Such a lot to learn

I wrote in an earlier post about the need to revisit one or two of my long-established workflows.  For years, I've managed the photographs I take using Picasa, from which I've edited them and resized ready to include in blog posts here.  But it was time for a change.  Picasa still works but is no longer supported by Google, the owners, and recently, one or two things haven't been working quite as they ought to have done.  

A couple of weeks ago, another huge reason to learn and grow into a few new routines arrived in the form of a new computer - the same one as I gave my Hero for his birthday.  Lucky girl am I to not only have this amazing machine to play with, but a capable technical wizard to set it up for me, too.  Since we came home from Germany, he's been working on transferring files, installing programs and getting it all up and running.  On Friday morning, he declared it ready to go.

So, suitably sustained by a great fish and chip lunch from the new Simpsons chippy in Stroud, I embarked on the challenge of setting up my new workspace.

Well,  it was now time to put this little old PC to one side for a while, until I'm really sure I've retrieved everything I need from the hard disk.  As I did, I looked at the vast glass worktop that I'm sure has not seen the light of day for rather a long time!  I decided I didn't need the shelf any more and that it would be better to work on a single, flat surface.

That's mainly because, when lowered to "drawing board" position, my amazing, magical screen covers up most of it!  The keyboard sits on the pull out shelf beneath and can be pulled out when I need it; when I'm not using the pen or the touchscreen, that is.

Amazing.

Even the most modest of websites looks stunning and I can't help but marvel at the quality of it all.  Meanwhile, my hero simply sits and nods, because he too is thrilled.

But no pain, no gain, as they say.  The steepest learning curve for me right now is discovering the hidden corners of Lightroom, for managing my photographs and doing everything that I used to do in Picasa.  Eventually, I hope to be able to find things quickly, to have an efficient sorting and cataloguing system and build the routine editing for my blog into my workflow.  But it's going to take time, not only because I am a bear of little brain most of the time, but also because I appear to have 131,528 photographs in my collection.

Or, should I say 131,535, because needless to say, I took a few more today.

Oooer.

(I'm working on that huge and rather imposing watermark on my pictures, btw - hopefully, in the next post, it might be a little smaller and less in your face!)