Pricing and RAW issues

i) After the 12 months do things just roll on?  In other words, I can then cancel anytime without penalties?  As for LR, I’m really not keen on Cloud-based working, preferring to keep it on my desktop."

The subscriptions renew each year for another full year's committment. If you want a cancel-any-time option, they do offer that, but it costs more per month. 

Hi Dave, when your last response came up (at least at my end) all I saw was the first line, but not the following explanation.  Thank you, and now I have edited my response here accordingly.  Half are green pixels? - that's interesting.  Does this mimic the human eye?  I remember watching a colour theory documentary where it stated that in evolution terms the blue cones in our eyes were the last develop.  Anyways, coming back, so my Panasonic RAW is opened up in LR in one of two ways?  Do I get to choose?  Does it matter?  Are there adavantages/disadvantes to either?  Then, and this is the crux for me, in principle (accepting the technicalities of it all) once I start work on the RAW files, doing whatever along the way, and jumping back and forth between LR and PS, I stay working on the RAW files, until final export to, say, JPEG?  Thinking this through, I may be including composites that contain JPEGs - but then, somehow, all this is taken into account?

Thank you, thought the RAW answer somehow went over my head. So, to start again, I shoot on a Panasonic GH5 in RAW. I bring these into LR for colour correction, etc. - am I thus now working with the Pansonic RAW file, or has a conversion taken place to Adobe RAW?  If the latter, is it this that travels back and forth across apps until my final export to, say, JPEG?  Or if I choose, which RAW is better, and why?

Hi
On the first question , I'm not sure - I've never cancelled. I'll try and find out.
On the others:
ii Raw files come from our cameras. The are a set of greyscale images none of which represents the whole colour image. That is why we need a raw convertor to convert them to an RGB file and  read them. Lightroom has a convertor, and Adobe Camera Raw is another convertor. The two share the same engine so processing will look the same in either. Lightroom stores its edits with the Raw file as a set of instructions on how to "develop" the image. So when you reopen the file it can repeat those same instructions - but your original raw file is untouched.
When you send a file to Photoshop you are working on the converted RGB data. So edits then need to be saved in a format that supports those edits. If you have added layers then that means PSD,PSB or TIFF.

v. You can export a devloped raw file as a JPEG direct from Lightroom. What Lightroom does not offer is layers. That has to be done in Photoshop. Those layers saves as PSD/PSB or TIFF. You can then export a jpeg either from Pghotoshop or Lightroom

vi Yes to both

vii Those file formats are standard - so no superiority. Only TIFF supports 16 bits /channel and layers though.
Never save, re-open and resave in jpeg. The compression is lossy so every cycle degrades the image

viii Lightrooms edits are totally non destructive (they are stored alongside the file). Photoshops edits can be destructive or not depending on how you use it. As an example - if you use adjustment layers they can be reopened and changed later. If you clone parts of the image onto an empty layer then that layer can be deleted and remade later, the principle is don't change the original opened layer.

Dave

Hi Dave,

Thank you for getting back to me.  I’m kinda excited about all this.  Can I ask for more info?

i) After the 12 months do things just roll on?  In other words, I can then cancel anytime without penalties?  As for LR, I’m really not keen on Cloud-based working, preferring to keep it on my desktop.
ii) The whole RAW thing is key to me. Assuming I know nothing, to begin, what is Adobe RAW?  Am I guessing that my Panasonic/Lumix RAW files are ‘converted’ to Adobe RAW, and then I can move back & forth between LR and PS, with all original data plus manipulation files (in Darktable these are .xmp files) kept updated?

Other questions:

v) further clarity on the RAW issue, can I work in RAW right up until the final moment of exporting to JPEG, etc.?
vi) Is there a batch manipulation function in LR and/or PS?
vii) Generally, what is the software’s engine for outputting to JPEG, TIFF or PNG?  Is this somehow a superior engine?
viii) One thing that annoys me with GIMP is its effective destructive editing.  Once a GIMP file is saved, I cannot reopen and return to an earlier moment in the editing process; is this different in PS?

Thank you,

DC

Hi

i. You can get a 7 day trial and the cost of the Photography plan in the UK is £9.98 per month. Note - it is a 12 month plan paid for monthly - so there are penalties if you cancel before 12 months.
https://www.adobe.com/uk/creativecloud/photography.html

ii. You can use Lightroom to develop the RAW then open it in Photoshop, or you can open directly in Photoshop which will use Adobe Camera Raw.

iii I work as far as possible in Lightroom, raw development, global correction, local correction then use Photoshop for any cloning, masking, layered work required.

iv . I can't comment as I'm not familiar with GIMP

Note - you get access, in the Photography plan,  to two versions of Lightroom -

a. Lightroom Classic - predominantly PC based,

b. Lightroom predominently Cloud based.

I use Classic, don't be fooled by the "Classic" name. It is not old, just locally based.

Dave