You know the rules: Never discuss Politics or Religion .
But since it is a time of restricted activities, maybe we can discuss Qimage Ultimate.
As time goes on and Qimage grows, I am hard pressed to find something I need from Photo Shop.

Way back when, I owned PS for which I paid handsomely,  plus extra for tickets to attend seminars to learn how to use it.
I learned layers, and all the stuff I could do per layer.
But I already had something called Qimage I was using and learning.
Everytime I added a layer, the image bloated. When I adjusted something in Qimage, same size, no change; and the prints were better. The only tool in PSCS that was really great was the clone tool. I could get rid of whole buildings and you wouldn't notice unless I showed you.
As time went on and I got into RAW instead of JPG shooting, (and with Mike's tutoring) I learned why raw beats jpg. Qimage was growing in features that really made a difference.
Just to name a few:
1) Raw  refine
2) Deep Focus sharpening (beats the heck out of USM sharpening.)
3) Interpolation: the creation of files with the absolute highest quality while retaining detail for conversion and printing. Auto noise reduction.

4) Get your print size accurate and easily.  Change print size with one mouse click. Place the prints where you want on a page.
5) Borders within the print size or added to it; use of mats for uneven borders.
6) Crop images or prints.
7) Search engines to recover previous jobs, prints, and layouts (templates) that you made in seconds and saved.
Create and save all your printer/paper/size/paper type/profile/quality/driver settings and more. One click and you are set to print  on a certain paper; ready to go.

All this and much more while retaining the highest quality regardless of what your job requires.
So I must ask, other than you paid big bucks, and you got used to it, what does PS do that you otherwise cannot do?

Jeff,
PS was meant sort of generically to include your Elements, Capture 1, Lightroom, etc.
Fred

That's good, and infers that Qimage is handling all your photo processing needs quite well.
That is the type of discussion, or conversely, I need my Capture one because......

stay well,
Fred

Well said.  I've learned my lesson over the years: Qimage should focus on printing.  The Qimage editing tools get me through probably 90% of what I need to do.  They were designed to get you through small touchups and not need to open a full featured editor for that kind of stuff.  The vanish tool can handle removing something as big as a bucket by a pool, a mailbox, trashcan in the background, and certainly skin blemishes.  But sometimes I need to remove an entire car or a whole basketball pole with backboard, or something like that.  Qimage's vanish tool can do it but it's tedious.  For those tasks I use Affinity Photo.  It's $50 and does most of what Photoshop does... better and easier.  Just use the selection brush, quickly select an entire (large) area, and click Edit, Inpaint and it's gone.  Unbelievable features for $50!  I only have PS and LR installed on my older secondary PC.  I refuse to install it on my new system because it spams so many useless services that spawn when you open their software and don't shut down when you exit (11 of them).  I simply don't want that mess on my system.

Also, like you, I sometimes use the manufacturer's software for images above ISO 800.  As you said, they have individual noise profiles for cameras and nothing beats them for noise-free images.  That said, although they are noise-free, I can often get a better compromise using clever application of tone targeted sharpening (or softening) in Qimage.  Those noise-free results from the manufacturer's software often come at a price like hair, eyebrows, grass, etc. becoming smudged at the expense of removing noise.  Sometimes I prefer to let them be a little sharper at the expense of a little noise, but it does take a little work to dial it in (5-10 minutes).

Mike

Well Fred, we technical types don't do light banter well  and have learned that the blunt approach earns us few friends.  I love to discuss this stuff and am relieved that Mike doesn't think I'm completely nuts. I don't know 0.1% of all the things involved in image processing, and I've been doing it for a very long time. Maybe next year I'll hit 0.15%. It took me 13 years to save my pennies and upgrade my D200 to the Z6. It just amazes me what can be achieved with the current generation of lenses, plus image stabilization, in terms of sharpness. Metering is usually a non-issue as well. Most of what's left is lighting, tones and my limited artistic abilities. That's probably why I do less with the raws and am learning to take better advantage of Qimage's color and tonal features. IMO, those are not really intuitive and thank goodness for the excellent videos, or I'd be completely lost.

Mel,
Add these to your cutout folder in Qimage.

From what I can see from the snaps, excellent improvement in the raw.. Just curious if you tried any twiddly improvement to the QU default raw refine?  Like ODR
Fred

Just for fun, try using ODR . Turn back the added contrast in flt. Then do ODR
Any chance that Raw could be emailed or sent (Just for fun) to me via G Drive or We transfer or something?

Fred