It’s a long story but right now I‘ve rescued my Macbook Pro (2012) from death and have it at Lion. However I am unable to install any of the previous OS versions available to me through the “Purchases” tab of the app store. It tells me they are invalid. (those were Mountain Lion, Mavericks and Yosemite)
What is the next step for me?
If you have another Mac available you can try to download Catalina or Mojave.
Download from here.
And make a bootable USB drive
Thanks, guys. Especially those links, @Dambo101!
@Geoff3DMN I’ve tried elementary in the past, its nice but not enough. Linux Mint is my preferred, but the b0rk of my Catalina install was because CutefishOS did not obey its own instructions to create a “live” flashdrive and instead completely wiped my boot disk.
If you want to install a recent operating system you should have a look at Open Core Legacy Patcher. I’ve got Ventura running on my 2015 13” MacBook Pro & it’s great. There’s a guy on YouTube who has some good tutorials but I can’t access it at the moment. I’ll put up a link later when I get home if you like.
Thanks all, back to Catalina now and once all the apps are updated, I’ll look at the Ventura thing, though I’m a bit antsy atm because of the disaster with CutefishOS. @richard thanks for the link to the video 
You don’t have to go all the way to Venture but I’ve found OCLP to be the easiest & best way to go beyond what your computer is qualified for.
I have Ventura on my Mid 2012 MacBook Pro with OCLP, it’s great!
Thanks, but no. I think I’m going to stick with the known and leave the upgrades to others.
Fair enough…
You could always try it and see how it goes - OCLP is a known at this stage, so many people use it Mojave isn’t getting any security support anymore unfortunately!
Thanks. I haven’t looked at OCLP for a long time, but, in fact, I’m considering downgrading again, because even at Catalina, Aperture no longer works (I still do not like Photos). I think there are other apps which are unlikely to be upgraded, also. I’ll have to wait and see, the next time I am using Catalina.
Does anyone know if Lightroom6 standalone works up to Ventura?
Sadly photos is STILL missing iPhoto and even Aperture photos.
I assume Aperture is a 32bit app and Mojave was the last MacOS that is capable of running 32bit apps.
Just be careful about connecting to the net without any security patches.
Assuming you’re talking about the perpetual licence version which ended at 6.1.4 or so, it apparently contains a non-essential 3rd party library that is 32-bit. I tried it a few times after upgrading to Big Sur and it seems to work ok, but consistently crashed on quit. I figured I was going to have to make the change one way or another, so bought DxO PhotoLab. Haven’t had a chance to use it much, but it seems ok.
I have never really used Lightroom. I prefer Photoshop & Bridge. I do also use DxO PhotoLab. It has the best lens corrections & noise reduction & the newer masking tools are good too.
Yeah thats the one. Going to take another look at Digikam and Rawtherapee. And i have a licence for Lyn2 which I had forgotten. Don’t think Lightroom will be what I want in any case
I have a lot of editing tools and I detest the subscription model that Adobe use. I willmake do
I actually don’t mind Adobe’s subscription model myself. I think it’s pretty good value. Especially for the amount I use it. The 1st version of Photoshop I bought, version 4 (the first one with adjustment layers), back in 1997 cost me $1,400.00!!!
Yeah. Cant justify it on an age pension.