This morning's keeper. Not a great shot, but I hadn't seen a hawk in a while. The OM-1's bird recognition kept the focus off the branches that make this image less than great.

I think I've mostly got the "workflow" figured out. I use Image Capture, which imports the images to an SSD in a folder organized by camera. Each SD card is named for the camera it serves, so the images all end up in the right folders.

Right now, I'm using RAW Power by Gentlemen Coders to do the initial review, and first edits like cropping and basic adjustments. I like the Lighten and Deepen adjustments under the Enhance panel. I may make some specific color adjustments.

People's experiences seem to vary, with many recommending doing noise reduction first. I've found that there always seems to be some modest color shift with Topaz DeNoiseAI, and if you try to do any adjustments after noise reduction, then you get weird posterization artifacts. I'm working with jpegs, which I know are limited to 8-bits in the color and luminance channels (and I've probably used those terms incorrectly). But if I do my adjustments first, it generally comes back looking fine. The same can be said for SharpenAI. RAW Power allows you to send a copy of your image, since the adjustments are baked in on the return trip.

Sue me, I'm not and never will be a "pro."

RAW Power is like Photos and seems to always want to do its own thing with file extension case, exporting ".jpg" despite the original filename being ".JPG". So I export to a folder on the desktop, watched by Hazel, which changes the case of the file extension back to ".JPG," sends it to Photos, then deletes it from the folder. I only mention this because RAW Power will export directly to your Photos library, but then you have to manually change the file extension case, if you remember to, which I seldom did.

If I have to, I can do minor tweaks in Photos, then run the script for posting here, where Hazel once again changes ".jpg" back into ".JPG".

I still need to reconsider the size of the images I want to post here. They really do seem to suffer on export, being reduced to 1000px width.

Anyway, the beat goes on...