Picking an editor is hard

[Merluza]

If you've been happy with PS (my version is slightly older than yours), I think that any flavour of Elements could be enough to drive you nuts, unless you want to live in Toytown? Only one way to find out! But Affinity Photo's very capable as a PS alternative, and will also a decent basic RAW conversion unless you need more sophisticated & batch functions. Unfortunately its interface (apart from the RAW converter) can be somewhat bamboozling to a seasoned PS operator, but I expect that one could settle in?

Sounds like you're accustomed to Photolab, & as Rob pointed out above there's the option of its 'Essential' version ...

I've tried Affinity and On1 and both drive me crazy.

 

[Bodian]

As I understand it when your subscription expires you lose access to the Develop and Map modules but you should still be able to export your existing edits:

https://helpx.adobe.com/manage-account/using/cancel-subscription.html

Excellent many thanks.

 

[wiltw]

(My bold) Install Adobe DNG converter, convert all your photos to DNG and work on them with impunity using your older software.

Well aware of DNG...I was simply give one reason that someone like me would not begrudge getting a new version of software, when the 'old stuff' is fully satisfactory to someone already.

 

[Songbird Admirer]

I've been a long time Nikon Capture NX2 user, although haven't used it in recent years as I dropped out of the photography hobby for a bit. I bought the Nix Color Efex plugins for it, it did B&W conversion really nicely and I love the U-point controls. It was slow but I was happy with it.

Coming back to photography now and my new Z6 no longer works with NX2 and it really shows its age. So I've been using NX Studio and I like it with one big caveat - Black and White conversion is really lacking. As far as I can tell the only option is to use a B&W picture control which gives very limited tweaking. And altering the colours doesn't work to affect the image as the image is already B&W by the time the processing gets there.

I quite like the B&W treatment I get by default, but the customisability isn't there so its over to using Upoints.

I've got a trial of DxO PhotoLab7 and that has a lot of options with its B&W conversion, which is nice, but it's a lot of work to get them as good as the NX Studio images. But Photolab does do colour images a lot better than NXS. Photolab also has Upoints including more options with them, which is nice. It's also faster than NXS. But where NXS stores all edits in the NEF files, PL uses side car files, which isn't as neat.

I've also Rawtherapee, which makes nice images with some work but holy moly there's a bazillion options and I don't know what most of it means. Just calm down Rawtherapee!

I also have the trial of Nix Silver Efex, but that doesn't work with NEF files. I need to spend more time with it and Colour Efex to see if I can get a good workflow, but I'm not convinced so far.

The whole thing is a minefield. I just want a one stop shop for everything. NXS is so close for that as are the others. Having multiple editors doesn't appeal. I'm erring towards DxO Photolab, but seems expensive for the full version - I am not buying any subscription service.

How did you make your choice?

/rant

I have a Nikon camera and so downloaded NX Studio for free. Given that it is compatible with Nikon cameras, Studio handles colours much better than third party software. But, for some reason, you lose quite a bit of detail with Studio when saved into any format, to the point it is highly noticeable to a relative novice such as myself. I went through a phase of editing in Studio for certain features and then Affinity for certain features, but the trade off between better colour management and loss of detail wasn't worth it.

These days, I use Affinity only. 'Reason being, it was recommended and I bought it when it was on sale at 23 quid, going back maybe say 3 years now.

When I first bought it, I had virtually no photo editing experience, opened it up and thought what on earth is this: buttons and options everywhere, absolutely no logic to their placing, there's no chance I'll be able to do anything with this. 'Bit by bit, I did You Tube modules, editing pictures from different conditions and with different needs; and after about 6 months, when I had half an idea of what I was doing, I couldn't believe what this software can do.

Add in that I've had two different laptops since then and simply downloaded the software using the product key when originally purchased: what a steal for 23 quid.