SILKYPIX plus editing software.

I have been slowly getting my head around RAW images and the software that come with the K10. With the SILKYPIX software I'm slightly confused, is it just a RAW image editor as with the software supllied with the camera or does the full version allow image editing such as copying pixels and such like? If this in not the case what do people reccomend with regard to editing software such as Photoshop (although this is out of my price range). Thanks in advance.

SILKYPIX is primarily a RAW convertor. However, they added support in it to process JPG files as if they were RAW.

There are no image editing facilities within SILKYPIX. If you want to do that, then I'd recommend Photoshop, or Photoshop Elements if you are on a tight budget.

There are various versions of PSE, and version 2 is available for next to nothing and will do most of what you need (especially if you add in a number of freeware plugins that open up some of the Photoshop stuff). Version 3 is also pretty good and includes the "healing brush" (which is very useful).

I'm not so sure about the later versions. Some restrict what plugins you can enable. However, in all cases sites like www.hiddenelements.com are a good resource for what can be done with Elements ... just reviewed the site and some of the tools are pay-for (but small amounts) and will open up other features for you in v3,4,5.

(And there are some tutorials on my site for PSE: www.mattmatic.co.uk )

Hope that helps!
Matt

It does rather depend on what you want to do.

I personally seldom use image-editing software. Silkypix allows you to correct exposure, colour, contrast and sharpness. It also permits cropping.

As far as I am concerned, anything else is more to do with computer graphics than photography, and I just want to produce good photographs.

However, other people think differently.

G

Thanks for the replies. Its just a case of understanding what each individual peice of software is aimed at. Thanks for all the imformation regarding elements Matt thats exactly what I was looking for as I now understand what each application is used for.

hi pug

take a look at a program called GIMP.

It's a freeware photoshop-esc program and personally I think its the best image editor you can get for less than £100.

Even if you don't agree, since its free you loose nothing by downloading it and having a look.

Photoshop Elements 5 is excellent.
There is also Photofiltre which is free: www.photofiltre.com or Picasa from Google, also free.

Am i to assume that the bundled software with Pentax is exactly the same as Silkypix's own developers studio.

The bundled software has Silkypix technologies built into it. From the users point of view it is as different to SP Developer Studio 3 as chalk is to cheese. They are not remotely similar.

For Photo editing, I use Picture Window Pro from
www.dl-c.com. It works differently from Photoshop, but is a full 16-bit editing programme, and is very versatile and powerful once you get your mind around its way of working. What is more there is a 30-day free trial of it and it costs $90 - ie approx £50 + VAT! The programme author has wriiten several 'white papers' explaining how to do various things with it, and there are links to other 'help' forums

Hope this helps

Andy