That's what I figured In other news, they've frozen the feature list for the next version, so, we may see a new stable build in the next few months.

Strange, I've had a few crashes with the 'Stable' build, but that's with PEFs, NEFs and even TIFFs and JPGs, and normally seems to be during the folder thumbnailing. The 'Bleeding Edge' build seems to be more stable, but I've not tried it for long enough to be sure.

As for speed, I run on a M520 Core i5 2.4Ghz with 8Gb running Windows 7 64bit, and it seems fine to me on both the Stable build and the Windows 7 64 Bleeding Edge build. Admittedly, I don't have a lot to compare it with, other then the Pentax convertor and a trail of Silkypix.

But then... I was previously using a single core Athlon 3200 with a single, solitary Gig of RAM, so compared to that...

I know you don't have to open them via the PDE Organiser, I just don't find the interface the PSE uses for the RAW conversion to be very well laid out, and lacking in some of the tools that a dedicated RAW processor has.

I will continue to experiment tho'!

As for the crashing, I have found it to fall over sometimes, especially when opening folders with a lot of images inside. Which build are you using? The last stable build, or one of the 'Bleeding Edge' builds? I'm testing out one of the Bleeding Edge builds at the moment, and it seems more stable, ironically enough...

As someone who loathes Social Networking sites, I should agree with the OP.

But I don't. Using the media to best advantage can only be a sensible move, regardless of my own inclinations to actually read or view such sources.

While I am unlikely to ever sign up to twitter, if the Pentax User team wish to use it, more power to them, just don't expect me to follow them or become a tweeter, or whatever it is the cool kids say these days.

I'd take it back ASAP -

The Dixons group of stores (Currys, Currys.digital, PCW and Dixons online, etc) normally work on a 28 day return or refund policy, like most stores in the UK, but over the Christmas Period will allow any product bought from November to be brought back up unti lsome time in January. Many other retailers will be doing the same, but the advice I'd give is don't wait until after Christmas, for the repair and returns departments of most large retailers, Boxing day, through the New Years sales, until almost March is going to be their busiest time.

Regardless of where you bought it from, always be aware of the vague terminolgy of the Sales of Goods act 1979, it uses words like "reasonable period" and "of satisfactory quality", but never defines what they are.

Also, be aware that it is not a blanket 6 year (or 5 in Scotland) protection, as any faults have to be proved as being an inherent fault that existed from the time of purchase.

The SoG Act is over and above any other Warranties that you might hold, and does mean that you take up your issue with the retailer you bought the product from. Essentially, first year warranties are an easy way for the retailers and manufacturers to comply with the SoG Act in the UK.

For a 'reasonable period' (ie, about a month from purchase) most stores will just exchange or refund the product with few questions asked (You will normally be required to demostrate the fault, se SmutjeUK's comment about batteries). After that 'reasonable period' the retailer isn't required to refund or exchange, but can seek to remedy the fault in other ways, and most inherent faults will become apparent within the first year.

After that, it becomes increasingly unlikely that whatever fault your product experiences is donw to an inherent fault that existed from the time you bought the product, hence the onus to prove it is starts to shift from the retailer to prove it isn't an inherent fault, to the consumer to prove it is. The final caveat is that the 'reasonable period of time' and the 'satisfactory quality' will also depend on the product, a £250 notebook is going to have different expectations for it's lifespan compared to a £750 one. Or a £5 Smart Price Toaster, compared to a £70 DeLonghi (or whatever).

The Xbox 360 and it's 'Red Rings of Death', or the problem with nVidia graphics shipsets beginning with a 6,7,8 or 9 are examples of inherent faults, a hard disk drive failing after a couple of years is more then likely just bad luck.

Sorry for the wall of text, but as a Trainer for a repair workshop, and a consumer who's actually read the Sales of Goods Act, a lot of the misconceptions about it (and hte EU equivilent, BTW, the SoG Act gives greater protection) annoy me. Hope that it all helps!

I find the interface for the RAW conversions better in Rawtherapee then PSE9. Also, the PSE9 organiser is... Not great.

Rawtherapee is a dedicated Raw convertor, and is (IMHO) easier to work with to create the processed file.

The workflow is -
Upload from card to PC.
- As I have Fast Picture View installed, I then sort the pictures (If required) into folders for the shoot straight from Windows Explorer. Some can be discarded straight away at this stage.

Load Rawtherapee and point it at the folder(s). It has an intergrated thumbnail browser, so I work through the pictures. Some pics will be able to have the same processing applied, and that can be done straight from the thumbnail browser at the bottom of the screen.
- The processed files are saved in either JPG or TIF format in a 'Converted' folder under the RAW files (Or, wherever I want them to be)

- Then, I load Picassa, as the organiser is brilliant (I really can't believe this programme is free!). Pictures that need more editing, simply right click and 'Open with PSE9', tweak and edit some more as required (still getting used to it tho'!).

Some files I will just tweak straight in Picassa, for example, the 'Filtered B&W' tool is brilliant.

Basically, just substitute Rawtherapee for 'Lightroom' or whatever else you would chose to use. The actual RAW convertor in PSE9 does a good job, I'll grant you, but the interface isn't the best when you compare it to a dedicated RAW conversion package.

As always, your mileage may vary.

Rawtherapee is a great program, especialy as its at my favourite price. Free!

I've just got Photoshop Elements 9 (and my be able to test out CS4 soon), but I think I'll still do the majority of my processing in Rawtherapee, and then the tweaking in PSE9.

Looks like I was lucky then!

I run AVG, and have it set to auto-update, and I run 64 bit Windows 7, but havn't had any problems.

The main problem with spillages these days is gumming up the keys themselves when the spillage dries.

I work for a laptop repair workshop, and we deal with a lot of spillages, milk is one that we dread, as by the time it reaches us, the milk is, shall we say, less then fresh. Coffee is bad for this too.

Coke has a lot of Phospheric acid which can actually damage the traces and contacts, but, generally speaking, the electronics will survive, it's the keyboard that takes the brunt of it. Even if the mainboard dies, the hard drive is rarely affected.

If you want a properly spill resistant machine, then the Toshiba business ranges feature 'EasyGuard' which includes seals under the keyboard to protect against the ingress of liquid, as well as a host of other safety features for knocks etc.

They thing to remember tho', the stickier or more sugary the drink, the more likely modern kayboards are to fail. Old keyboards have a more robust mechanism compared to the low profile 'X' system on slimline (ie. Notebook) keyboards.

General feeling seems to be, go for the Metz.


I did (and I love it)