What size for raw please?

Depends so much on your choice of processing software.

I hardly use Photoshop. In fact I can hardly use Photoshop. I use Lightroom, so don't have an added complication

The camera will have already done some image processing on those JPEGs to make them look reasonably attractive/exciting/realistic depending on how you have your camera set up. The RAW files won't have the benefit of that and hence will look flat and lifeless until you do your own work to make them look attractive/realistic/exciting or whatever you want.

Actually even that isn't really true these days. Any decent RAW processing software should have a good stab at producing a decent image from RAWS by default rather than something flat and lifeless. But it probably won't, without your own adjustments, do as good a job of it as the camera does.

And if none of that makes sense - just abandon any thoughts of using RAWs until you have read a bit more and understand why you might, or moght not, want to go that route.

I think the K-30 has a RAW button on the side. Check in the manual and see what this does. You can always (if you remember) press it when you fancy a go or you just want to have insurance that you have captured everything you can about a particular image.

You can sit there with the RAW and the cooked JPEG from the camera and see what a RAW processor can do and how easy it is! (ha)

If you have a copy of PS Elements or other version it has a RAW editor already.

Your camera software probably has a copy of SillyPIX (Pentax branded) I hate it but others here seem to like it.

Yes RAWS do hold much more detail but they haven't had any editing done by the camera to brighten them. RAW images viewed on the camera screen often look fairly good. On a computer however you will see the RAW image the camera recorded with no white balance contrast or colour compensation. Its up to you to edit them to reflect the colours the impact and the sharpness you remember or required. In camera JPEGs usually do this fairly well but can make them too vivid or too dull or even too sharp, usually but not always and with patience you can do a much better job.

How to select RAW+
Follow instructions on page 140 of your manual
or
The quickest way is to switch the camera on, press the info button and you should have a menu with various picture capture settings and options. (see your manual page 26.) Don't worry if some of this screens options are not adjustable that's because certain settings cannot be changed in certain shooting modes.
Then use the 4 way controller to highlight the JPEG box probably LH corner of this menu then use the rear wheel to scroll between RAW, JPEG or RAW+

Your camera software probably has a copy of SillyPIX (Pentax branded) I hate it but others here seem to like it.[/quote]Never got Silkypix to work for me either, its far to complicated and there's very little help that helped me.
NOTE
dougf8 has come up with a version of the software name which may or may not be misspelt but its a much name than the original.
I hope we aren't confusing you too much. If you have time and patience give RAWS a try but if you happy with your JPEG results then that's all that matters.
All the best David

Indeed.

I shoot in both RAW and JPG depending on the shoo and what I'm shooting with.

Personally I do see any more complications from either format.

Also I certainly never found a steep learning curve with RAW. The editing software decides the RAW File and presents it on the screen to be edited. Just like the sofware decodes the JPG file and presents it on the screen to be edited.

What do you mean "RAW isn't an image" ?

A RAW file is an image file just like JPGs and TIFFs are. All image files need some software to decode them for viewing and/or editing and to encode them again for saving.

No it's not. RAW is the unprocessed data that an image is made from, the software you choose to use takes that data and adapts it as you tell it to, then you choose to 'save as' the image type that you want to use.

I think we're straying from the point. The question was in the context of the OP's requirements.

We need to think of what will suit the OP rather than get into yet another RAW vs JPEG discussion.

I think I agree with gartmore's answer to this post.

A RAW file is still an image file. i.e a series of binary numbers that denote an image, just the same as TIFF and Jpg files are. The data is just in a format that's usually closer in the signal chain to the sensor the sensor. All image files require decoding/encoding before important or exporting.

Anyway pointless arguing to and fro over this.... back to the OPs discussion.

I have the last word...


Re Gartmores suggestion, perhaps shoot RAW+jpg for a while and see how you get on, if you're finding RAW too much hassle or not getting the results you want then at least you know and have not lost anything.

What is the digital process please?

After I have set my K10D as I described above MY 'RAW' comes out exactly like the JPegs -- not 'Flat and Lifeless' -- maybe they would IF all the settings were turned down to Zero ?

Your RAW program (sorry, I haven't read all the thread) will have some default settings. It will apply these at the time of import. You can make these defaults whatever you like, or just start from there to apply whatever you like.

To cut a long story short, I use RAW. When I did take some jpg only shots it disturbed me how much less I could do with them. But some people prefer to have the camera apply the settings, but, to me, that would imply that they change the camera's settings depending on the type of shot or result they require, or that they don't feel they need to. With RAW, you do more of that in post processing. I enjoy that part of the post processing, so it's not a chore, or extra work, for me, as it appears to be for people.

By the way, I don't want to kick off the RAW vs jpg argument again.