I use Sagelight image editor link for RAW conversion work and initial tonal balancing, contrast, shadow and highlight work & vibrancy. For this I find it excellent. It is not an image managment programme, so for this I use iMatch, link, a very powerful cataloguing and image organising programme.

After Sagelight I open my 16 bit TIFF conversions into the free Photoshop CS2, which has all the PS basics that work just like the later versions - it lacks a few newer refinements of course, but it is free! This I use for any colour balancing, Noise reduction with the Topaz DeNoise plugin applied onto a duplicate layer (then the bits you don't need masked out), and if needed the same layer approach to sharpening (smart sharpen filter is good). Any final saturation adjustments are also very good with Photoshop on an adjustment layer. Then I use PS CS2 to crop and resize the outputs to JPEGs for their intended use.

Most distortion correction I find I can do in the PS Distortion filter, but if there's anything more complex then I use Helicon Filter .

Hi Nigel, you said that the respected photographer was checking the histogram when using live view, and with that item checked to appear in the relevant menu, then you can do this early. You don't actually say he was suggesting you refer to the actual lcd brightness itself. Is there confusion here? The actual brightness of the lcd would not period any sort of accuracy in exposure judgements, but the histogram and brigh/dark areas indicator would be helpful.

The first looks better I feel, just because the interior lighting is softer in appearance, it looks too harsh in the 2nd. I like the general tone of it, the soft purple and magenta bleeding into blackness is a nice effect. I would reduce green saturation and boost red a little, and maybe crop in further to reduce the black surrounds ...

Yes, the owl shot is stunning, amazing eyes and so sharp as well! Glad to see you're off on your 5 in a row journey I do like the layout of your first shot with the leading line into the scene, but I do, perhaps unsurprisingly, find it too muted in colour interest, subdued but in a dull sense. Also the bit of near clipped cloud smack in the centre of the sky is a bit of a jolt for me. It may be that some contrast work and vibrancy boosting could improved this all for me, but I know the results may not be to everyone's tastes.

I should have said'cropped' in my post, but you got the drift! Yes, I like them more. You could probably get away with a little bit more sky if you preferred. Now we just need a touch more blue saturation (well I would, but then I'm a total colour freak!).

John, your misty photos are all beautiful, especially the soft colours and slight mix of magenta and purple tones also, all lovely. Really good work on the exposure front also!

Apart from the first, which has the mirror image effect and a good sky also, I'd be tempted to try the others with a good bit of sky crowd off, more into a panoramic shape ... Just because there's not cloud interest in the skies and that shape might emphasis the long horizontal lines that cross the frames. Thannks for showing these lovely landscapes.

It can obviously work well for some situations. For fast paced action surely there are times when you've got more chances of a few 'fluke' crackers from a burst than if you kept trying to snatch the single shots?

That seems a very fair assessment for the pro - JPEG camp Of course we don't speak for the other makes, but I've certainly been pleased with the results of my camera JPEGs. The thing about it is this - its all going to end up as an 8bit file at some point, assuming you want to see your images on the web or send them to an online printer. Its a question of when in the chain is the best time to make that 'conversion'.

The camera will always offer a more limited and therefore 'tighter' range of processing options, so there will be more uniformity from the output within each of the key custom setting presets. You can make fine tuning adjustments, but within a smaller range than in a RAW converter software. So its less likely to go very wrong!

You need to be careful with the custom settings, especially saturation and contrast, to make sure the style is suitable for your image, as its much better to have this stuff right on the camera at capture than have to make significant changes on the computer. Also white balance is important to have accurate at capture. There is some argument with all this in favour of RAW, as there is no need with RAW to worry about the custom image settings, and if you need to keep changing them in dynamic shooting situations then that will slow you down. But equally, some JPEG shooters may tell us that they just keep to a fixed array of settings and make any needed adjustments in Photoshop

When do I use RAW and JPEG? Well, for my 'considered' shots, landscapes, architecture etc, the sort of things I show on ther forums for critical discussion, then I always use RAW. I have an 'optimised' workflow, working on each image independently until it is as perfect as I can get. RAW gives me the maximum quality from the camera that I can then extract in the processing.

But if I'm out with the kids, then I'll set the camera up for JPEGs, choose the custom settings that are best suited, and blast away! This is suited to action and burst style capture, when many images will be similar. Then I just choose the best and make minor adjustments. This is far quicker than RAW processing for this type of photography, and I end up with more nice shots ready to view and print more quickly - thats my JPEG advantage.

But sometimes I will find some quality issues that concern me - especially lighting needed better balanacing in a scene and say, for example, a sky needed to be reduced a lot, or shadows pulled up - then I might regret the JPEGs and wished I had shot RAW. But generally we can make the right decision before starting based on the subject matter and style we are capturing.

I had a quick try with a K50 just yesterday in a Jessops, and its a nice feeling high quality body. It had the basic 18-55mm mounted and I snapped around the shop ... The autofocus is clearly a good step up from the older system on the K7, I was impressed with the quick and secure response which is definitely better than the K7.

As I've always said, I place great value on the physical controls on my K7 that gives instant access to af point selection , metering modes, and af modes, DOF preview/instant review ... All come into their own in practical shooting situations when things are changing and the last thing I'd want to be doing is scrolling through the menus.

But it depends if your priorities are similar ... For the money the K50 provides a great step up in IQ. I know I'd probably appreciate the focus peaking also. However, as has been said before, the K5 will give the IQ increase also and allows you to keep the same excellent control features of the K7.

I suppose really though, the machine gun approach is to try and catch just a few, maybe only two or three out of 12 or so, and you would simply delete the rest. There's no excessive processing time required for that .. What is important is a good image view programme that allows side by side comparisons and zooming.

A great finish to your 5 Simon. The Robin is excellent, I love the OOF background which complements the subject really well. Thanks for giving us a great and greatly varied 5 in a Row!