Going to give RAW a bash I think

Hi,

Had a K20 and then a K7 for nearly a year now, and am starting to think that images straight out of the K7 (as high quiality jpegs) are a little on the soft side.

I think I will try going RAW for a bit and see how I get on, would you go with PEF or DNG files?

I also want to get a decent RAW converter, and Silkypix is the obvious choice. There are 2 versions though, the Version 4 and the Pro version. I assume that for a hobby, Version 4 will be fine? I already have Photoshop Elements if I want to do any more serious editing.

The main reason is to try to take more control over the photos I am taking and take the processing away from the camera.

I also guess that I would need to seriously look at calibrating my monitor (laptop) and maybe getting a phot printer as well if I am serious about faithful re-production of the final printed image. Any recommendations on an A4 printer??

Thanks, James

It's not important whether you shoot PEF or DNG. The K-7's PEFs are slightly smaller than its DNGs. They contain the same image data. PEF can be converted to highly compressed (lossless) DNG at any time with free Adobe DNG Converter.

I strongly recommend the Pro version of Silkypix to anyone. The auto dodging function alone is worth the extra cost. It inteligently lightens dark areas very effectively indeed.

A laptop monitor is poor for image editing even if you do calibrate it because of contrast and viewing angle issues.

A printer I DON'T recommend is the Epson R800. The heads clog up far too easily and quickly.

James,
it's also worth giving CaptureOne a try (30 days trial). I use the Pro version and find it capable of really dragging every last detail out of the RAW file.
It's worth noting that CaptureOne supports PEF better than DNG however.

I'm with Greytop.
Silkypix is good but it might not be the best for you, since workflow and interface is different.
They all come with a 30day trial so you should at least try other ones, to find out if they fit you better.

There is little between each software quality wise, some renders details excellently some have a slightly nicer colours and the other has a little bit better noise reduction and so on.
It's important of course but not half so important then having a workflow/interface that works for you.
If you shoot in the weekend 200 shots you will take the little less quality for granted if the program is a pleasure to work on.

I have always shot RAW until a recent shoot when I shot RAW+.I think it was Unlocker who had the idea to do this at a wedding. Anyway it seemed a good way to be able to quickly give the clients a JPG CD and upload to the web as well as have RAW files to work on for prints. At John Riley's suggestion I have set my K20d to +1 sharpening for JPGs. Result: the RAW and JPG shots cant be told apart.

Now this was a studio shoot with perfect and consistent exposure so there would be no need to pull more info from the RAW files.

I find that Adoobe Camera Raw serves me very well.

For shots taken in excellent light, I haven't been able to tell JPEG from the camera versus raw processed to JPEG. When the light is dodgy or bizarre, raw definitely wins for me. So, for convenience, I just shoot raw.

RAW all the way here, too. Got 300 shots from the ice track this afternoon batchprocessing for further selection as I write....

Bret

The latest Pentax RAW conversion software (v.4) is actually not bad at all. And it won't cost a penny. Don't forget to download the 4.11 version though. 4.0 won't allow you to overwrite jpegs when saving new versions of them!