getting one with an IPS-based display is much more difficult now than ever. The HP one is a rarity; the Asus Republic of Gamers line used to be my go-to but now most of them do not come with IPS screens. Besides the hardware under-the-hood, it was the display that pushed me over the edge in recommending that one. So in my humble opinion, I'd buy a laptop that you can afford and use and external (and calibrated) display for photo editing. If you really want something decent, you should look to spend between $1000-$1500 or so. Wacom...don't have personal experience with them. Damien has though and wrote an article. You really want to choose the correct size for your primary display, that's the most important part. Give this article a read.

Neither. Well, the Dell Inspiron one for $999 looks "Okay" on the surface, but I personally prefer the Dell XPS 8930 line over the consumer-grade Inspiron Line. The XPS line has better components inside the case. That's why the low-grade Inspiron has more "stuff" in it; you are getting a PC with cheaper components and why the XPS costs more for a similar configuration.

As far as standing, when it comes to people, compression is always favored. Until it isn’t. LOL! It depends. Honestly, the short answer is yes. For your situation, stand further away and zoom in. In addition, it could be just your lens’s optical formulas and that’s just the way it is. Personally I have never had those results with any of my Nikon lenses (big forehead) at similar focal lengths, even with consumer-grade kit lenses. Hell, even my iPhone 6s which is a 28mm equivalent at the widest angle isn’t THAT bad. How to fix? Either buy a higher-end lens for your camera or switch brands. The cheap/free way is to stand further back and zoom in.

55mm should be okay but is also prone to issues, like big noses, if you get too close. Though it’s not as bad as 35mm or wider. If you shot in Raw, ACR / LR might have some built in lens correction for your lenses that might help. Unfortunately, there is no one method to fix your photos; that said, I’d start with the free transform tool.

I’m sure there are reflectors and more likely, white foam boards. Found this article to show you what I mean: http://weedit.photos/2017/white-foam-core-photography/ The most important thing with these shots is to fiddle and practice. Being aware of how aperture and flash power relate to one another AND how the Inverse Square Law works is essential. Huh? You need a large window, a better light than a speed light / Alien Bee and a white foam core board. Invest in at least a 5 foot or better yet, 7 foot wide octa softbox. The bigger the modifier, the softer and smoother the effect in the shadows and overall light. Also, practice-practice-practice! You can’t “wing it” with this type of look. One final thought, you need ROOM. A small area in your basement will just drive you nuts. I’m taking about a room with 10-15 foot ceilings and enough width and depth so the light doesn’t bounce around. Keep in mind that photographers don’t always tell you the whole truth. I’ve know of several photographers who give workshops, tell their students to use Alien Bees and cheap modifiers when they themselves use $2000+ Profoto Lights and fancy/expensive modifiers. So don’t fall for the “She says she only uses a speed light and a 60” umbrella...” statements. Most of the time, they are lying to you.

Stop using 24mm for these shots! What you are seeing is the distortion that a wide-angle lens does along the sides. If you are standing too close, you will get these results. For me, when I shoot my landscapes at 24mm, I will often move an inch or so in each direction and take a shot or two, which changes the overall “look” of the photo due to distortion For portraits, you want to take advantage of compression, and that’s why most portraits are taken between 85mm-200mm, with 85mm to 135mm being the most common focal length. My advice with out having to purchase a 70-200? Stand further back and zoom in. You want to use the 70mm end of your lens a bit more.

Display Port is the future. It's also better suited for 4K screens, and soon to be 8K screens, then 16K. If you have a 1080P screen, either works fine, so don't stress about it. As far as sound, I have external speakers as monitor speakers always seem to sound like crap.

Sweet!! The Z6 is a good choice and is a great place to start. You should have gotten the free lens adapter so you can use your D3 lenses with it. Keep me posted on how the Z6 is. Like I can afford another camera, LMAO!!

Yeah, I think she is using a small Octa Softbox and probably a Profoto Light. She's not using Alien Bees, that's for sure, that light is too even and consistent. Looks like some sort of umbrella was used by the OP? Wrong Modifier for this look. This is a Rembrandt Lighting Style, more info here. You should master Loop Lighting, as it's the most flattering for the majority of people. Rembrandt is great for more dramatic shots like this and should be #2 that you master. Actually, you should master all of those 7, but start with loop, Rembrandt, and short lighting. Oh, never "Broad-Light-a-Broad." Broad lighting adds pounds to the subject's face and really only works on skinny people.

You've been looking on Amazon, haven't you? LOL! Yeah, those charts at the bottom are confusing. LCD - Liquid Crystal Display. ALL modern displays are this type. About 20 years ago, there was another panel type, known as "Plasma." Plasma TVs / Displays had deeper colors and blacks, from what I remember and were better suited for movie-snob-techno-weenies. One of the main drawbacks with Plasma was "Burn-in;" if a stationary image sat in one place for a long time, that image would be burned into the panel and you would see a form of it, even if the display was off. LCD panels did not have this problem, and I think were cheaper to produce. So Plasma technology was abandoned around 2007-ish? Somewhere around there. LED - Light Emitting Diode. It's a Semiconductor that emits light when an electrical current flows through it. This type of technology is in all displays, smart phones, flashing lights on your computer, etc., etc. It's everywhere. With this type of technology, you have millions of little "light-bulbs" creating an image for you to look at, as opposed to CCFL, which is a single light-bulb that illuminates a display. CCFL type of technology was used before 2009, and that's when LED display panels took over. LED & LED-Lit are the same thing. Now, you are looking at the wrong thing for monitor type. It's going to be LED based, and a LCD panel. What is the tricky part is what type of display panel technology that is being used. The two most common kinds are TN (Twisted Neumatic) and IPS, which stands for In-Plane-Switching. Since I bolded IPS, I will give you a guess on which one to buy? IPS - based LCD panels are better for photo editing, as the colors and contrast are consistent from edge-to-edge, or corner-to-corner. The viewing angle is also more/wider. This is what you want for photo and video editing. TN - based displays are great for general computing and are more suited for first-person-shooter video games. TN displays are in 95% of laptops and are one of the main reasons that I don't recommend laptops for photo-editing. It's tough to find a IPS-based display in a laptop and my "Go-To" Manufacturers that used to have them, don't install them as an option any longer. So, what besides IPS do you look for in a monitor? A matte coating or matte front panel. You don't want a glossy monitor, as it can suffer from glare and reflections from your environment. The Dell Ultrasharp models are usually pretty good and a are a good place to start. Here is a Dell U2417H. Oh, one other thing with today's fancy screens.... You do not want to use the old standard 15-pin blue VGA Cable, also known as D-Sub. This technolgy was from 1989 and was only meant to drive CRT (Tube) monitors up to 20" or so, not today's high-resolution flat panels. Now, it's true that some flat panel displays only have a VGA port but chances are these displays are also TN panels. You want to avoid these types and use either a HDMI connection, or better yet, DisplayPort. Of course, someone could use a connector called DVI-D but most displays don't have that port any longer as HDMI and DisplayPort are the two main kinds. So which one? Either on a 24" display that does 1920 x 1080. If you have a 4K display, you really want to use DisplayPort. With either digital connection, you will get a better / sharper picture, more accurate colors and better contrast dynamic range. You will physically see a difference between a VGA cable and a HDMI / DisplayPort cable on the same monitor. The digital connection's picture looks so much better. It's kinda like going from VHS to DVD in terms of quality.

As for why Bridge is taking up so much RAM, I'm wondering if that has to do with the preview setting? If you have it set to full resolution, that could eat up space. Especially if you have a high MP camera. In addition, each browser tab you have open, consumes a little more RAM. So keep your FB and audio-streaming / Netflix kept to a minimum when editing. I'm finding that 8GB is the bare-minimum for Mojave and you really want more than 16GB these days when it comes to Macs and the current versions of Photoshop. 32GB / 64GB sees to be the new sweet spot. Just like 32MB was 20 years ago.

What screen size Mac do you have? 21.5" or a 27" Model? If you have a 21.5" iMac, and it's the $1499 model, Apple has to upgrade the RAM, as you have to take apart the whole thing to get to the RAM slots on the back of the motherboard. So that's going to be expensive. Less expensive 21.5" iMacs are stuck at 8GB, as their Memory is soldered to the motherboard. If you have a 27" iMac, you can upgrade the RAM yourself.

Make sure you plug your laptop into your router via an Ethernet Cable if you can. I’m sure you will have TONS of Windows Updates after you redo Windows. Doing this over WiFi will take a long time. Sometimes Windows just screws up and you need to re-install. It happens.

Whatever you decide, now is the time to purchase Nikon Gear. They had a really rough quarter and their new fiscal year is about to begin. So certain lenses, have steep discounts. The D850 is on sale. The Z6 and Z7 are coming with free stuff and now free Sony 64GB XQD cards, so be sure to seek out those configurations on B&H's website.

I actually just got a D850 about a month or so ago. The Z7 looks interesting, especially now since Nikon just released new firmware which greatly improves AF on the Z6 and Z7. I also like how they released a 24-70 f/2.8 S lens as well. OK, one thing with either, is you will need to have a support structure in place. The Raw files are huge and are sometimes sluggish working with in PS. So a large HD to store your Raw files will be required and 32GB of RAM for your computer. Actually, I have 40GB in my 2017 27" iMac and am seriously considering bumping it up all the way to 64GB. Like I said, D850 Raw files can be huge and Photoshop gets sluggish if you try to do a bunch of stuff like duplicating layers, flattening, applying other edits, etc. All the bad stuff that Damien jumps up and down about. Basically, you will definitely need to follow Damien's teachings to keep those Raw files / PSD files under control...for either 45MP body. Using bought-actions will not be the way to go with 45MP files. Now, in case you are wondering, I really don't mess around with the lossless compression with my D850, as I've found it can shift the colors ever-so-slightly, esp. in the greens. Believe it or not, I still find 12-Bit Uncompressed Raw to be the best multipurpose Raw format that works for the majority of shots. With 14-bit when I want to get crazy with high MP Landscapes, etc. but I've been published with using 12-bit Uncompressed Raw format. Now beyond the D850 Raw files, you WILL NEED TO HAVE THE CURRENT LENSES TO GO WITH IT. Period. I had the original 24-70 f/2.8G and while it works on a D850, the new 24-70 f/2.8 E VR lens works so much better. So add that to the budget. Also, plan on getting a 70-200 f/2.8 E lens as well. That 45MP sensor really is hungry for the best glass. So what is wrong with the 24-70 f/2.8G? It's nice and sharp in the center, but as soon as you move away from the center the sides are just crap on a D850. They are soft. So if you do detail photos and you require that middle portion of the frame to be tack-sharp, and nothing else, the original 24-70 works just fine. If you are using it as a general purpose lens, you will want the newer VR version. Plus, I know the reason that the newer version has a 82mm thread size instead of the typical Nikon 77mm...the original 24-70 G lens vignettes when you look in the viewfinder on a D850. It doesn't show up in the photos, but when you look in the viewfinder, you'll see four dark corners and it's really annoying. So Nikon "fixed" this by making the newer 24-70 VR version a bit wider. Not only for the VR, but I'm sure for the vignetting on the D850. The 24-70 E lens is sharper from edge to edge, and is "Okay Sharp" in the middle. With the D850 this is what you want...that edge to edge sharpness. That's what you get with the 24-70 VR and new 70-200 E lens. Also, VR is your reality. Period. The D810 was notorious with showing flaws in your technique, with it's 36MP, but the D850 is much worse at 45MP. Without VR, you will find that you'll need to be 4 over the focal length to get sharp photos. So that means at 200mm, you are at 1/1000th of a second, at the very least. With VR, you will be able to "shoot normally," just as you always have. Honest opinion: I'm still trying to fall in love with my D850. I have a bit of buyer's remorse. Everyone raved about the D850 and it has all those awards and the "Gear Measurebators" foam at the mouth when it comes to a D850. I'm like, "Meh." Hopefully my tune will change the more I shoot with it. Going above ISO 6400 is sometimes painful on the D850, but on the flip-side, ISO 64 is a-m-a-z-i-n-g. You can pull out so much at ISO 64 and it has the most dynamic range from any camera that I've shot with. ISO 100 is no slouch either. Maybe I'm so used to my D4s and I just shoot without thinking with that body. It's like a "Fighter Jet" & the D850 is more like a "Bomber." Maybe I should have just bought a D5, it might have saved me money in the long run (without feeling the immediate need to get a 24-70E & 70-200E) but I was trying to go "smaller on the road" and be able to have a body without a built-in grip. In short, I spent way more than I was planning on. Now for the Z7. It looks very interesting. I wish I would have held one in my hands and given it a serious test drive. In hindsight, the Z7 might have been purchased, along with a 24-70 f/2.8 S lens instead of a D850. The reason that lens over the f/4 version...once you have that f/2.8 at your disposal at any focal length, it's tough to go back. So hopefully, I have given you some insight, and I have never touched a Mirrorless camera, so I'm not the best to ask. If you can give the Z6 or Z7 a test drive, do-it. (The bodies are the same between the two, but I'm sure you know that. LOL!!) If you do get a Z6 or Z7, the very first thing you should do is upgrade the firmware to the most current level.

Uninstall and re-install Firefox. I haven't had any issues either. It could also be one of your plugins causing the issue, if you have one installed.

You are correct, they aren't full .cr2 files. It's just what the data recovery software that the service used and it named them that.

With data recovery, it pulls together bits and pieces and tries to assemble them in what it thinks is a master file. Unfortunately, It doesn't always work. You could try renaming one as TestFile01.TIFF and see what happens. Those files you are looking for might be gone for good. That said, I would try finding another filename that is similar and one that you recognize and try and open that one. Often with data recovery, you will have 5-10 versions of the same file and they each have their own file extension, e.g., .dng, .jpg, .gif. cr2, etc.

Well, it's nice to meet someone with a healthy, realistic budget. (Around $1500 or so.) It's often that folks don't want to spend more than $500, and they usually end up with crap. Unfortunately, laptops are a moving target and it's really tough to recommend one with my standards. Often, laptops are meant for portability and ease of use with general computing, and when you throw photo or video editing into the mix, it gets tougher. Not only from hardware that is meant to conserve power, often laptop screens are not IPS based, which is what you want for photo editing. Even laptops that I have recommended in the past, such as the Asus Republic of Gamers line, are getting harder to find configurations with an IPS display. They are meant for games, especially FPS with rapid refresh rates, and not color accuracy. The reason that people often recommend Mac Laptops is that is stems from a couple of things. Back in the 1980's and 1990's, the Arts were really ignored by Microsoft, so Apple took it upon themselves to fill that void. While it was fine to write documents and create spreadsheets and do data/number-crunching, if you wanted to do anything creative, the software programs worked on Macs. Over time this isn't an issue and you can find multiple platforms using the same software. The only difference these days is when it comes to editing video, Apple is still the preferred brand as the limited hardware choices make it easier for programmers, so editing video on the Mac has a HUGE performance boost. The second thing is the entrenchment of the Art World when it comes to Macs. It is still present today...the snobbery of if you don't use an Apple Product, you aren't taken seriously. Trust me, walking into a high-end client with a Windows Laptop in your bag will almost guarantee you not getting the gig. Yes, this doesn't make sense; then again humans do A LOT of things that don't make sense. But we are talking about photos, not video. Mac Laptops are insanely over-priced if all you want to do is edit photos. I can't in good conscious to recommend a $3600+ MacBook Pro Laptop for editing photos. Sure you can edit them on a MacBook Air and such, you are just limited by a photo or two, not batches and batches of photos. So your workflow, if it's high volume, might suffer. Now if all you do is edit 2-3 photos at a time, this isn't an issue. If your main concern is how you screen looks, then I 100% agree with Damien, purchase an external display. Use HDMI, or better yet, DisplayPort if you have that option on your laptop for the best results. Whatever you do, DO NOT USE a 15-pin Blue VGA connector / cable! That technology from 1989 is Analog and was not designed for today's modern fancy flat-screen displays. Here is a laptop configuration that caught my eye. Yes...it's an HP laptop. Trust me, it is really tough for me to recommend laptops. It's like asking Damien to fall in love with Lightroom and recommend it over Bridge. It just isn't going to happen. I hate laptops for photo editing. LOL!! https://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/omen-by-hp-17t-laptop-best-value-4fj26av-1 Here is some info on what I look for in a computer for photo editing, whether it's a Laptop or Desktop, copied from another thread: The funny thing with Photoshop, is that I believe that the latest version of PS CC is finally taking advantage of what makes a i7 CPU so fast. Up until this point, PS only had about a 5% - 7% performance boost when using a i7 CPU chip over a i5 chip. So CPU power is not as big as a deal as one might think. Heck, over on the Macintosh side, Photoshop runs better on a upgraded 27" iMac than on a iMac Pro that's $10,000 for the same reason. Photoshop doesn't utilize the CPU as one would think. It's all about RAM, Free HD Capacity and Video Memory. Now, if you were editing video, that is a whole other ballgame...but I'm digressing here. Honestly, it’s a laptop. It’s meant to conserve battery life so I guess get the best that you can afford. A i9...I’m not convinced that it will give you THAT much more of a difference in speed over a i7. What I’m more concerned with these days is the stupid small SSD drives that the manufacturers put in computers; you must really pay attention to the specs of the computer, now more than ever. I don’t know if the manufacturers had a really good deal or they have boatloads of small SSD drives that they are trying to get rid of. THE most important thing is to get a laptop or computer with at least a 500GB SSD Drive. Better yet, a 1TB...but good luck finding one in a laptop. Right now I keep seeing 128GB in these computers that link to and that’s microscopic by today’s standards. Not only do you lose capacity after partitioning and formatting then Windows being installed, you have to deal with the PS scratch Disk and Windows Swapfile. (PageFile.sys) Then you load images from a 24MP (or greater camera) and that drains resources. For all computers, to run PS CC (Current Version) well requires five things: i7 CPU A separate, non-integrated Video Card with its own dedicated video memory. 2-4GB is fine, 6-8GB Video RAM is better. I realize this is a laptop so it’s going to be part of the motherboard but you still should get one that has dedicated video memory and not one that takes a chunk of the main RAM. At least 16GB RAM with the ability to upgrade to 32GB. Hard Drive Capacity for the main drive should be 1TB. 500GB is doable; however, you don’t want to use that for long term storage of files for a drive that’s 500GB or less. 128GB SSD main drive is out of the question for either a laptop or desktop. I do not care how fast it is, it will not do you one bit of good if it becomes full and that is very easy to do with just Windows, Photoshop and a few photo sessions. A IPS based Display. This helps ensure that your colors and contrast is consistent from edge to edge. 4K on a 15” Display will make everything so TINY. So a screen that is normal HD (1920 x 1080) is fine. So there you have it. What most people are looking for turns out to be a Desktop Replacement and not your average "Laptop." Of course, it's your money and decision, just keep in mind that laptop life-spans are not that great. Your $500 laptop, you'll get 18 months out of, $1000 laptop about 2 years, and your $1500 to $2000...about 3-4 years out of. Then they will start having issues and being quirky, plus the original battery won't hold a charge, etc. and then you are looking for a new one because it's "Too Slow..."

G-Mail and Outlook Mail (Microsoft). Also Microsoft Live comes to mind.

Before we begin, what is a realistic budget that you had in mind? As far as models, laptops are a moving target. The manufacturers used to have a Fall / Spring Line, similar to what Apple does now. Unfortunately, laptops seem to be refreshed every six weeks or so.

I’m going to move this to the PC Hardware and Windows thread.

I do not at this time. The issue is compression. A lot of Cloud Services will compress files in order to save space. I don’t blame them as image files and psd files can be quite huge. The issue is, I don’t want a cloud server messing with any image files. We have enough to deal with in dealing with compression in Social Media. I don’t think Google Drive compresses files. If they do it hasn’t been noticeable.

All theory and no practice usually doesn’t add to the best results. You need to fiddle and play with your gear. I can tell you I fell into the same trap, as I have a bookshelf full of books and videos that don’t ever get that much attention. Knowing all the technical stuff doesn’t always translate to the art form side of things. I can tell you from personal experience of having all the data and techniques floating around in my head, only to completely blank out during a session. Theory doesn’t matter when you are “on stage.” What I would do is look on Craigslist for a Mannequin, one that has a movable head and torso, don’t worry about one with arms. Should be about $50 or so. Honestly, I’d get a female one to start with. Then practice. The benefit is the Mannequin doesn’t get tired and doesn’t move and doesn’t complain. This same lesson was taught to me years ago, when I played electric bass a lot and was taking lessons. I got to the point that my instructor wanted me to go to auditions for bands. Even though we both knew that I probably wouldn’t get the Gig, due to lack of experience; playing with other musicians is a whole other world vs practicing in your room alone. Same thing applies here. Now I’m all for education and Lindsey’s posing stuff is decent but I think you need to figure out your style lighting-wise first. You can have all the “chocolate cookie recipes in the world” but you don’t know which one tastes the best until you actually make a batch. Use what you have. You don’t need $5000 worth of lights. Try using one light and one reflector. Zack built his business with a single Sunpack Flash, pack of double AA batteries and a 60” umbrella.

One important note on BackBlaze, if you delete your photos on your local drive, BackBlaze also will delete them on their servers after a month or so. They won't inform you of deleting said files either. The reason I mention this, is that if someone thinks they can store photos on BackBlaze, since they have limited storage capacity on a 128GB drive, they are in for a rude awakening if something goes wrong. BackBlaze isn't meant for file storage, it's meant for disaster recovery.