Ooh! That reminds me of stuff Peter Gabriel was doing - had all this stuff showing at his gig. Really cool. Forgotten the word... have to go and find it
Oh yes
Matt

Actually, at work I have a rather large speaker and an audio oscillator... that just might do the trick
Matt

I too get "funky" prints - mostly it's down to the printer driver trying to be far too smart

If the monitor is calibrated and you have prints done outside with a lab that provide a colour profile - then in my experience you get 100% what you see on the monitor.

Working out how to force the printer driver to relinquish control is difficult. Added to that, most Epson drivers use special multiple profiles that are only usable if their driver does colour management! Doh!
That's definitely another reason why I can't be bothered to waste time and money printing at home - it's quicker and far cheaper to convert an image to a lab profile in Photoshop (using Soft Proof too), resize, sharpen, burn to CD and post!

Wish I could show you the results
Matt

Thanks for the info Don
My biggest problem is time!
Have had 'flu for the past two weeks, and I'm working my way through a few hundred wedding PEF files + Canon RAW files, trying to write the flash guide, do normal work, other things, plus kids + wife - Photoshop tutorials have taken a back seat for the minute
I'll bear that in mind though Don
Matt

Rob,
I'm not sure which version of Silkypix you are using...

In SPDS3 I find that "Natural" or "Natural Fine" are good preset starting points for anything up to around ISO800 on the K10D or ISO1600 on the K20D. Even for higher ISO shots I tend to just push up the "False Color Ctrl" and "Noise Reduction" values - and even then only about as high as 60 and 20 maximum respectively.

The Silkypix manual has a section dedicated to getting the balance between sharpness and noise reduction. See section 10.1.8 "Creating Extremely Clear Image". It's worth spending the time on this section

Alternatively, if you want you could email me the RAW file and I'll have a bash at getting SPDS3 to give some detail Email to "mattmatic at hotmail dot com".

Matt

Hi Mhuni,
I haven't had a duff lens yet... though my SMC-FA 24-90 came back from repair (having cracked the barrel) much sharper than before.
Some have had slight focus variations, true, but these are all easily resolved in the K20D.

A word of caution regarding the Focus Test Chart (very slightly off topic). In trying to setup all my lenses with the K20D I decided to try a different approach. I used a piece of Lego base board, with a "wall" sticking up to focus on. The "pips" on the base board can be used as a good indication of what's in focus - shooting almost parallel to the board, but not quite. What I noticed confirmed something I knew already - that the field of focus is not always flat
(In the case of the SMC-FA 50/1.4 it's obviously curved. The edges are in focus nearer the camera than the centre - if you adjusted using the edges then your centre point would be wrong )
For the Focus Test Chart this means you could be making a decision based on the edge focus field which may not truly represent the centre of the lens. In the end, the best approach (for me at least) is a willing volunteer - shoot with the lens wide open and focus using the centre point only. Focus on their eye.
If you have their nose and hair in the frame you can easily work out whether the lens is front or back focused. In the K20D adjust until the eye is in focus.

Just thought that might help
Matt

That's good then Vic
If I were you I would stick with Firefox anyway
Matt

In that case there's no substitute for home printing! LOL!
If you haven't tried ProAM yet - their prints are gobsmackingly good
Matt

John - I can't fully agree with you For top-notch quality and bang-on-the-button colour I use Pro AM Imaging. They have always printed exactly what I send them, and their service is profiled - there's no resolution changing, no colour tweaks - nothing. And there's no way I can print an 18"x12" for £1.25 using any form of home printing. I just don't do printing anymore

However, I still think the OP needs to qualify the statement "not happy".

You definitely need a calibrated monitor before embarking on any problem solving with print issues - irrespective of whether that is online or home printed
Matt

I have never been unhappy with Photobox. There are higher quality services available, but the colour rendition has been fine.

It begs the question - is your monitor calibrated?
And if so, how and with what?

Matt