I did buy a Monochrom in the end. I am managing with Lightroom 4 or 5 depending on the computer, and I currently don't have Photoshop at all. I never learnt much of it. I have used Silver Efex Pro 2 on odd occasions but I generally find I don't really want it.
At first, with many subjects, I found the MM files very even grey and flat as has been widely observed. I was very surprised then to read a comment by CR, whose landscapes in the MM Landscape thread are stunning, and discover that he finds the MM files needing less PP than any other digital camera he has used. But of course, often this is the case. A sunlit building often needs nothing, no increase in contrast, no lifting of highlights, no deepening of shadows, no raising of shadows. And certainly no sharpening. I keep the raw import sharpening of 25, but I have read that others reduce even that.
For many pictures I might already have underexposed to avoid blowing the highlights and I will work down the right menu pane in Lightroom, increasing exposure, increasing contrast a little, maybe raising the shadow slider, and increasing the highlights. I often take the blacks down deeper, to the clip point sometimes with the option button pressed. I am very careful with the Clarity slider and seldom go beyond 10 if I use it as it muddies the lovely midtones of the MM files. I will make a curves adjustment of the sky or some other unsatisfactory patch. I do no noise reduction under 1250 ISO.
I am still learning, but the simple methodical working through the menu options down the right side gets me away from the flat grey malleable image to something more familiar. I have tried some of the presets, but it seems to me a real yellow filter does more than the yellow filter preset. Unofortunately I only have a 43mm which fits only the C Biogon 35. A start.
I am not claiming I have reached Michael's level or that Lightroom is enough, but it is what I have done confining myself to one program. And I am only about to start with the journey of printing these images, and that will be another learning curve.
