12 January 2026

I’ve been using Photoshop CS5 since 2010. Though it’s now nearly 16 years old, it still does (almost) everything I need. I saw no compelling reason to buy the CS6 update in 2012 (the last version available with a perpetual license), or to rent the current Creative Cloud version. Faced with too many users like me, Adobe pioneered the “subscription” model that is now unfortunately becoming the standard for more than just software. As feature-rich software matures, it becomes increasingly difficult to add features that make users want to buy new versions. Making those users rent rather than buy their products is a much easier way for corporate executives to ensure a reliable revenue stream that keeps shareholders (but not necessarily customers) happy.

The only drawback to using an old version of Photoshop is its raw converter, Adobe Camera Raw (ACR). The CS5 version of ACR was last updated in 2012. That means it can’t process raw files produced by any camera newer than that, including my Canon SL1 from 2014. As I exclusively use raw files, that’s a significant problem. Adobe’s free DNG converter provides a workaround, but converting all my raw files from Canon’s proprietary format to Adobe’s DNG (which the CS5 ACR can read) is an extra hassle. Also, raw converters have improved significantly since 2012. So I’ve been investigating alternatives.

Affinity was the first one I tried. Affinity is a single “freemium” application combining a photo editor that may be a viable alternative to Photoshop, a vector graphics editor (illustration program), and desktop publishing features. Affinity is free, but a subscription enables some whizbang AI enhancements. Affinity has what looks like a decent raw converter, with photo editing capability and user interface comparable to Photoshop. It even accepts (some) Photoshop-compatible plug-ins. Unfortunately, it randomly freezes not only itself but everything else running on my computer, requiring me to switch off the power and reboot Windows. I’ve never had any problem like that in the three years I’ve had my current computer. But I had enough of that frustration with Paint Shop Pro on dodgy Windows 95 to have no tolerance for it now. There probably is a way to fix the problem, but I’m not interested in chasing it down. That said, I might have to do that if some Windows update breaks Photoshop CS5, or if I get a new computer. I understand Adobe has shut down the server necessary to activate new installations of old Photoshop versions.

RawTherapee is a free full-featured raw converter. (Therapee is an acronym for “The Experimental Raw Photo Editor.” RawTherapee’s original developer was Hungarian, and was surely unaware of the rather uncommon English word rapee.) I’ve made several attempts to use RawTherapee in the past and found it impenetrable. It has numerous features that offer powerful control over all aspects of processing raw image files; but I found its user interface opaque and anything but intuitive. I recently discovered ART, a fork of RawTherapee intended to address that problem. (What’s a fork? RawTherapee is “open source” software. That means the developer publishes the source code and allows anyone to modify it. When such a modified version is published, it’s called a “fork” of the original software.)

Alberto Griggio, the Italian developer of ART (an acronym for “Another RawTherapee”), claims that it offers “a simpler and (hopefully) easier to use interface, while still maintaining the power and quality of RawTherapee.” Having spent some time with ART, I’d call that an accurate description. It really is much easier to use, and it includes a decent image browser significantly improved over the one in RawTherapee. ART allows a workflow similar to what I’ve long used with Adobe’s Bridge image browser. I can browse and convert raw files in ART, click a button to open the image in Photoshop, and then return to ART and work on the next picture. ART is indeed more capable than my ancient version of ACR, and it directly supports my cameras. So it looks like I’ve found my new favorite raw converter.

The reason for the foregoing verbosity is that I’ve added seven new pictures to this website as a result of trying out those raw converters. I got acquainted with ART by using it to re-review the raw files from my 2006 trip to Maui. The CS5 ACR can read those raw files, so I could compare the results. The Maui page was overdue for an update after the devastating fire in August 2023 destroyed most of the town of Lahaina. Along with that update I added The End of the Road. On the Maui Scenic Highways page I added two pictures I took at the Mantokuji Soto Zen Mission in Paia: The Japanese cemetery and the temple bell. I also added a view from the Kahekili Highway.

I’ve also added three pictures in the “fine art” category. An autumn-themed decoration in front of a house in my neighborhood. Interesting reflections on some glass bricks. And finally, two intrepid leaves. The last one has a dynamic range beyond what my Canon S100’s small sensor could properly reproduce. Despite bracketed exposures, the bright leaves had blown-out (bright white) highlights ACR couldn’t recover. But remember what I said earlier about improvements in raw converters? ART includes three algorithms for recovering blown-out highlights, one of which fixed this “problem image.”

Now it’s back to cleaning up scans of film I shot in Indian Country.

6 December 2025

I’ve been taking advantage of the seasonal darkness to make new scans of the slides and negatives I took during trips to Arizona in 1988 and to the “Indian Country” of New Mexico and Colorado in 1995. The new scans are for a planned complete overhaul of the two-part Indian Country travel photo essay. I think those are the oldest pages on this website. “Indian Country” was one of the four travel photo essays on the site when it first “went live” in April 1999. I made new versions of the pictures in 2002, and added a few pictures from my visit to the Sedona area in 2005. But I haven’t touched it since then, and it’s pretty much as it was in 1999. Most of the pictures are among the oldest scans I’ve made, and I have an ongoing project to replace those old images. This page shows why I’m doing that. The new version of “Indian Country” will have many additional pictures.

For now, I’ve added an “artsy” picture of the Nuestra Señora del Rosario church in Truchas, New Mexico, to the Fine Art 1 gallery. I’m not yet sure whether it will have a place in the new “Indian Country” travelogue, but it’s still an interesting picture. I’m also not sure when I will finish that new version. Preparing images from film is a much more painstaking and tedious process than working with digital camera files. (I got my first digital camera 20 years ago, and don’t miss film at all.) But until then— in chronological order— Chag Urim Sameach, IO SATVRNALIA, Blessed Solstice, Merry Christmas, Heri za Kwanzaa... and as 2025 recedes in the rear-view mirror, Happy New Year!

12 November 2025

I revised the Sea King March page to remove the MIDI version of the music. When I first made that page in 2002, I provided a MIDI version along with the MP3 because the MIDI file was much smaller. That was an important consideration for the many people who still accessed the internet through a telephone-line modem.

While an MP3 file contains actual music, a MIDI file is more like a piano roll that tells a music synthesizer what notes to play on what “instrument.” MIDI provided a space-efficient way to add music and sound effects to games that were distributed on floppy disks and CD-ROMs. Back then, sound cards and their associated software included a music synthesizer that could directly play MIDI files downloaded from websites. Those synthesizers sounded tinny and artificial, but they were practical and good enough. With the advent of ubiquitous broadband internet connections, games and websites could provide more realistic music and sound. Modern computers, tablets, and smartphones can no longer play MIDI files without special software.

3 November 2025

I updated the Pocket Instamatic and 126 Resources page. The products I mention appear and disappear, and the links to them tend to change frequently; but there has been an unusually large number of changes since the last update in February. I’ve also updated the article on Adobe’s DNG standard for camera raw files. The ISO standard for it seems to be very close to final publication, 18 years after Adobe submitted it. The wheels of ISO bureaucracy turn slowly indeed. And I’ve updated the Bestiary of File Formats to reflect the latest usage statistics for the various image file formats, and to clarify the licensing situation of the HEIC format that has been the default standard for Apple’s iPhone since 2017.

20 October 2025

From the “better late than never” department: I just learned that the picture of the “highlands railway bridge” in the Europe Through the Front Door gallery is actually the Glenfinnan Viaduct, made famous when the Hogwarts Express crossed it in four of the Harry Potter films. Per my mother’s diary of of our trip to the UK with a BritRail Pass, I took the picture from the train to Fort William from Mallaig in the Scottish Highlands on 11 September 1975. So now, 50 years later, I finally have a proper caption for this picture.

8 August 2025

I added a picture to the Grand Teton travel photo essay. It’s an autumn morning view from the Snake River Overlook, near where Ansel Adams took his iconic black and white Tetons and the Snake River. While I don’t claim that my picture can compete with Ansel Adams’ masterpiece (which I didn’t even know about when I visited Grand Teton in 1990), it’s nonetheless a nice image with some intense autumn color. I have no idea why I chose not to include it in either the first version of the travel photo essay in 1999 or its overhaul in 2011.

28 May 2025

I’ve updated the Downtown Los Angeles Victorian Landmarks travel photo essay with the current status of Angels Flight. I’ve updated the article on Adobe’s proposed DNG standard for camera raw files, which is finally inching close to adoption as an ISO standard 18 years after Adobe submitted it. Also updated the review of Take Command, the indispensable enhanced Windows command line interpreter. And, of course, a whole bunch of little fixes to keep up with the moving targets of links that have died, moved, or been locked behind a paywall.

14 February 2025

It’s been one year since I moved the hosting of this site to MDDHosting, and I’ve been quite happy with them. I’ve accordingly updated the article about the jungle of shopping for Web hosting.

I’ve updated three Travel Photo Essays about Downtown Los Angeles— the Central Library, Superlatives, and Downtown Public Art— to remove the link to Ruth Wallach’s very informative “Public Art in Los Angeles” Web site, which now inexplicably redirects to a Vietnamese site. The Downtown Public Art page now discusses Los Angeles’ public art programs after the California Legislature eliminated the state’s redevelopment agencies to address a budget shortfall. That included the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency, which had long funded Downtown revitalization and extensive public art.

I’ve also updated the Bestiary of File Formats, and revised the notes on the Europe Through the Front Door gallery after the death of travel guru Arthur Frommer in November.

12 November 2024

I have updated Some Pocket Instamatic and 126 Resources to reflect a number of changes over the last year. The most notable changes are the discontinuation of the Lomography Peacock Color Slide X-Pro film and the addition of two new special-purpose color negative films; and the newly-available film rolls custom-perforated for the 126 format, to load in FAKMATIC 126 cartridges.

I have also updated the Bestiary of File Formats and DNG articles to reflect some changes since April. And finally, a minor update to the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels Travel Photo Essay to include the latest (and final?) financial settlement in the Los Angeles Archdiocese’s long-running chapter of the worldwide pedophile priest scandal.

18 April 2024

Ted Marcus’ Virtual Light Table is 25 years old today! In honor of this momentous(?) occasion, I have written about my 25 years on the Web. You might also celebrate the anniversary by exploring the Web site using the site map or the index of pictures, or see how my digital technique has improved over the years.

I have updated the Wayfarers Chapel Travel Photo Essay to reflect the unfortunate permanent closure of the renowned glass church due to damage from land movement accelerated by two consecutive wet winters. The plan is to dismantle and move the Chapel to a more stable location, but that will take time and money to accomplish. I have also updated the Bestiary of File Formats to reflect the latest status of several new alternatives to the venerable JPEG format, and the Los Angeles Travel Notes to include the most recent data about mass transit riders.

23 February 2024

I’ve moved this Web site (and its sibling, Ted Marcus Music) to a new hosting company, which provides the hardware, software, and Internet connection that puts it online. I wrote a new Commentary article to inform and assist others who might be looking for a new or better host for their Web sites, and to guide them through the jungle of shopping for Web hosting.

As the article discusses, this site had been hosted at HostGator for nearly 17 years. I moved it there in 2006, after Endurance International Group (EIG) bought PowWeb, where I had hosted the site since 2001. The difficulties this buyout caused convinced me to move. I found the process of shopping for hosting rather like hacking my way through a jungle of confusion. I chose HostGator because it was then a respected company, owned and operated by its founder.

EIG bought HostGator in 2012. While I wasn’t happy about that, the site worked well enough that I didn’t feel compelled to re-enter the jungle of shopping for a new hosting company. At the end of 2021, a private equity company bought EIG, merged it with another large hosting company also owned by private equity, and renamed the combined operation Newfold Digital. (The article details the reasons for avoiding any Newfold Digital hosting.) Soon after the merger, HostGator’s reliability deteriorated. I spent too much time with their overworked technical support agents in India and the Philippines, and even more time waiting to reach them via live chat or phone. The situation eventually stabilized.

The hosting I had paid for in 2021 was due to expire in July. I discovered that HostGator had not only significantly raised its renewal pricing, but had not informed anyone in advance. Continuing with HostGator would have cost me at least 50% more than I paid in 2021. Some customers got surprise increases of as much as 70%. I suppose the private equity partners decided their hosting customers needed to contribute more to help pay for the merger.

I started looking for new hosting Last month. Mostly thanks to Web Hosting Talk, a forum site that was also very helpful during my 2006 jungle expedition, I found MDDHosting and moved my Web sites there last week. Their Web site promises “Spectacular support” as one of their “Hosting Features.” That seems to be truthful advertising.

After they migrated my account from HostGator, the company’s owner himself responded almost immediately to my ticket reporting a problem that turned out to be related to the way I had configured this 25-year-old Web site. He then delved into my site’s files and recommended other changes to my server configuration file that fixed the problem. When I mentioned that I would need to change 27 files, he offered to make the changes for me; and soon thereafter another employee sent me a list of the files that needed to change. This is a level of support above and beyond anything I’ve ever seen, certainly light years beyond the overwhelmed offshore support I got from HostGator! It’s too soon to say whether I can recommend MDDHosting, but what I’ve experienced so far augurs well.

Archives of Older Entries

Ted Marcus’ Virtual Light Table made its Web debut on 18 April 1999.