As noted above, in-camera monochrome is the result of processing to JPEG.* The same goes for many (almost all) image manipulation settings available in-camera. It is a bit confusing, however, that the camera shows monochrome on review when the actual RAW is full-color. The reason is that the RAW file has embedded JPEG renderings (using the current custom image settings) that are used for review on the rear LCD as well as thumbnail/preview purposes by some operating systems and image viewer software. All these views say "monochrome" except the one that counts.
As noted above, you have several options to get a Pentax-made monochrome image from your RAW capture...
- Capture as Raw+ to write both RAW and JPEG files to card
- Do an in-camera RAW conversion to monochrome JPEG or TIFF
- Use Pentax Digital Photo Utility (PDCU) to process the RAW file. It will automatically apply image customization settings from the camera.
- Use available utility software to extract the full-size monochrome preview JPEG from the DNG or PEF file
I shoot almost exclusively RAW and as a result, seldom use some of the cool features on Pentax dSLRs (in-camera HDR, in-camera lens correction, custom image, etc.) that are not available to RAW processing outside of PDCU. Sad, but part of the price to pay for flexibility in post-processing. BTW, I do a lot of monochrome conversion from RAW and can usually do a better job than what the camera is capable of.
Steve
* Unfortunately, your K-1 does not support true monochrome capture to RAW in the same manner as the Leica M Monochrom.