You misunderstood me: I wasn't blaming CS2 merely reflecting the fact it's not listed in their acceptable software for upscaling which lists Genuine Fractals and CS3 upwards. Whether CS2 is omitted because CS3 has better upscaling features or whether it's because it's an older version so now off their radar, I don't know?

You're right though, consistency is key and the key to consistency is practise.

A couple I often look in at:-

http://luminous-landscape.com/ - the tutorials, understanding and techniques sections have been invaluable to me.

http://www.computer-darkroom.com/home.htm - Similiar to above.

Just wondering because I've been trying to give myself some aims and I was thinking well why not aim a bit higher if possible.

Over the years I always shot on slide with half a view to sending them off in a batch to a library. In fact I never took enough shots and not enough of them were of a high enough standard anyway, badly framed, not sharp enough, exposure not quite right etc... I guess over 20 years I've only got about 20 or 30 shots I really like and I'd reduce it further if I had to submit them. I've got a lot of them scanned now and with the wonders of a digital darkroom I've rescued a few as well but again if I had to submit them, I'm not sure the original scan is good enough.

But we move on now and digital is here. So my first thought was do I have good enough equipment and software to produce professional quality images (leaving aside my ability to take a good enough shot just for the moment :wink. Reading through the requirements of fotolibra, it seems I'm not far away but I'd have to upsize my photos to be considerd for all categories and as I only have CS2 that means a software investment but I could make that anytime, provided the images are there. Looking through it though, the answer is generally yes my workflow seems about right, my equipment is just good enough, so not too far away. Of course if the bar gets raised, which it will at some point, then I'm off the mark again, expensive this photography business.

So what about actually producing the work. Hah! tThere the difficulties really start. I guess if I set myself some themes, actually pressed the button a bit more, in 12 months I might have enough shots to actually submit somewhere but looking around I see the bar is pretty high, there are some excellent photographers out there (and on here), so I wonder how many would sell, if any. I'm not going to put my house on it anyway

So what are your own thoughts, anyone been through the same thought process and achieved the giddy heights of making some money from their hobby?

Incidentally, I'm quite fickle. Two weeks ago I was going to sell al my gear and buy myself a bridge camera

I may be doing you a disservice here Andrew (feel free to tell me if I am :wink but I found this electronic book to be very good and includes PS and PSE practical examples. The only downside is with the pound to dollar conversion it's become quite expensive now but I would still reccommend it as it is continually updated. Worth a thought maybe.

Well off my *ist D a 12Mb pef becomes a 17Mb Tiff in a straight conversion. The different sizes you are getting may be down to you resizing the image in PSE7. Don't know where anything is in PSE7 so can't direct you but I'm sure someone will know.

There's a shot in my gallery taken using Hugin to stitch the images. It was a test, handheld and it wasn't even on manual exposure. I must admit to being amazed at the result and I've seen other work by a friend who put me onto Hugin, which is just superb.

Well good to know my workflow is fine. I shall explore the .dng option and do some comparisons to see if it's an improvement.

Interesting what you say John about libraries wanting JPEGs. I presume though a converted JPEG is better from a high quality original than a medium quality one, so a dumbing down but not the green light to shoot in JPEGs. Not that matters to me, I have no inclination to submit my shots simply because I just don't produce enough, I am an occasional photographer (It's also the reason I have my workflow written down because when I come back to it, I've already forgotten what to do). Still I hope to cart the camera about more, it's one of the reasons I signed up here.

I have added Silkypix/Capture 1 to my, like to have list but it's behind my need for a new printer and a longer lens.

Having never really benefited from using a camera forum I've been reading around about workflow. Capture 1 and Silkypix come up a lot and I've seen a few examples which prove their worth. Budget being limited, for the moment I need to make best use of the tools I have, those being acdsee 8, CS2 and Pentax's photo lab.

Now what I had been doing was using photo lab to convert from Raw to Tiff and then work on the Tiff in CS2 as a psd, saving back to Tiff at the end when flattening (even as I'm typing this, I'm thinking it can't be the best way).

I'd picked this up because most of my digital workflow was from slide scanning, which scan to Tiff. So my question is, is this the best method or is there a better way?

Ditto: I Never delete anything. I guess it stems from film days when you couldn't. If it makes it out the camera it's backed up forever. So I do delete them off the camera sometimes but they are mostly 'check' shots. I find when I look back, even a bad shot evokes a memory or a reminder, with a digital the Exif information on failed shots is very useful.

Yeah, in the sense of "This is what you shouldn't do"

Thanks for all your welcomes. I will endeavour to get some pics and links up. I've spent some enjoyable time looking at other peoples pics and have already pilfered some ideas, I mean found some inspiration, yes, that's it.