Sierra to High Sierra

[Ed Rooney]

We seem to have drifted into a discussion on editing tools. Easy enough to do, since moving to the next OP level involves a lot of things. 

 

For the time being, I've decided to stand pat with Sierra 10.12.6. Why? I have no real problems that a new OP would solve. I'm comfortable with my old iMac and my workflow. My plan was, and is again, to wait until I replace my iMac, which will of course have High Sierra or a newer, zippier OP. The daily nudge to upgrade that I get from Apple is an annoyance, not a real problem. 

 

Thanks for your input, people.

 

Edo

 

 

[MDM]

41 minutes ago, Ed Rooney said:

The daily nudge to upgrade that I get from Apple is an annoyance, not a real problem. 

 

 

 

 

You can turn off these notifications in System Preferences - App Store. There are various options including complete turn off.

[Marianne]

I have updated my laptop this past week - well, actually, for the first time, it seems my Mac did it for me  - but I'm guessing I hit a button as I was nodding off or something - anyway, it's a MacBook Pro Retina 13" late 2013 (I downsized my laptop to make traveling with it easier). I haven't updated my 27" iMac (mid 2011). Sometimes the Nik filters are working - if I make one or two changes - either through LR or, if I'm in Photoshop,  Color Effex was fine the first time, but then I could only get it to work sometimes and not up in filters, but using that annoying little floating thing. Define and Vivenza work most of the time, but in Color Effex if I do more than two things at a time it crashes - so all my saved presets are toast at the moment.

 

DxO bought the Nik filters and are supposed to come out with new ones that work with Adobe products in mid-2018. Meantime, I downloaded a free trial of their software -nowhere as great, IMHO, as the Nik film emulators but they do have some interesting editing options that start from scratch with your RAW files - though I did not find that I could get the look I wanted without further work in Lightroom. They are supposed to have the U Point technology but it's a learning curve to figure out how to use the software and I'm only about 4-5 hours (one day) into it. I had hoped I could just bite the bullet and buy their Pro set of filters and other software to replace the Nik filters but I need to spend more time with their program first before I decide - I've read other reviews and found I'm not alone in finding the Nik film emulators to be the best. I've used Silver Effex for my fine art work and Color Effex for everything for years and I am really at a loss. I'll have to look into those work arounds or maybe I can open Tiffs in PS 5 and use them there. What a PITA! I hate the fact that all these companies seem to be aimed at the consumer market and are leaving us pros out to dry but at least DxO is working on integrating the Nik technology into their software - however, I don't know if it will be the same. I tried the DxO lighting fix (something I used to use in Nik Capture NX Pro which stopped working for me many OS updates ago) and was disappointed - but I haven't figured out how to access the U Point technology that is supposed to be integrated into the DxO software so maybe it will work - but right now I think that LR works much better to adjust lighting etc on RAW files. I really want Color Effex and Silver Effex back. Glad DxO bought it so hoping by mid years these issues will be moot. I can get it to work if I do no more than two steps at a time. slow going for sure. 

[KevinS]

Marianne,

 

In the Customize window of DxO PhotoLab there is a "Local Adjustments" button, top right. After clicking that I tap with two fingers to see the tools. I'm not using many of them yet as I find no software to be easy, but they are useful tools. I now do all processing in one program, except for an occasional problem file. I purchased their FilmPack 5 that has many film types in it, and I access that most often through the standalone version. Some features from that are in PL (as a plugin?), but I've yet to do much with that. There are many helpful videos on DxO website.  

[Ed Rooney]

19 hours ago, MDM said:

 

OK to clarify first of all I wasn't referring to VIveza as I have never used the NIk collection (it's on the todo list but not towards the top). I was just talking about local editing in LR using the LR local editing tools (which have advanced a lot in recent versions) versus converting the raw to a TIFF or whatever and working on that in NX2 (or PS for that matter). The speed advantage I meant was simply that you do everything in LR so you don't have to convert and open the file in a different program.

 

 

 

Actually, when you open Viveza 2 the image you're editing becomes a 16-bit tiff. 

[Sally]

Updated, or so I thought to the second update of High Sierra on my iMac. Closed down my computer as we were away a few days. Fired it up upon return only to discover that it wouldn’t do so, as OSX was “ missing or damaged”. Finally managed to get it going again, but this appears to be a common problem given the number of threads on other forums about it. So it may not be completely bug free.