Thanks for the feedback, there's some useful stuff here.

I did d/l and look at SilkyPix but I found it so complicated and thought it was way beyond what I actually need. Maybe that isn't the case. I do like the Silkypix concept of saving the changes in a separate file and being able to reapply them at a later stage. Does SP have any image editing features (i.e. to remove the CCD speck I mentioned) ?


Are you certain that's the case as I can certainly open *istDS .PEF files with PSP version 11.20. I think this facility was only added in the last couple of updates.

I'm still struggling to find the "right" image processing method. I should point out I'm not what you would class as an "enthusiast". I take maybe 20-30 pictures a month with my ist DS, which I've had for about 18 months. I tend to process the images every few months, usually when the card gets full, or after I come back from an interesting trip away somewhere.

I think because I don't do this sufficiently often, I haven't found the right routine yet, but with the latest batch I'm about to process, (all RAW format), I would like to get it right. This is what I'm planning to do:

1. Process the RAW files and save as TIFF-8 files (lossless) using the Pentax Image software.

2. Fix any obvious problems in the TIF files such as colour casts etc. (In the latest batch I have about 20 shots with a nasty CCD splodge almost right in the centre ). I use Paintshop Pro 11 for this at the moment. It has noise removal, sharpening and and curve adjustment features which I've used to fix scanned slides. I haven't found much of a need for these features yet with my istDS images.

3. Save the RAW files, the fixec TIF files plus a small JPEG slideshow onto CD. That way I can always recreate an image from scratch if I have to.

Does this sound like overkill, underkill, or about right? I'm sure I'll get lots of advice to use Photoshop, but as far as I can tell the latest PSP has a lot of Photoshop's facilities, plus I already have a copy from another project. And like I said, photography isn't one of my main activities - I just like to make the best of what I have without devoting a lot of extra time to it.

All advice is appreciated.

Thanks.

I'm using Paintshop Pro XI which has a Digital Camera Noise Removal feature. It seems to do a pretty good job.

Thanks Don, that's exactly what I was looking for.

I'm actually processing scanned slides, so although its not strictly digital photography I assumed the underlying principles would be the same. Some of the slides scan with a strong blue cast, and the scanner introduces its own "noise" which seems easiest to get rid of using Paintshop Pro XI's Digital Camera Noise Removal feature.

Part of my problem is that fixing the White Balance and the colour often seems to introduce noise of its own. I'm guessing what its really doing is just amplifying the noise that was already there.

/WiRED

Hypothetically, lets say I have some images to process that are very noisy. Some need levels adjustments to be made, and some colour cast removed. As a general strategy, would it be best to remove the noise first, then fix the levels, or the other way round :

This might be better asked in a PSP or Photoshop forum, but I thought I'd try here first as you're a very knowledgeable bunch

I'm currently scanning in several hundred slides (originally taken with Pentax ME Super & K1000). Some are quite old. The Canon 2710 slide scanner I'm using does a pretty good job but there is invariably a lot of noise on each scanned image, especially in the darker areas. Most of the slides also need adjustment in terms of the white balance/colour, which I'm doing using PaintShop Pro XI. PSP also has a Digital Camera Noise Removal facility, but I'm not sure whether I should fix the levels first, then remove the noise, or the other way round : I've tried it both ways round but still can't decide. Scientifically, which way should work the best?

/WiRED

After a couple of evenings wrestling with this thing, and still not getting very satisfactory results, I've ordered a Huey.

For anyone else interested, the best deal at the moment appears to be PurelyGadgets.co.uk (£58.95 + £5 P+P).

I also found a Windows XP Control Panel extension that I wasn't previously aware of on the Microsoft website . It lets you manage installation and selection of ICC files with a lot more convenience than the usual XP approach. Apologies if its been covered in other threads.

Matt, golfdiesel, thanks for your replies. It's a lot clearer now. I'll try and implement your suggestions in the next couple of days, just as soon as I can work out how to factory reset my monitor. Its a Dell P790 and there are no clues in the manual, on-line manual or the on-screen menu system. I've logged a call in the Dell forums

/WiRED

I don't want to hijack this thread but it seems like lots of knowledgeable people are all in this same "room" together and I think this is my best chance to try and get to the bottom of a particular problem.

I've had an *istDS for a year. Apart from that I am in the process of scanning 30 years worth of colour slides using a Canoscan slide scanner. I'm using Photoshop 4.0LE (which came with the scanner) for cleaning up and adjusting the slides. I also use this for processing digital images from the DS. I've noticed when I view a processed JPG in Explorer, or Windows Image Viewer, it is significantly darker than in PS. I thought I'd found the answer in the 'Basic Colour Management' thread, but after using the WiziWYG utility, the problem seems much worse.

I have a Dell P790 CRT monitor (not listed in WiziWYG). My graphics card is a TNT2 Model 64 which has an 'Advanced' tab on the Screen Properties dialogue. This lets you set the Brightness, Contrast and Gamma. I had previously set the Gamma to 1.8 (I read somewhere that was the correct thing to do).

So, what I don't understand is...
1. How does the TNT Gamma interact with that set by WiziWYG, i.e. what should I set the TNT Brightness, Contrast and Gamma to, before I run WiziWYG?

2. In step 4 of the WiziWYG setup, it says to reduce the monitor Contrast until the white rectangles almost disappear. They never disappear, until the screen is almost too dark to see anything at all!!

3. The P790 monitor allows setting of the Color Temp. I've set this to 6,500K. Does this correspond to D65, and is that what I should be doing?

4. PS 4.0LE is obviously very old. It doesn't have the colour correction settings described in the Colour Management thread, although it *is* taking notice of something as colours are displayed differently from other Windows programs.

5. Finally, Dell do supply a P790.icc file, which I have set as the Default Color Profile in Desktop Properties. Its not clear to me from reading the other thread whether anything is taking any notice of this file. Should I change this to use the output from WiziWYG?

Sorry I didn't mean this to be so long. I will be enormously indebted to anyone who can help me understand this at all.

Thanks for the links, which were very useful. I've downloaded the Palm sourcecode and will adapt it for PocketPC when I get a chance.

/WW