Unwanted sophistication

I have composed this post on my laptop using Notepad, an old-time Windows utility that allows you to type only in plain text. No fancy stuff such as bold and italics! But plain text is all I need for an initial version of what I shall later polish up when online. So I've copied-and-pasted the text from Notepad into this new post on Blogger, and now I can add photos and other things if required, correct my typos, and generally improve the post so that it reads well and looks right. 

Notepad has served me very well over the years. Its overwhelming virtue is that it's so simple. But that will be its downfall.

That other straightforward old-time Windows utility, Paint, came under threat a few years back. Microsoft had created a newer substitute that it felt more appropriate to modern times, and Paint appeared to be doomed. But users worldwide protested, and Paint was reprieved. I've always had a specific use for Paint, for processing laptop screenshots, so I'm glad that Microsoft listened and did the right thing. But I doubt whether the company really learned the key lesson from that episode: that easy-to-use, uncomplicated programs are needed just as much as sophisticated ones. 

I am therefore pretty sure that Notepad also has a suspended sentence of death hanging over it. But long may it live. 

It's obvious why software companies strive to improve their products. They want to convince users that theirs is the current best for the purpose in question, and worth a serious investment - nowadays most likely an expensive subscription instead of a one-off payment. In the case of photographic software, very much in my personal world, Adobe's suite of editing programs is a case in point. Who hasn't heard of Photoshop? Or Lightroom? But neither is a freebie. Both require an ongoing subscription of such size that only those who make their living from photography, or want to use incredibly capable programs for their work, will pay the price. Using such software may be one of those badges, like sporting an impressive camera, especially one on a tripod, that separate lightweight dabblers from 'committed enthusiasts and professionals'.

I won't play that game. I get along very well with Nikon's NX Studio as my photo-processing workhorse, which is available to download at no cost at all. I also still use Nikon's Capture NX2, bought for a one-off £125 in August 2008, for more specialised edits: it's a bit old-school, but it still works perfectly in 2024. And I have uses for the bog-standard Windows Photos program that Microsoft throws in for nothing. This triumvirate is quite enough for my personal needs, although I dare say that Lightroom users - most serious shooters say they use Lightroom - will laugh at my faithfulness to these three alternative (and possibly uncool) programs. Yes, they are relatively basic, but that makes them quick and easy to use. I am looking only to correct minor defects in the pictures I took, as I want to preserve the character and mood of the scene or subject as I saw it, rather than introduce something that wasn't there at the time. Certainly not to process the shot to death. Together my three programs - Nikon NX Studio mostly - deal very efficiently with the 20,000+ pictures I take each year. So, weighing effectiveness against cost, I feel my approach is a good one. 

Back to Notepad and Paint, and programs like them. I don't think they will survive too much longer. Microsoft will at some stage declare them stone-age and incompatible with the latest version of Windows, or finally impose replacements that employ AI in some gimmicky way. It will do this because that's Microsoft is apt to do, regardless of users' preferences. We are supposed to embrace every trendy idea.

I see the colourful icon for Copilot at the bottom right of my laptop screen every time I fire Verity up. I used Copilot to create three silly experimental pictures when it first appeared, but not since. There's been no reason to use it for making images. I'm not a 'creator'. I dare say I constantly use AI without being conscious of it - for example when searching for things on Google. But where pictures are concerned, I prefer to respect and work with the scene as I found it, using only my own eye for a good composition, and the camera. And as regards blog posts, only my personal aptitude as a writer. 

Otherwise, these favourite activities are reduced to giving a few voice commands to my laptop, which would then trawl the Internet for other people's snaps and screeds, and make a pastiche of those.  Minimal personal effort or input, nothing authentic or truthful or genuinely original about the result, and nil satisfaction. 

Progress? Sophistication? Ha.