Brian

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.

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 utilitze 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. 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 VRAM 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. As to which model of laptop that has all of my requirements, good luck finding one. Especially one that is six pounds or less AND have it around $1500. Personally, I hate laptops for photo-editing.

Oh, one more thing, unless you have a very basic entry level camera, it’s more important to invest in better lenses first. That is the fastest way to improve your image quality. So if you need help in this Dept, post in the Gear Talk section.

I'd say monitor too. Be sure to use a HDMI cable, or better yet...a Display Port cable for the best performance. Also be sure to budget for a new calibration tool for you new monitor as the older devices / software sometimes doesn't play well with others.

Yep. If you want real horse power, it comes with weight, due to the extra cooling stuff the laptop has to do. What you could do is replace the 1TB 7200 RPM Drive with a SSD. That will help with battery life at this point and maybe shed a little weight, though hard drives aren't THAT heavy. Anyway, even though the Ryzen Desktop stuff has come a long way, Intel still is a better choice when it comes to the laptop market. It just is, and that hasn't changed much for a long time. As for the screen, a 15 point whatever screen isn't that much of a dramatic change, what could throw you is the shape of the display of the smaller unit. If it's the same aspect ratio, like 16:9...you will adjust in a few days. If it's something drastically different, that could take longer. Your mileage may vary. Anyway, if you want a laptop that is much lighter, and you aren't going to be editing photos on this thing, you might actually want to look at a 13" laptop. Such as the Lenovo ThinkPad X280. I have one for work and I will have to say, I'm impressed by it. It's very light and compact and the battery lasts a long time. Keyboard is decent as well. There is also a Dell XPS 13, which seems to get decent reviews. Honestly, I don't think you are going to find the same power as your 17" laptop in a 15" configuration. If you did, you might lose a few pounds, say around 6lbs or so, and that's still heavy. If you are looking for 2-3lbs, you are looking at a smaller screen model. Remember, for Life Coaching stuff, Powerpoint Presentations, using Word and Excel, does not require THAT much horsepower. You'll want a SSD type of Drive, 250GB at a bare minimum and at least 8GB of RAM.

80GB Free?!?!!!! That's dangerous, your hard drive is in the realm of corrupting itself. I know that 80GB sounds like a lot, but it isn't today. You are thinking of MB in the realm of Gigabytes and Terabytes. Imagine if you had a 1GB HD and only have 80 Megabytes free? That's where you are right now on the scale. This is very-very-very bad. Not only for the potential of data-loss, but your Mac will take a HUGE performance hit once you go above 80% full on ANY drive, internal or external. You do not want to go more that 75%-80% full on ANY drive, especially the internal one. Clear stuff off, be ruthless...and re-run Time Machine. Try to have closer to 300GB+ free. You might also want to go into the Time Machine drive and delete the very oldest backups to make room. Also, make sure that NO externals are hooked up when you run Time Machine. For either the new full backup or when you go to restore things. Actually, you might want to format the TIme Machine drive and then do another full backup. Or use your new, clean EHD to do a fresh Time Machine backup that will be used only for this data transfer.

Ok, I was right. Then the memory I did a screenshot above, P/N: CT11062269 - The 32GB Kit is what you want. You can either swap the existing RAM with the Crucial RAM and put the Dell RAM in the two empty slots or vice-versa.

Hmm... I'm curious on what memory is installed. The scanning tool isn't saying. You really don't want to mix the speeds of RAM, and they all should be the same speed. I have a hard time believing that DDR4-3000 sticks are in your computer and it's more likely the 2666 ones. You will need to buy at least a pair, and I would purchase a 32GB Kit. This way you will have 48GB of RAM to play with. Here is what I think you should buy but I could be wrong: Now, I'd really like to be sure on what RAM is currently installed in your computer. You can download this program, CPU-Z from CPUID.COM. Run the CPU-Z program and click the Memory Tab. Look for the Memory SPD Section. Report back on what the "Max bandwidth" line says. It should say something like: "Max bandwidth DDR4-2666 (1333 MHz)"

If you want to keep things simple for now, just leave them where they are (internal hd) and use Time Machine to back everything up. (Only backup the internal HD, NEVER the externals.) It helps if the operating system is the same on both computers. Also, install all your programs and such that you will be using and update them on the new computer. After you get it all setup, you then use the Migration Assistant to transfer things from your Time Machine Backup. Be sure to de-authorize your old computer for iTunes and Photoshop, etc. before you either sell it or put it in storage. Instructions: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204350 After you get things transferred, then I would move your images to a EHD. For that, I'd setup your file folder structure first. If you have crap all over the place, now is the time to get organized. Start with main folders, like "Personal" / "Client" / "Business" / "Misc," etc. Then under each folder have a year, then month and date, then project name. Or whatever you choose, just make sure it's easy to figure out without thinking. Then start culling from your data transfer. You do not need those 75 photos of your lunch from 4 years ago.

Either is fine. Your friend's build will give you a little more performance, as the Motherboard will be a bit faster and so will the RAM be. The only thing that I don't like about your friend's build is the Segate 4TB 5400 RPM Drive. I'm sure that's due to savings, as $85 is pretty cheap for a 4TB. My personal preference is a Western Digital Caviar Black 7200 RPM drive. I've used these hard drives since the early 1990's and never had one fail. They run fast and run cool and are solid drives. Personally, I've had more than one Seagate die / smoke on me over the years. Just like a power supply, you don't want to go cheap on your hard drives. You want quality. As far as the other components, everything else with your friend's build is fine. Thanks for his list, I'd buy this computer. LOL!!

What RAM did the scanning tool find out? I need to know any numbers, DDR4, what speed, CL values, etc.How much RAM is in there now, and how many slots are open? I'm thinking you have two slots occupied and two slots free. Also, which PC did you get? I know thing have changed over the last month or so.

It's really easy to do. Plenty of YouTube videos demonstrating the process and yes, you can install it yourself. There are a few things that you need to do beforehand, though. One is to unplug the computer and wait about a minute or so which will allow your computer to discharge completely. You see, power switches aren't true power switches anymore, they are like TVs these days. (Instant on.) They are now wired to the motherboard, and are more of a "Request for Power" notification for the motherboard to tell the power supply to turn on. Back in the old days (Pre-2000's) power switches were hard wired to the power supply. That's not the case any longer. Now computers are instant on and if you have a SSD Drive, Windows 10 and Mac systems will go from a powered off state to a login screen in about 15-20 seconds. The other thing you need to do is to touch something metal to discharge any static electricity. Electronic components do not like being zapped. Now today's components are a lot better when it comes to failures from static, as the materials are better manufactured and designed better. Gone are the days of waving a styrofoam cup close to a motherboard for a few minutes and have the computers start acting really weird and locking up. LOL!! (This was in the 1980's.) Your typical static dis-charge is about 3000 volts or so, with very little amps. Meaning, even though the components are manufactured better, you still want to ground yourself before touching them as things don't like to be zapped. A simple touch of a metal source should be fine. Just don't walk across the room, touch your refrigerator to ground yourself, then walk back across the room to your computer. You could build up a small charge from the fridge to the computer if the conditions are right. The third thing, and probably the most difficult, is to get the damn case open. Some are easier than others. Some cases you have to move something out of the way to insert the memory sticks, so that could add a step or so. The physical installation of RAM is EASY. It only goes in one way and you need to be firm but gentle when installing them. As a friend told me when I gave her instructions over the phone, "Oh...you have to make your fingers hurt a little to get them to seat correctly." My response, "Yup." So that's basically it. Crucial.com has a free scanning tool, which is safe to use. It will scan your computer and then take you to a page with your options on what type of RAM to purchase. I can help you with that selection. If it's in stock, Crucial takes about 2-3 days to ship, unless you pay for overnight shipping. I just checked YouTube. Here is a video from Crucial.com, which is a good demo on the process. It basically repeats everything I wrote above. LOL!!

Pause for a specified amount of time? I don't think so. I have never seen that in PS. Actions can only do so much. You might want to re-create the action, step-by-step to see if you can work out any bugs or figure out how the action works so you can create your own. Honestly, most purchased Actions only really work from a flattened background layer, which is unfortunate.

You use the "Insert Stop" in your action. In your actions panel, along the top right corner is about 4 or so horizontal lines. Click that. A pop up menu will appear and you'll see things like New Set, load actions, etc. Look for Insert Stop. A pop up box will appear allowing you to type instructions / reminder. Then just drag the "stop" to a spot in your action.