most people talk like "It's a little soft wide open..esp at the tele end" like thats a bad thing....
wide open at the tele end is where you'd be if you were taking a portrait.
people portraits with a little softening is hardly a defect or problem!

I went back and re-read every single post (esp the ones I made) on this thread.

I'm sorry, I just don't see how my posts fit what you are describing.

While I disagree with your remarks I have not resorted to calling you a baby, taunting you.
I have not typed everything in bold large letters to imply yelling.
I'm not going off on a "poor me" rant.

I'm just asking you to recognize that Matmattic, did respond diplomatically, and it was an attempt to help him out.

I think it was Mat, that got slapped in the face for trying to be helpful, in this instance.

A very strong...well let's call it RUDE...response to a diplomaticly phrased heads up.

Here's another heads up...

Mattmatic is very well respected here. For many good reasons.

I thought the same thing. You are obviously trying to be generous and helpful in your earlier post. But adobe does not give away, nor allow you to give away it's software. If you got one for free...MUMS the word.

javascript:emoticon('')

speaking of free software...
Wacom includes photoshop elements and more with it's tablets.
buy a $119.00 tablet get $99 dollar editing program.
use a tablet..you'll never go back to a mouse again!

just add a little note:
I've stated many times elements is best for most.
on the 16 bit issue:
you don't really need that either.
If you use Aperture/Lightroom or a good raw converter....
And you do your color/exposure/adjustments etc BEFORE sending the images to photoshop.... then print it....

8bits looks just fine..when you start with 8 GOOD bits, is what I'm saying.

here's one tip you likely won't find in any book or magazine article:

Set up your group shots with two angles in mind....

Build your shot...(when doing a group shot, start with one person, pose them, shoot then add another person, shoot, and so on. eg Wife, then Husband and wife, then husband wife and child).

ask the people who are waiting to be posed, to stay in one spot, right near where you're working. Make sure it has good light, and background.
You or your assistant can snap some "Candid" shots of the people that think they're waiting to be photographed.

I use an apple tv with my digital projector!
that way I can stream media from all my macs to the projector/stereo.

(waiting for an iphone/ipod touch application that works as a remote control!!! to be written)

much easier to do a presentation without having to set up the computer also.

I wonder if my routine will help you out a bit?
I buy my batteries, date them with a sharpie pen, and mark them in sets of four.
I rotate the sets between various devices (I have several flash units that get used more often than my ds2). So when I have one device is use often (my ringflash) and its batteries run down, I'll grab a set from another device, put the dead ones in the charger, and the ones from the charger into another device.
Easy enough for me, when I got all my devices organized.
a device sitting unused for a month or two, still gets batteries swapped.
Every set of batteries gets run down completely before hitting the charger.

(of course I deviate from this plan during a Wedding shoot, but go back to the routine right after).

I played with one at a store.
nice. but not for me.
it seems to offer nothing that can't be done in photoshop.

maybe it's time for the original poster to switch to Aperture.
It's easy enough to add icc profiles to it's export/print functions.

I know what works for me..but I'm not so sure how to set that up with silkypix.....