I wanted to add a couple of additional thoughts:
My expertise is more in the backend, post production. I worked for many years fixing / consulting with commercial photographers and filmmakers. Knowing what to do with a troubled digital image or
Holding and shooting with a camera is a new thing to me, why I am here so much. 🙂
I have a policy, that for every time I ask a question in a forum (I'm involved with quite a few) I try and find a question that I can contribute to as well. Unfortunately, I am not that equipped in this forum to answer many camera / lens based questions.
I had not heard about DXO Photolab until it was mentioned in this forum. I spent sometime reading about it, they have a substantial amount of documentation on their website. I appreciate companies who like to talk about the idea of their software and not just their marketed features.
The unfortunate condition of being new to anything, is that at the time you need to make some longterm choices about tools ( software & hardware ) when at the same time, you have very little information to make those longterm decisions.
Money is certainly a legitimate concern but what might be far more important is the commitment of time and knowledge resources. Much of that can be applied in a template fashion to other aspects of learning other tools but much of it is not and then there is the further issue of that tool teaching a bias, a type of approach that may or may not be applicable in a general manner – and may constrict your future thinking.
I want to be clear, saying this now after mentioning DXO Photolab is not saying that their software is like this or would cause restricted thinking. Their specialty seems to be focused on RAW image development and they seem to have a fairly sophisticated approach that is well accepted.
In their forums there are negative comments but they are the kind of comments that do not indicate that the software is falling short of what it promises but that the users so like the software so much they want more. There is a lot of feature requests, many are outside the intention of the software: soft proofing, luminosity masks, etc. It is very mature software, they are currently celebrating they're 20th anniversary.
As Robegul indicates, DXO Photolab is about $300, a one time purchase + upgrades. It has all the features you would expect from a RAW development software.
In my own biases I viewed your question differently than as a best RAW viewer advice, as you mentioned it in the term "photo editing software that stands out above the rest that I can buy outright?"
Editing, at least to me, means something beyond RAW development. Affinity Photo has most anything you would need in RAW development, plus a few approaches I've not seen anywhere. But after you've developed your image, what's next? Besides all the things you would expect of a photo editing software they also have special modules: panorama stitching, tonal merging, HDR merging, focus stacking and a module for astrophotography.
Those features that DXO users wanted, soft proofing and luminosity masks? Affinity Photo does both plus sophisticated macros and batch processing.
Typically the entire suite of Affinity Photo, Designer and Publisher is about $165 as a one time purchase. It has been my experience with Affinity Photo that their upgrades are not just minor fixes but massive new feature sets. As they say, "All apps. All platforms. No subscription."
They were offering a six month free trial, not sure if that is still running.
Not trying to pitch you away from DXO Photolab or hard sell Affinity Photo, just trying to provide enough info at your early stage to make an informed decision. RAW development may be all you need, enough said.
I've always held the idea that committing to a tool larger than your current self will allow you to grow into that future creator you may wish to be someday.
All the best, a lot of great advice in this thread, hope I added something.
