Guys

Thanks again, lots of good advice.

I downloaded RawShooter and saw an immediate improvement in sharpness over essentials RAW and Pentax RAW lab. Will play more with RawShooter.

Thanks for the assistance.

I use Elements 4 and the RAW plug in. I'll look at Rawshooter tonight as Shutterbug magazine also recommended it.

I'm familiar with white balance and am careful to set this using a Whitebal card.

I'll take a look at Sharpenomatic. I haven't really done much with sharpening so that may help. I assumed that the RAW image would be sharp and post processing sharpening was more for effects and enhancements.

When I print 6x4s on a dye sub they look pretty good but I'd like to do up to 10x8 prints at least.

Forgive my ignorance, I'm sure this question has been addressed before but I don't see it.

I just purchased a DL with kit 18-55.

I'm very happy with the camera but the pictures seem soft. They are focussed but always slightly soft, also a slight color cast but this may be more my inexperience with post processing. I shoot RAW.

Is the quality of the kit lens that is responsible?

I am considering a Tamron 28-70, would this be noticably better?

Regards

Steve C