Yes to both.

The difference between the two I would suggest isn't large enough to worry about at this stage. As George says, different image processing programs treat things differently.

If you converted the RAW to JPEG in the camera without any other modifications, it's interesting and worth more of a look.

Are you new to photography? If so, it might be worth getting more used to the camera, and picture taking, before worrying too much about the difference you've seen.

Increasing the contrast will make the light bits lighter, but it will also make the dark bits darker.

If overall, your picture is too dark, then it is likely to be underexposed - you need a wider aperture or a longer exposure to get more light in when the picture is taken.

White balance doesn't affect overall brightness either; it affects the way the camera adjusts for the yellowness of light at a low colour temperature (such as from a lightbulb) or the blueness of light at a higher colour temperature (such as sunlight, or higher still, a cloudy overcast), so that a white subject still looks white.

I've noticed this too - only when using RAW+, not JPEG alone, and I don't have an explanation yet either. It's easy enough to adjust the brightness of the JPEG on the computer, but if I have the RAW file then I'll be working on that so it hasn't been a major sticking point for me.

If this is the "JPEG overall too dark" you're referring to, then I don't know the answer. I don't see it when shooting JPEGs alone and I haven't had time to really look at whether there's a difference between JPEG only and JPEG from RAW+.

The relevant settings here are saturation, contrast and sharpness.

Saturation refers to the intensity of the colours.

Contrast refers to the difference between the brightness of the bright bits, and the darkness of the dark bits. The more the difference, the more contrast.

Sharpness refers to the way the software in the camera enhances the contrast in the immediate vicinity (ie within a very few pixels) of the edges it detects in the image. This gives the appearance of sharpness, without actually creating detail that wasn't there before.

You have a lot more control of these if you leave the settings neutral and do the tweaking on a computer, preferably as Tyr says, having the original RAW file available to you.

But it's really down to individual preference. Usually I use neutral settings, but occasionally (especially if I'm using RAW+, where I have the JPEG and the RAW file), I might up the settings a bit.

I'd suggest experimenting. Once you discover you want to tweak beyond the camera's ability, you can change the way you do things.

From the readme.txt file that comes with the firmware:

Freshly charged, certainly.

New? Not sure. I'd be inclined to ensure that a new battery holds charge properly before using it for a firmware update. So maybe give it a full charge, and use it for a while first.

Then charge it again, of course.

Do batteries hold a full charge from new? Or do they have to be 'conditioned' first at all? Can't remember...

Welcome. The current version of the firmware is 1.3, and it is very easy indeed to install, providing you follow the instructions carefully, and carry them out to the letter.

The download and the instructions are here:

http://www.pentaximaging.com/customer_care/show_firmware?firmId=8793673

They look complicated, but they really aren't.

You do not need to install v1.2 first, since each update contains all the previous ones as well.

Good point. I guess there are a few things that fire the shutter without recording a picture.

On the K10D, there's also a digital, rather than an optical, preview. Which I never use; it seems pointless to me. May as well take the shot, then check it. If you don't, it may not be possible to retake once you've checked.

So the file number will be a bit less than the number of actuations. In my case, not much less though.

Other than multiple exposures, aren't they the same if you don't reset it?

Following on from this, what do people think of as a "keeper"?

Of my 5500-odd K10D shutter actuations, I have about 35 in a "best of" gallery, where I wouldn't be actually ashamed of the experts here having a look through them, although doubtless they'd be able to find lots of faults.

Then there's lots more that I certainly wouldn't want to actually delete, ranging from goodish snaps upwards. And lots more than that, that I'll probably get around to deleting eventually - I find every time I look through, I bin more that I didn't delete last time.

So what do people think of as "keepers", and what sort of hit rate do you get?

That's much more like, John.

Before, I was getting the image not displayed until I right clicked on it and clicked "View Image" (this is FireFox 2). And even then it was displayed really small.

Now it comes up straight away, and is also a decent size. I take it the aspect ratio is supposed to be much wider than the normal 3:2?