In my PL5.1 the used preset is named in advanced history. But if I open an image with the default preset and then change it in preset B&W and close PL and open it again I see a black and white image but in advanced history the default preset is mentioned.
George
Not quite. As @platypus says, when you open an image for the very first time after having put it on disk, PL uses the default preset that you selected in the Preferences dialog. He suggests the “5 - No correction” one, but you have the “Optical Corrections only” one, which means that you won’t have to add those in every time.
Once the default preset has been applied, there is no need to apply any other “basic” preset whilst editing. The only time you might choose one is if you want to apply a special effect or specific FilmPack rendering.
Fantastic! This is what it’s all about. You might think I am an expert and overall bighead but part of what drives me is learning new things and being able to share that knowledge to help others on their quest.
A very long time ago it was suggested in the forum that I set this to “2 - DxO Optical Corrections Only”.
Thanks for the reminder - I forgot all about this. That answers the question I asked.
One more thing “checked off my list”. 
Just be warned that this DxO preset is what is known as a full preset. If you were to apply it after doing any other adjustments, all those adjustments would be wiped out.
I’m sure I sent you it some time ago, but here is my partial preset version, which is far less destructive should you accidentally apply it.
Optical Corrections only.preset (1,4 Ko)
I have trouble remembering what I had for dinner yesterday, let alone what happened with presets from years ago, but I think your preset(s) are at the end of this list:
At any rate, with the three letters “PRE” in clear view, I doubt I would ever apply a preset after I already start working on an image, unless it was to test something…
Back in June 2009, I was taking high dynamic range images with my 2004 Canon Powershot Pro-1 camera, that used huge 128 MB Digital FlashFilm memory cards. Powershot Pro1. That was my very first “real” digital camera.
From the review: “Just when we had hoped that manufacturers were moving on from the megapixel race we caught news of Sony’s ICX456 eight megapixel CCD sensor” !! How things have changed!!
I didn’t know that the camera couldn’t do this kind of work, so I did it anyway. Not knowing what “raw” was back then, I shot in ‘jpg’… not even sure if that camera could do raw. I still have the camera, and actually bought a new battery and charger for it a year ago.
When I first got PhotoLab 3, I tried editing some of these images. I just checked them out today, using PL5, knowing at least a few more things than years ago.
This is a photo taken in Kannayakumari, India, at the southernmost tip of India. Standing where I was, we watched the sunrise - and half a day later, we could turn to face the other way, and see the sun set. For so many reasons, Kannayakumari is one of my favorite places to visit in India. Every day, a huge number of locals and tourists come out to see the sunrise - and in the evening, they come back for the sunset.
I worked on some of these images when I was first learning PhotoLab a few years ago.
IMG_0113_DxO.tif (9.7 MB)
IMG_0113_DxO.tif.dop (12.3 KB)
Another example, this time from a pocket camera, a Canon PowerShot S500, taken in December, 2005. I don’t know the ISO - not sure I could even select those settings. Apparently the camera selected f/9 and 1/200th. Here’s the result, re-edited today in PhotoLab 5. It probably will never win any awards, and I wish I could take it again with a better camera, but regardless of all of that, I did get a result I was very happy with!
In retrospect, I know what I wanted to do, but wasn’t that good at achieving the results I wanted. I wish I had PL5 back in 2005, along with the ability to use it properly.
Looking at my sunrise photo above, and @Wolfgang 's sunset photo I was looking at closely an hour or so ago, my opinion now is that the cameras we used 20ish years ago were fully capable of capturing this kind of image. Had I bought the same S3 Fuji that Wolfgang had way back when, I might have never gotten so involved in Nikon cameras.
Also, while I didn’t have anything like PhotoLab back then, I did have enough tools to do what I thought I wanted, but looking back on it, I certainly appreciate how much easier PhotoLab makes it to get acceptable (or better) results.
Thinking back on all this, by far, the weakest link in my “chain” was me, not the cameras or lenses or image processors. This forum has taught me things I never even considered - just doing things over and over again using what I thought I knew.
Much of India doesn’t change month to month, or year to year, or even decade to decade. I can still find ox-carts to photograph, and the fishing villages aren’t that much different from what they were like half a century ago. Unfortunately, I don’t travel as easily as before, and the virus has kept me home for two years now. My doctor friends in India feel that this coming summer may be a good (and safe) time for me to return.
Knowing what I’ve learned over the past two years, I’m looking forward to going back there again.
As for this forum, it’s enjoyable to see how much I can improve my old images by using PhotoLab, the best way for me to continue to learn is to take new images, use what I’ve learned to do the best I can, and then listen to feedback here for how to improve, especially technically. We all have our own ways of “seeing”, and that includes me, and other people see the same scene differently. I often can’t accept “better” or “worse”, so I’ll usually just stick with “different”.
