Digital Dyslexia

I'll spare you the concurrent woes of my dental, parental and prostate woes- cause who the freak wants to hear it! So...

After ten or so years, it was time to replace ye ol' desktop- especially since Windows 11 would no longer be supported on it. So I got me a sleek, little Dell at a good price, uploaded my battle weary PS Elements 9 on it and- Boom, lights out! He just wasn't getting up... Lugged it over to the Amazon return center (as instructed), where I was curtly told they wouldn't accept it- could only return to UPS! This was after the repair man never showed, as scheduled. I'll spare you the details of the Amazon return and Dell repair phone calls- let's just say I indubitably made it unto two more training recordings...

I calibrated my monitor on the new, new desktop with a new Datacolor Spyder (my old Spyder 4 also wouldn't take to W11) and it's not quite the same... brightness, color and contrast a bit off, so do I adjust incrementally on my monitor- and have everyone else in the world adjust accordingly? Was it wrong before and right now, or vice versa?!? Or does it all even out in the long run? Damned if I know, so I'm corresponding with Mr. Datacolor Customer Service in Switzerland as to what to make of it.  Meanwhile, Windows 11 has moved everything around enough to make it that much harder to find and locate anything, as any proper update should do- and now for The Biggest Wrench in the whole shebang... what photo editing software do I now proceed with? 

The plan was to get (and learn) a serious, adult photo editing software (as opposed to my juvenile Elements version of Photoshop) upon retirement end of this year when I actually have the time and calmness of mind. Curious how many a photographer complains how overly complex camera menus are- but never a word about ever so much more complex photo editing software!?! I don't need more than1/10 of 'em, can't understand more than 1/10 of 'em, can't bear to look at any more than 1/10 of any of 'em, and yet, I'm cornered into procuring something so utterly complex and exorbitantly priced! Lightroom seems the current tried and true, but apparently not all that good with Fujifilm files; Capture One does Fuji best but either one is akin to learning a foreign language. The latter has a free, more moderately featured program specifically for Fuji I've yet to try (for fear of proving my ineptitude even with the simpler program), but I'd still need something for my Q and GR files. Which means I'll probably go back (at least in the meantime) to using the latest, greatest version of PS Elements. I just got a free trial for a week, and that has changed so much in the intervening years (surprise!), I hardly recognize it and will have to retrain on that as well! And speaking of free trials- let's hear it for those three figure, yearly subscription rates, paid updates and renewal increases...

But why limit myself!? Afterall, there's: Affinity, Luminar Neo, Darktable, GIMP, DXO Photolab 8, Raw Therapee and on and on it goes... a veritable, never ending chain of intricate, labyrinthine interfaces each more brazenly convoluted and byzantine than the former. And my tiny, pea sized cranium short circuits each and every time I just glance at a distance. Mercy! I am truly gobsmacked by these photo editing marvels who can master any of the above to create images of such precision and wonder. And I'm left wondering, how did I ever create any images worth viewing with my paltry peasant's knowledge of a handful of the most basic of tools and workflows- which is all I freaking need! Don't need AI this and that, don't need to detach and replace people's heads, don't need vectoring gradient layer masks... I thought I might be able to logically, scientifically deduce which program would best suit my needs by reading the reviews, viewing the tutorials, listing the pros and cons in order of importance, value and ease. Instead, I surrender (yet again) with a migraine wishing 'em all into the cornfield. The Joy of Photography!