mizuhito

Oops, I guess I’ve figured it out.  Everything in Monterey on my Mac is extraordinarily slow and the App Store was showing that my AF was up to date at 1.6.7 but after a long while, it showed that 1.10 is available and allowed me to download it.

I think I have worked out the cause of the problem.  Attached is a screenshot showing the recent file list from another app that I use (Graphic Converter).
It seems that GC maintains a list of the 10 most recent files even if those files do not exist any longer; those that don’t exist are grayed out.  
I guess AF doesn’t do this; instead, if the file doesn’t exist, it just doesn’t include it at all in the recent file list.  
With the photos I was processing recently, there were so many that the full set wouldn’t fit on my SSD. I had to pull a portion in from secondary storage, process, save the results, and delete before pulling in more.  I had originally thought that AF would keep the file name in the list and tell me it couldn’t find it if the file didn’t exist.   Thanks very much for your help and sorry for sending you on a wild goose chase.  
 

Hi Keith, et al., and thanks again for all  your help.  I’m convinced that this is not a setting-in-the-camera issue.  The primary evidence in support of this is that when I change the setting within AF from SerifLabs RAW Engine to Apple (Core Image RAW) the image looks perfect within AF.  (I need to quit and restart the application for this to take effect.)  Additionally, I downloaded some RAW files from an internet site I found (rawsamples.ch) and they, too, look very dark when opened in my AF (with Serif Labs RAW Engine) but normal within other apps (such as GraphicConverter).  So these files do not come from my camera.  
 
It seems that I made a change in AF to one RAW image that is “sticking” to all others and I can’t figure out how to “unstick” it.  I was experimenting with the “poor-man’s HDR” by using a single RAW and saving it with three different exposures to then merge later on.  The change I made to decrease exposure is now applied to all subsequent images I open.  I’m sure there’s some checkbox somewhere I need to uncheck or setting I inadvertently changed but I haven’t found it.  Either that, or the tone curve that AF is applying is somehow messed up.  I guess for now, I’ll just use the Apple RAW engine.  
 
The tutorial vids were extremely helpful. They seem to suggest that the greatest latitude in adjusting an image comes from *not* applying a tone curve in RAW processing and then using a variety of adjustments later on.  I’m going to look into RAW Digger, too.  Thanks again.

I would like to suggest that the user interface to HDR processing is all wrong.
 
The AF program generously comes with a large bunch of presets.  Thank you very much for those.
 
However, one needs to go back and forth between the tone map and develop personnas to apply more than one to the same HDR merged image.  On my machine (MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, OSX 10.5.5), it takes a considerable amount of time to switch back to tone map after being in develop; the time to do it for several presets is ridiculous.  More importantly, I find that the HDR merged image changes characteristics quite considerably when going back and forth between tone map and develop. This is inexcusable.  If I apply, say, "Summer Glow," change to develop to save it, then change back to tone map, the image looks bizarre.  So basically, I have to repeat the entire merge to get consistent results, which, for RAW images, takes a very long time.
 
The much better approach would be the way the NIK software does it.  Here, one can merge and then successively apply any arbitrary number of preset tone mappings very quickly and without affecting the base merged image.  One can apply a preset, save the result, then apply a different one and save.  This will allow easily viewing several HDR results side by side.  In AF, this is not possible.  I should be able to save to the hard drive in the tone map personna, not just "apply."
 

Oh, thanks - this is very helpful!  However, could we please convert my original request to, "adding a way to enter values directly” [within a curve adjustment] and "a way of storing control points on every channel of the curve adjustment in one single click?”  These capabilities are very useful for another workflow I use frequently.  (Or are they already being considered?)