Well, I think the detractors I intended to refer to are those who do not understand the useage of the software, rather than those who choose not to use it.

If it is just a matter of 'getting it right in camera' then I would still say that a digital image taken as a RAW file will need work done on it to extract the best image. A jpeg file will have had some of that work done 'in camera' and probably more crudely that could have been done in PS.

I also disagree with another poster, who said that PS was good for improving a bad image. A bad image is just that and you cannot make a silk purse from a sow's ear. PS is there to enhance the basic file to produce the finest image possible.

Manipulation on the other hand is something entirely different. Moving pixels around or cloning to remove blemishes or unwanted objects is 'artistic licence' and produces something other than a straight pgotograph. I see no problem with this if one is trying to produce an artistic rendition of what one saw through the viewfinder.

How many Brides would be happy to have wedding photos, where the wedding dress was grey and every skin blemish was rendered 'as is' in close ups? Not that many I would suggest.

Where it goes wrong IMHO is in reportage photos, where things are changed intentionally to decieve, or in competitions, where manipulation has been ruled out, such as for Natural History subjects.

As you say, each to his own. Both are valid if the photographer is happy with his work. Other's opinions are just that.

I always find these discussions to be fruitless. Sometimes I think the detractors say what they say because they do not understand Photoshop and simply use it badly, getting bad results, which then turns them off the package. Then, forever more they say it is not necessary.

This is of course a bit of nonsense. If one takes images in raw, then ACR is absolutely necessary to produce a printable image file. The raw data will always need a degree of work done on it to fine tune the white balance, exposure level and correct slight excesses at both ends of the histogram, I do not believe that even those most careful always take an image that has a perfect histogram straight out of the camera. Digital raw images also need a carefully targetted degree of sharpening, something that is often done crudely in camera when taking jpeg files.

Photoshop does for the digital photographer exactly what could be done for the film photographer in his dark room. It enables the photographer to produce the finest possible final image. But is does so in a non poluting environment with the ability to retrace your workflow right back to the raw image. Non destructive enhancement. Try that with film!

CS4 is a modern marvel, used with intellegent care it is the best tool a digital photographer could have and an essential for the professionals.

This is only one image, so not conclusive, but even so, the noise is probably no worse than one would get from high ISO film.

What impressed me more was the shake reduction dealing so well with half a second.

No, no noise reduction used at all and no post capture sharpening, this is a conversion from the RAW image striaght out of the camera.

Just out of interest, I took some snow shots last evening (again very late ) Taken at ISO 1250 at half a second at f/13 hand held.

The Image stability has done very well and the noise is also far better than I had expected. It looks as though the K-7 really is an improvement on the K20D as claimed by Pentax.

Apologies for that. Things have been a bit hectic with work and Christmas, so most of my reading here has been very late, late nights. I missed that. I will review the whole thread asap.

I thought you were refering to downsizing in Photoshop, not in camera.

I think you will find that the Fuji sensor has a different layout of the RGB light sensitive pixels to a normal dslr. It isn't as simple as just using two adjacent pixels to represent one in the image because of the ditribution of red, green and blue sensitive sites on the array. If it were, then the image pixels would be rectangular with a 2:1 side ratio, which is not the case.

It was the last question about noise reduction that I was commenting upon, which I do not think would work as you are expecting. But of course, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so give it a try and see what happens.

I do not think that will do any good.

I see no justification for his comments, other than to wind up the rest of us. There will always be someone to whom common sense seems to have fallen by the wayside.

I could understand to some extent his frustration if he were commenting two years ago, but since the release of the K20D and now the K-7 in particular, there is nothing to complain about IMHO. Pentax cameras are now a worthy match for the opposition, price for price. In some respects, they offer higher specifications that more expensive models from the competition.