[Biff]

I still feel relatively new to the DSLR, not necessarily photography, and very new, borderline clueless, to PP.

Question is, I'm going on a trek in a couple months, and how should I capture the images, JPEG or RAW, particularly since JPEG can come intitially more "ready to use" and I've never really done any RAW PP. If I take them in RAW, and I intend to take many, will I have the time to PP them all to meet/exceed the JPEGs, or should I shoot JPEG/RAW and use more memory, and if I do that is it easy to sort them into two files, JPEG and RAW once I download them?

With work etc. I really won't have time between now and then to get significantly trained in PP.

Thanks for any ideas and opinions and bearing with my naiveté.

PS, guess I should start with Elements?

[hcc]

If you believe that the photos are priceless and worth to keep, I would recommend to shoot RAW+ and take with you several good quality memory cards (eg Sandisk Extreme III).

[Jasvox]

On the issue of which format to shoot, I would suggest Raw+jpeg. This way you can have the ready-processed result right out of your camera as well as a raw file in which, if you choose, you can PP if you have some really special shots you want to bring to their best. The great thing about PP is, you can always revert back to the original fuil if you dont like the way you processed it or want to start over in order to practice your skills. PP isn't difficult if you have the right software. If you have eye sight and can drag a mouse across faders to adjust parameters, you can get your feet wet with PP pretty quickly. Of course, with practice comes expertise.

If I were you, I'd start with something free, perhaps the silkypix which may have come with your camera or download a free software sach as Faststone, Raw Therapee, or try a 30 day free version of LR3 or DxO Optics pro...you may find one you like the best and may as well go free for the time being.

Jason

[bimjo]

What format to shoot depends on what your needs are. Do you need the "ready to use" nature of jpegs for every shot? Or are you going to cull down to the "keepers" in the field, discarding less worthy shots?

RAW may increase the number of shots that you keep, especially for a once-in-a-lifetime photo opportunity.

Memory is cheap, memories are priceless.

[Marc Sabatella]

Shooting RAW in no way whatsoever compels you to spend any time whatsoever on PP. You are welcome to just use the default conversion, and there is absolutely no reason to assume that won't be as good as the conversion the camera does when you shoot JPEG. But in the cases where you *do* decide to do custom PP work, then it is true you can get better results from RAW than JPEG. Whether it's enough better to be worth the extra space on the card is something only you can decide. But I find memory cards and disk space cheap enough that I can't find any reason to deliberate limit my option by ever shooting JPEG.

[Biff]

Thanks everyone. I'll practice with RAW+, and probably just shoot that, and take plenty of memory.

I appreciate your time and advice.

Now to just decide on lenses.........but that's another forum.......maybe just my trusty 16-45 or 18-55.

Cheers.

[SpecialK]

Shooting RAW in no way whatsoever compels you to spend any time whatsoever on PP. You are welcome to just use the default conversion, and there is absolutely no reason to assume that won't be as good as the conversion the camera does when you shoot JPEG. But in the cases where you *do* decide to do custom PP work, then it is true you can get better results from RAW than JPEG. Whether it's enough better to be worth the extra space on the card is something only you can decide. But I find memory cards and disk space cheap enough that I can't find any reason to deliberate limit my option by ever shooting JPEG.

A big +1.

And there is no reason to waste memory space by shooting raw+jpg unless you have a pressing need for a jpg right then - such as uploading to the forum while on your trip :-) . You will be able to extract all the jpgs and/or convert all the PEFs later (assuming you have the Pentax software or buy Elements, or download faststone for free). Extracting the jpgs from the PEF files takes about 4 clicks and 2 minutes of processing time, total. Batch conversion will take longer, perhaps as long as going out to dinner and a movie...you can then spend a few seconds to a minute each on the images that need special attention, cropping or straightening. You would do that with jpgs anyway.

Jpgs are not more ready to use - they are more ready to view, is all.