I did a night school photography class a couple of years back, it had no paper qualification at the end so it was just for fun. There are many things I would not have tried if it was not for being on the course, but because it was part of the course I had a go. For instance getting up on a cold wet morning and standing at the top of a multistory car park in Manchester to get panoramas or high up shots to be processed with tilt shift effects, no fun on your own, but I enjoyed it as part of the class. It also made me dedicate some time (i.e the classes) to taking photos, without the wife wanting to be off somewhere shopping while I was trying set the tripod up to get long exposures etc. It wasn't that expensive a course either as it was only 3 hrs a week, certainly cost a lot less than a lens, and meant I actually used the lenses I had.

I've been looking at upgrading recently too from an old p4. From what I've read the I5 is the way to go, although clock speed and number of cores make some difference its the architecture of the chips that make the core I series much better. Its important to be able to keep all those high speed cores fed with instructions and the core I's pipelines for feeding are far better at this than the current AMD chips. I've only read all this and haven't been able to test both, so will also watch this thread with interest

I've been trying the beta version of cs6 and am very impressed, the new camera raw seems significantly better than cs4 that I currently use. I like the interface changes, and the context aware healing brush and replacement tools do a very good job. I just bought the upgrade version of cs5 from amazon for £152, to get the free upgrade to cs6 when its released. The way I see it, yes its an expensive outlay but I probably won't upgrade again for 3-4 years, that equates to a few pounds a month, well worth it imo. I'm a software engineer and use some very expensive software products (paid for by work fortunately) Photoshop is far better imo so is actually not bad value.

Thanks everyone, Hamish I was looking at the LG IPS235V as they have it in Scan (www.scan.co.uk). I live close to scan and can collect to save on delivery, and also its handy if there's any problem and I need to return. I assume the 235 is the previous model to the 236, it looks very similar, I didn't realise LG made panels for other brands. Col55555ine I'd love the dell 24" as I like the 16:10 aspect ratio, its a bit more than I can spend at the moment, may be tempted to wait until I can afford one, maybe there be tax reductions in the budget

I'm looking to change my old 19" LCD monitor, for a 22/23" full HD monitor. I've looked at the spec's for many models and was looking for advice as to what I actually need. I use Corel Aftershot Pro (Bibble) for processing RAWs and Photoshop CS4 for further processing on some shots. I don't do much else on the PC, and am not into gaming or 3D. So I'm looking for the best choice for these two applications. Will the response time e.g. 2ms vs 5ms make any difference to me if I'm not wanting smooth graphics for games? Will a larger contrast ratio enable me to see any more detail in a typical photo? Is there anything else I should be looking for when choosing a monitor? Any recommendations for brand or models gratefully received.

Thanks
Steve

Thanks Matt, I'm just getting used to the K7 after the K10 and like it a lot, just sometimes felt the images were a little softer than the K10. I think it may just be that I have a higher res LCD and can see thinks I couldn't on the K10, I'm used to zooming in to 10x on the K10, doing the same on the K7 will show far more, but was also thinking it could be that I could be seeing NR in the jpeg as I was using RAW+. Now I know I'm looking at the embedded jpeg it could also be that my sharpening was set higher on the K10, but I never really paid much attention to the jpeg settings on the K10 as I never used jpeg.

I've only had the K7 a week and haven't really had much time to play with the RAWs in PP. I've tried a few but when I did I was also trying a trial of the new Corel Aftershot Pro, as I'd been using Bibble lite to process RAWs previously, and can get Aftershot for £14.99, not bad from a Bibble lite licence. (Would like to try Lightroom but its a bit expensive for me at the moment) So was more playing with Aftershot at that point rather than really looking at the K7 RAWs.

Thanks Again,
Steve

Hi, I've recently gone from a K10 to a K7. I shot RAW all the time on the K10, but am trying RAW+ on my K7 to cut down on pp for some shots. I'm wondering when I shot RAW+, and view the image on the cameras LCD, am I seeing the jpeg, with the settings I selected (e.g. natural), or some other interpretation of the RAW? If I just shot just RAW would the camera just display the image with some default settings or would it use the custom jpeg settings even though I'm not saving the jpeg?

I had a K10D for years, I bought a K-R just before Christmas, its gone back as the front focus in low light was awful (on mine anyway). I also missed the top LCD, front dial, and instant access to metering modes. I've just ordered a used K7, hopefully I'll be happier with that. The High ISO of the K-r was unusable to me as it wouldn't focus in the condition I would use it.