Yes, I saw that too! Looks very nice indeed

My son (doing art & design) was smitten by that look too. Tastefully retro.

Matt

Just saw this. Worth watching

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-21188741

Great set of images in there!

I've used Capture One, Pixmantec Raw Shooter, LightZone, Adobe Camera Raw, Silkypix Developer Studio Pro, and Lightroom


For speed I'd say that Silkypix was pretty excellent! Gives great results, and works well for most types of images.

But for me, Lightroom is head and shoulders above them all. Image quality is superb, lens profile correction is a revelation, chromatic aberration correction is incredibly useful, and the graduated adjustments are brilliant (haven't used physical ND grads for a very long time!)

I just don't get on with the cataloging of LR, and have set the preferences so it leaves the images where they are - in dated directories of my own organisation - and let it save the XMP side-car files. That works for me.

Only niggle is when using DNG, Lightroom decides to cram the adjustments inside the DNG file That means I have to synchronise gigabytes of images across three drives when I make adjustments. Alternatively, using PEF Lightroom will be forced to create an XMP file - and synchronising the adjustment changes is trivial

Matt

Which Pentax camera exactly?
Can you post an example?
Matt

My usual size is (not that large) 18"x12" at 402dpi (ie 35 million pixels). Actually, pretty much my only size is 18x12"

Current K5 shots look darned good at that size straight out of LR - even scrutinized! Wish I could show you the print quality over the net...

Now that my supplier now prints up to 66"x44" I'll be printing more at 36"x24" and beyond

Matt

I have the K-5 now... but it's going in for exchange with SRS's deal
That said, I feel I know the K-5 mk 1 pretty well now after 2 years and lots of large format prints So, on the basis of several thousand images I should be able to give a feel for the differences, but unfortunately won't be able to give exact shot-for-shot comparisons.

From what I can see looking at the RAW files from DPreview, there is a slight sharpness advantage with the K5IIs, and the ability to stop down further with some extra sharpness. I've trawled the 'net for reviews and comparisons - the initial comparisons at JPG level show a bigger advantage to the 's', but with RAW (especially since LR4.2 is excellent at juicing out the details) the difference is not as great as hoped for. It's not as though you miraculously get 24MP effective output from a 16MP sensor, but shooting landscapes, gardens, and portraits - and requiring large output - I'm willing to take the gamble - emperor's new clothes or not

TBH, that's one of the main reasons for me too (when doing low light stuff)

Shooting at f/2.8 or wider - where the margin for error is so small - will be helpful to have better accuracy. Your dog shot on the DA*16-50 was an influence

The moire risk, for me, isn't that large (and John's shoe shot isn't really close to introducing moire since the spatial frequency is too low!) - and I've thought long'n'hard between K5II and K5IIs.


Once the K5IIs arrives I will be making an LR profile for it too (and that made a pretty big difference on the mk1).

Maybe LR, and others, will tweak the de-Bayer algorithms to further improve the results from non-AA cameras like the 645D, K5IIs, Q and others.

Matt

@Gary: So how's the Mk 2 vs Mk 1 now you've had it a while?

I'll let you know
Matt

I hope you've not deleted the original images!

Picasa can be a pain when you have multiple versions of the same image - if you're not careful you might have deleted the larger format and only kept the smaller

When clicking on an image, the dark grey bar shows the image details (near the bottom of the screen in Picasa). The best way (IMHO) to create web-ready versions from Picasa is to use the "Export" button at the bottom.

It's there that you can resize to an appropriate dimension, and optionally add a watermark Picasa will then export the photo (or selected bunch of images) to a new directory.

I find it's best to keep the smaller size images in a completely different place. If you do need them in the same place as the original images then put them in a sub-folder (eg. called "WebSized")

HTH!
Matt

Well, with the SRS offer I'm plumping for the K5IIs.

Actually, in researching, I've seen that apertures smaller than around f/13 start to introduce diffraction - and that's where the moire disappears and the lack of AA filter is a distinct advantage (see http://www.neocamera.com/article/moire_pentax_k5ii_k5iis )

I'm fine with the odd bit of moire (and reducing it with LR brushes), since the majority of my images tend to be landscapes and portraits
(This site is helpful too: http://www.boxedlight.com/K5IIS/ )

Looking forward to seeing the difference...
Matt