Originally Posted by JamesD
Hi
Do you mean that the RAW + JPEG setting allows you to shoot both at once? I'm obviously confused by what you mean when you say, "The most useful setting for me is the Raw + Jpeg setting." Is it an either/or setting or is this done simultaneously?
Also, what does this mean: "For the pictures that turn out nicely and I want to make sure I maintain full image quality or to do a few minor manipulations, I work with the raw images. All others I leave as Jpegs that were processed in camera."
How do you know if an image will turn out nicely so that you'll work with RAW while leaving the others as JPEGs?
Man... I'm just totally confused by all of this. I thought that we had an option to either set it to shoot in RAW "or" in JPEG but not both at the same time. How could it shoot both at one and the same time? Or does it save it in both formats?
I can understand how you might have set the camera to shoot in RAW and after a dozen or so shots decided to reset it to JPEG so the remainder would be in that format.. a sort of either/or proposition.
Please... take away the fog of confusion from this poor newbie.

The answer to this is, set the right option: either JPEG or RAW or JPEG + RAW (also called RAW+). RAW+ saves 2 images of the same photo out of the buffer: unprocessed RAW and processed JPEG. Read the manual on the RAW button as well if you are a K10D user, it will instantly switch over to RAW+ <> JPEG depending on a user setting in the last menu tab.
Memory prices are dropping daily. Buy an 8Gb card. Put your camera in RAW. You can always decide to convert the photos to JPEG: by either the in camera function or by Pentax Photo Laboratory or by many third party s/w, to name a view: Photoshop CS2/3, Lightroom, Picasa (free), Bibble Pro, etc.
Remember, RAW-> JPEG, either done by the camera while making the shot or later,
is a one way process. Also, another big RAW advantage is the greater dynamic range (grades of shadow / highlight) in RAW vs JPEG. You cannot recover that once it is gone.
So, I've switched to RAW and have experienced the advantages. Therefore I'm having my K10D set in RAW only and use the RAW button to switch to RAW+.
- Bert