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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BF Hammer" data-source="post: 822628" data-attributes="member: 48483">Don't anybody take my following comments as some kind of personal criticism. I am just making observations of multiple people's stories.I consider the post-processing software to be a tool. A means to execute a task. It's pretty well true to consider the Adobe suite to be the most premium option. I see the benefit for a professional to adopt it. I understand the hobbyist's desire to covet those tools they see the pros use and frankly they also get on youtube and tells us that Adobe is the best and we should be doing our post processing with it.But speaking as a life-long field service technician, I work with my hands every day repairing copiers, printers, scanners, and related office equipment. I have a set of tools. None of them are the finest Snap-On or Craftsman brands. I have a couple of nicer tools, like a genuine Vice-Grips brand locking pliers. But mostly I have screwdrivers and pliers that come from the local Menards (we don't have many Lowes or Home Depot stores in Wisconsin) because they get the job done and I like to save money. I pretty much know for a fact that a premium hand tool is not going to enhance my task performance by any significant amount. This may not be true with the very cheapest of tools, like a pair of pliers that consistently has trouble gripping an object. But working with stuff from more in the middle of the spectrum has always been fine for me.Among my hobbies in years past, I was an active yo-yo player with some minor contest wins in my time. From the late 1990's-on there was an explosion of innovation in designing new, better-performing yo-yos. Aluminum bodies and some with exotic metals or hybrid plastic-metal designs. Bearings on the axle, exotic friction material to assist bringing the yo-yo back up the string. The more advanced yo-yo's in the early 2000's could cost between $10 and $250 USD. But did the champions go on stage with a $200 yo-yo for a contest? Nearly always no. It was some kind of $20-$60 yo-yo typically. Not the lowest of performance, but not an excessively expensive thing either. So what an enthusiast beginner photographer will often ask is what is the best camera to buy and what is the best software to get. The camera question has a lot of diverse opinion, but the software question is very frequently answered "Photoshop and Lightroom, never used anything else". They go to classes and the only option for software to use is Adobe. So the meta-message for beginners is that you must have Adobe or else you are not a serious player in digital photography. I personally don't feel that is true.A for example: newbie who has picked up a used D3300, and 2 lenses (let's say the DX 18-55mm and 55-200mm). So it's obvious some choices are being made for entry costs as that kit would be pretty low cost (not many lower). Is it really correct to tell this person to subscribe to Adobe? I would argue that investing in nicer lenses may be the better way to spend that money and just use the free software options. Why pay for features that you don't use but the ones you do use can be done for free?Now there are a lot of people who jump into a hobby and want the best tools from the get-go, thinking that will give them an edge. From woodworkers to golfers and activities in-between. How often does having the best gear from the very beginning enhance a beginner's work? Or even a more advanced hobbyist? A hack is still a hack with good tools or bad. But somebody with talent and skill is going to make an average tool get the job done.</blockquote>

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