You only have to buy it once Pete.

Once you start to use one it's amazing how much more is revealed in circumstances you wouldn't think of as having a colour cast, inside a wood for instance. Just take one frame with the card in shot, in Photoshop use the Gamma eye dropper tool in the Levels dialogue box (the middle one) and click on the card, and instantly correct the colour balance.

Chris

I use one of these, being plastic they will still work when scratched.

http://www.digigrey.com/en_index.html

They are easily available in the UK, they are even on eBay.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Digi-Grey-Mini_W0QQitemZ290235624959QQihZ019QQcategoryZ386...

They work very well and are more robust then some of the card ones. Always in my camera bag.

Chris

[quote=amoringello
One of the best ones is image straightening. Have an image tht is keystoned or othrwise skewed... just draw a box indicating what should be square/rectangular and in three seconds, WALLA!! You have a straight image.
The same functionality in CS3 would require pulling points of the four corners of the full image to make it look right. Even the lens correction in PhotoShop takes waaayy too long to make a skewed image look right.

[/quote]Photoshop has a very quick tool for straitening an image, the Ruler Tool, OK its buried under the Eye Dropper Tool, but it is there. To use, Select the Ruler Tool drag a line on to anything you want to be horizontal (or vertical), then go to Image>Rotate>Arbitrary and the required angle will already be entered, just click OK and the image will rotate to make the selected line horizontal (or vertical). Time taken about 5 seconds.

Chris

[quote=
One of the best ones is image straightening. Have an image tht is keystoned or othrwise skewed... just draw a box indicating what should be square/rectangular and in three seconds, WALLA!! You have a straight image.
The same functionality in CS3 would require pulling points of the four corners of the full image to make it look right. Even the lens correction in PhotoShop takes waaayy too long to make a skewed image look right.

[/quote]Photoshop has a very quick tool for straitening an image, the Ruler Tool, OK its buried under the Eye Dropper Tool, but it is there. To use, Select the Ruler Tool drag a line on to anything you want to be horizontal (or vertical), then go to Image>Rotate>Arbitrary and the required angle will already be entered, just click OK and the image will rotate to make the selected line horizontal (or vertical). Time taken about 5 seconds.

Chris

I don't think the Raw Converter update for Elements 4 can open K100D 's version of Pef. Adobe have stopped compatibility for new cameras unfortunately, for newer cameras you have to upgrade to the newer version.
I know that CS2 can open the Pef files for the K10D and the K100D which was in the very last upgrade, but any subsequent Pentax model will need CS3.

This is why Pentax allow Raw to be saved in DNG format, any version of Elements or Photoshop can open these. There is a penalty to pay in that the files are larger, but it does get around the compatibility problem.

Chris

Is there a difference in build quality?

Chris

Hi John

I'm probably not explaining myself properly.

As printers use sRGB which is the same old 8 bit standard used by Jpeg (with the exception of some recent printers which are 10 bit) any file format will look the same when printed, it's what you can do with it before you print that's the difference between a RAW file compared to what you can do with a Jpeg.

Below is an example of what I mean

http://www.flickr.com/photos/58632715@N00/2215379324/

With Jpeg you would have to choose from either of the top pictures (or somewhere in between) if you tried to alter the image to this extent it would have torn the 8 bit file to pieces due to lack of data depth and quality would noticeably suffer, but with 12 bits you have the ability to drastically alter, in this case the luminance, to balance the image by remapping the 12 bits into the 8 bits available when printing.

In short you could not get the bottom image with Jpeg except by bracketing and combining, whether people would realise that when viewing a print is doubtful.

A truer test would be to shoot the same scene with both Jpeg and RAW, something with a fairly large tonal range as most landscapes that include the sky are, process both images to get the best out of them, then the detail in the highlights and shadows you can get with the 12 bit RAW file would show through as in the example above.

I don't have an axe to grind, I'm not a dyed in the wool RAW for everything, about 60% of my pics are shot in RAW the rest I shoot Jpeg, and I'm really not trying to knock Jpeg which has served us well for over 40 years, and continues to do so. And I'm certainly not trying to 'have a pop' at you John who has served us well for many years and long may you continue to do so .

Cheers Chris

Were these tests prints John? If so your audience were looking at 8 bit images (or with some of the modern printers 10 bit) So you were showing 8 bit Jpegs against RAW images that had been reduced to 8 bit, of course people couldn't tell the difference.

The point with RAW is you can choose which 8 bits to send to the printer, and you can remap different parts of the image to 'compress' the tonal range into 8 bits, so you should (assuming correct exposure) be able to extract more detail from a 'bright' sky or from a dark shadow.

In subject matter with limited tonal range there will be little or no difference in the print file, but most subjects aren't that accommodating.

Chris

I have one of these Seagull Angle Finders, and they are remarkable value and work very well, and there's a bonus, the instructions are hilarious, here is a quote;-

Maintainance with maintain

* This product is a precise and optical instrument, pleasing watch for to defend the tide dust palliative, Doing not want to point to get in touch with the optical glass by hand, do not fall off to fall or hits.

* In case that the immodesty makes dirty the optical glass, please use first to blow , the breeze brushes use the dust clearance, then the soft and clean cloth wipes ligntly, if still not clean, can use the lens pure try the paper stained with a little amount lens the pure trying the liquid to wipe lightly. Besides pure try the liquid excluding, the other do not use all.

* The outward apperance pleases use the soft and clean cloth to wipe lightly, do not use the organism melting agent cleaning absolutely.

end quote.

I like the bit about immodesty making your optical glass dirty.

Mind you their English is a lot better than my Cantonese.

My only gripe with them is that there is no way to lock the diopter setting which means you have to adjust it every time you use it. Mine is the older model with a 2X magnified view, the later ones with 2.5X magnification might be different.

Cheers Chris

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned using the Tab key to toggle the palette's on and off.

Chris