Brian

That's the problem, as Macs become more commonplace, having to reformat drives is the norm. It's not THAT hard. Just a few steps and I can walk you through it. It's literally a 5 min process. Honestly, it's better in the long run if you do it. The Amazon link I gave above has 4TB Models and it's around $92. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LQQHL4E/ref=twister_B07CMLR679?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

One thing I usually do not recommend are the $79 Special at the Box Stores, as they are usually lower-end, low-quality drives. You want to avoid anything "Eco Friendly" or "Green" when it comes to External Hard Drives as well. I have found those type of drives have high failure rates over the years. What to look for? A 7200RPM USB 3.0 Hard Drive. I like the Western Digital Caviar Black Hard Drive line, and I think I have found one that is in an EHD Configuration: WD 8TB MyBook One thing I noticed is that the EHD is formatted to a ExFAT partition, rather than the typical GPT Disk Type. ExFAT is compatible with both Mac & PC, but it's not fool-proof and would recommend you re-partition / reformat the hard drive to the Windows GPT Partition and NTFS filesystem. (I know, "Huh?" Just get back to me if you purchase that drive.) Is this EHD going to stay in one place, like on your desk, or move around with you? How large do you need the capacity to be? If you are going to use this on say, a laptop and carry it with you all over the place, then a SSD Drive might make more sense, though that is at a higher cost per Gigabyte.

Looks OK. I would save up a little more and get a i7 as PS CC is finally taking advantage of what makes a i7 so fast. But if that’s all you can afford, so be it. It’s fine.

Looks like it. In addition it has. USB 3.1 port. Prices sometimes vary by model years.

"Here are the specs that I recommend for a Photo-editing Machine (6-2019): Intel i7 (or i9 if you can afford it. 16GB RAM at a Minimum - 32GB or more preferred, like 64GB 1TB Hard Drive for the main drive. I don't care how fast that 128GB / 250GB SSD Drive is, it won't to you a damn bit of good if it's full. Of course the bigger the better when it comes to hard drives. Windows updates can be huge, so I would shoot for a 1TB at a minimum, though a person could get away with a 500GB HD. That said, as I write this, 500GB HD are becoming "Too Small" for today's modern Photoshop and 24MP+ cameras. A video card that has separate & dedicated video memory. 2GB - 4GB is fine (like 4GB) and since Adobe's products are using the graphics cards for a performance boost, a video card with 8GB of Video Memory is a good thing. So call it 4GB recommended / 8GB preferred when it comes to Video RAM. I like Windows 10 Pro but I'm more of a power user. Most people will be fine with Win 10 Home." I like the Dell XPS 8930 line. Here is a model that meets my criteria. As far as Monitors go, you want a IPS-Based display, at least 24" and either has a Matte Coating or Matte Glass on it, basically you don't want a glossy screen. It screws with calibration and can do weird reflections. I like the Dell line of displays. They are very affordable and are quite decent. They also tend to be easier to calibrate. Here is the Dell Ultrasharp U2417H. I also remember seeing in your post on FB Ask Damien, that you are planning on running Quickbooks? If so, you really want 32GB of RAM, heck 64GB isn't out of the question for you.

I'd get this one instead: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1090478-REG/g_technology_0g04023_g_drive_6tb_7200_thunderbolt_usb3_sata3.html Thunderbolt 3 is FAST. It's like having another internal drive. Plus, it also has a USB 3.0 port, so it can hook up to your old MBP. As far as the size, I have a 12TB G-Drive. LOL!! 4TB is what I'd have at a minimum these days. 8TB is good if you can afford it.

Personally, I like and use G-Drives with my Macs. They are a little more expensive than the $79 special at Best Buy, but are worth it since they tend to use higher quality components. I also recommend that you don’t go cheap on your primary storage device. The other benefit to G-Drives is they come Mac formatted and are ready to go out of the box, and they include cables as well. What year is your iMac and MBP?

I'm sorry, you are SOL. It's FB Messenger, not regular messenger / SMS Texting. I don't think those FB messages are stored locally on your phone. Perhaps you should dig through your messages in a browser while logged into FB? It's a long shot and I still think they are gone.

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.