Adobe editing software the most used in the world for a reason.

There information is accurate and well presented to the vast majority of photographers, from beginner to the professional.
www.adobe.com/au/creativecloud/photography/discover/exposure-in-photography.html#:~:text=Exposure%20is%20the%20amount%20of,highlights%20and%20faded%2Dlooking%20images.

I have used LR since the original beta test programme. I never took to Photoshop (I had v 6.01!). But there is now an issue with Adobe products I'm not prepared to tolerate: the holding of my years of edits to hostage via the subscription model. So, I'm stuck with the last perpetual licence version 6.14. I use this for my back catalogue up to 2019.

For photos later than this I have escaped the proprietary software treadmill by moving to Open Source: Ubuntu Linux O/S and darktable to replace LR.

It has taken a while for me to get the hang of darktable. It is a complex product with little done to dumb down the user interface - in some ways it reminds me more of the complexity of Photoshop than Lightroom. Also, in the period I started using it, it was going through a major revamp of both its processing modules (shifting to a scene referred model) and its UI (the addition of major customisation options), so every 6 months something major changed. It's settled down now and I have refined my copy to a simplified workflow and a highly customised UI.

There is a tendency by those who don't use open source to dismiss it as some kind of freebie and therefore feeble alternative that doesn't provide the professional features of "proper" software. So wrong! darktable is an impressively powerful product once you figure out how to use it. You shouldn't really do feature by feature comparisons between products because that leads to dismissing a product when you find something missing or different from what you've grown used to relying on. Judge products by what they can do rather than what they don't do or do differently. Often it's just a case of learning a new workflow.

And darktable is an impressive product. In many ways more powerful than LR 6.14 (and even what I have seen of the newer versions). In particular, it has some features that have transformed the way I work. 1) The masking tools - present in just about every module 2) The module re-use feature (a tool like curves can have as many separate instances as you want working at the same time and in combination with the masking tools you can apply as many curves as you like to different parts of the image. The same goes for almost every other tool (local contrast, sharpening, noise reduction, tone equalizer, contrast equalizer, color zones etc etc). In some ways, these two features working together are a bit like Photoshop layers in an entirely non-destructive raw environment.

The only real weakness I've found is printing. Linux printing is tricky. You can pay for a program like Turbo print that sorts it all out, but I prefer to swap over to Win/LR to do my printing.

Oh dear, this sounds a bit like an advertisement for darktable. No matter, it's free.

It's funny you should champion that Adobe article though. In typical Adobe style, it's dumbed down. The section on ISO describes ISO as something that changes the sensitivity of the sensor, which we all know by now is plain wrong. You can't change the sensitivity of the sensor, it's fixed. All you change is how the data from the sensor is processed once it streams off the sensor. Which you also know perfectly well after 1000 posts on the subject.

It also describes exposure as the lightness or darkness of the image which we also know by now is plain wrong. Possibly you can get away with this description if you are describing in camera jpgs. But for raw shooters there is no image until the raw is processed in your editor of choice. And the lightness and darkness is something selected by you in your editing choices, not by the in camera exposure. All the in camera exposure does is control the quality of the data your raw convertor sees. Don't clip important highlights while getting the maximum light on your sensor is the ideal for best quality. That gives you the most flexibility do choose the tones you want in post.

But you know that too, so this thread is a wind-up.

i use ACR and Photoshop mainly because of the streamline editing using your own recorded actions. tried a lot of the others but just cant make the change. the new masking tools in ACR are amazing for a portrait photographer. best ive eve used bar none super fast and super actuate. printing i just use Faststone its fast and efficient. what did you think of the link 😎

I've used DarkTable. Impressive editor but it doesn't hold a candle to the overall functionality and usability of Adobe Lr / Ps combo, whatever what one thinks of their subscription model, their products are excellent and constantly improving, There is no product that can compete with the quality of the Adobe Photography Suite combo of LR and PS.

A combo of Darktable & Gimp works pretty well.

i like running Portrait Pro through Photoshop as a plugin, the results are stunning. i have just started using there video editing program ,lets just hope its not to complicated.

Yay, more arguments about ISO.

deleted

No it is not 😊

Well, I can see now why you are so confused about what exposure* is, what does and does not affect it, what noise is and what does and does not affect it since you hold that error laden article in such high esteem.

That article states early on that

"Exposure is the amount of light that reaches your camera’s sensor, creating visual data over a period of time."

but then loses all credibility when later on it states

"You can also adjust exposure in post-processing."

Perhaps you can explain to any beginners who might have the misfortune of stumbling across that article how on earth can you adjust the amount of light that reached your camera’s sensor after the shutter had closed, let alone in post processing?

The author seems to be confusing image lightness and exposure* which, although related, are two different things. There are other incorrect statements in that article but the above is the main one that discredits the article.

You can alter the image lightness in camera without adjusting the exposure* at all.

A much more accurate article on exposure and ISO is dpreview's Richard Butler's 2 part article.

Richard Butler's article effectively debunks the vast majority of that Adobe article.

* exposure - amount of light that struck the sensor per unit area while the shutter was open
** optimal exposure - the maximum exposure* within dof and motion blur requirements without clipping important highlights.
*** under exposed - more exposure* could have been added with the DOF and blur constraints still being met without clipping important highlights.

be more specific which part of the sensor is fixed ?

as i said in the past ,get bob to program the user to select iso in the exif data or not select iso to display when members post an image, thats it take it or leave it. at the end of the year then a tally can be made as how many members selected to display iso and how many did not simple.

@DonaldB

I just posted a much more accurate article for beginners to read and compare to the Adobe article and why the Adobe article is not accurate.

I'm sure anyone reading the 2 articles will be able to work out for themselves which is the more accurate.

i never agreed with alot of Richards information , its nothing new everyone knows after 10 years.

the guy hasnt an electronics background to make this statement.

But it's often assumed that increasing ISO just adds amplification (voltage gain applied to the analog signal coming from the pixels), a bit like turning up the volume on an audio amplifier. This is not true, and this misunderstanding can make it harder to recognize what your camera is actually doing. Virtually all modern cameras have at least one mode or function that diverges from the ISO = Amplification concept, so put that idea aside.

That's fine. That is your choice to make.

And yes, the effect of ISO as specified in the standard can be implemented in different ways. Readers of the 2 articles will be more than able to work out which is the more accurate.

🤣🤣🤣🤣 Yep, of course it is. Everyone can see that. It's not even a subtle attempt at trolling 🤣🤣🤣🤣

In any case, I have always used mainly Adobe products because it has all I need from a fully featured DAM to raw processing.

Photoshop and Photoshop Elements both support JavaScript so I build my own customised GUI's and write my own scripts to speed up my workflow immensely.

agree . if people are worried about iso and image quality , go by a better camera and better lens.

But not for that reason.
ISO setting can't be part of the exposure for a simple reason - it acts after exposure is ended. Are you having a good time helping to mislead photographers? :))