Silkypix or Elements 7

Which one is best for editing RAW images? Tried both but undecided!

I would go the Elements 7 route

My personal choice is Photoshop, although saying that I have only used CS3 & CS4 so not sure how it compares to Elements 7

Paul

Could anyone explain why they have a preference?

I chose Photoshop all those years ago as I was recommended it by a fellow photographer. I started with PS Elements 1 then went to Elements 5. After that I bought CS3 and loved the ease of use.
Then I got my sticky mits on CS4.

I use CS4 on my laptop and CS3 & CS4 on my PC although obviously not together.
My laptop came with Elements 6 pre-loaded but I personally didn't like it so stuck with the CS's.

I did try others but I suppose once you get used to how one program works then you don't want to go back.

I'm not sure if that answers yr question Oggy

Paul

This is more about your approach to photography than about whether one program is better than another.

Silkypix is purely a RAW conversion program, whilst Elements is primarily an image manipulation program. The former is considerably better than Elements at what it does, and the latter does a lot of things that Silkypix doesn't do at all.

I see Silkypix as enabling the photographer to get the best from the image he has recorded, and Elements (and its kind) as enabling the photographer to change his image into something else.

Personally, I seldom "do" image manipulation, and therefore Silkypix is the only program I use.

This is of course a rather purist approach, which will not appeal to everybody. If I shot B&W, I might feel the need of the additional facilities of Elements, particularly the ability to work on parts of the image, rather than the whole thing.

G

For RAW conversion, Capture One 4 gets my vote

This is a bit like asking which is better, cheese or Crown paint....

Slkypix is, as George says, a RAW converter and as such is a highly regarded one.

Photoshop is the industry standard imaging program and anyone involved professionally will almost certainly be using it. Photoshop Elements takes most of the functions of the full version that the Amateur Photographer would want. As it happens, it also has a built in RAW converter.

You can be as subtle as you like with Photoshop, and personally I mainly use it to crop, adjust levels (brightness and contrast) and sharpen. The tricky stuff is also possible, but certainly optional. Just because you can doesn't mean you should...

So it really depends on what you want to do. I don't often use RAW capture so Photoshop is my natural choice for all my imaging. I routinely use PS7, PS CS2 and Elements 7. These are also what I use to tutor people in digital imaging. This would not be possible with Silkypix alone.

While I essentially agree with George, Silkypix is actually more than a pure RAW converter. Here's the feature list:

http://www.isl.co.jp/SILKYPIX/english/products/ds3/function/

It also can be used with JPEGs and TIFFs. Silkypix Pro will have some extra features too, including cloning.

Well! A good cross section of opinions there, thanks.

Must confess I had never heard of Silkypix until I bought my Pentax but have found that it is quite versatile. Photoshop on the other hand appears to be the only imaging program anyone ever mentions in magazines, conversation etc. so perhaps I should go with the flow. It's also a lot cheaper than Silkypix.

So, I'll start with PE7

What about Lightroom 2.0??

Nondestructive photo editing Enhanced
Adjust and enhance color, exposure, and tonal curves nondestructively on more than 190 camera raw file formats, as well as JPEG, TIFF, and PSD files.

circa £200 is a touch more than I was thinking of paying I have ordered PE7 from Amazon @ £50 inc delivery so will take it from there and see what happens

I've found that Rawtherapee and/or Gimp is far superior to the Silkypix stuff that came with my k-m. Both are free to use. I haven't tried Elements 7. In my experience, Photoshop is a class above anything else but of course it is horrifically expensive. If you use .dng files, then Picasa can do basic editing as well as being a nifty album manager. Not a patch on any of the others as an editor, but if the shot is fairly OK in the first place and you are shooting for fun (i.e., you are not a pro) then I'd guess it's probably fine. I imagine most of these can be installed on a suck it and see basis. If it's not for you, just wipe it off.

I think you will be more than happy with Elements 7

For what you get for such a small price is amazing!


Paul

The stuff that comes with Pentax is NOT Silkypix, it is Pentax Photo Laboratory that uses the development engine from the earlier Silkypix v2.0.

Silkypix Developer Studio is a completely different beast altogether. link