[babelphotos]

I take the Pentax, Nikon and Canon software....throw it in the garbage,
I didnt buy Photoshop for nothing

[skamaraju]

Thanks for the suggestion on Faststone Image Viewer. Seems to be good. Will try it for sometime and see.

[Nico]

Softwares that shows the image that match (very close) the camera display are Pentax and Irfanview. Demo version of Silkypix did not match the on camera display image. It was closer than CS3 and Picassa but not as close as Pentax. Silky was kinda slow too.

Point of having adjustment on the camera is to minimize post process. Pentax Photo Lab is very slow and display resolution stinks. But for me Pentax Lab got all the basic adj. and Raw-Jpeg conversion is quick and smooth.

[Maynerd]

Richard, thanks for sharing the wonder of FastStone. I had been using xnview for quite some time, but good god! That is one powerful piece of freeware. I've never really felt "compelled" to donate to freeware, even to a few really outstanding products that I used as a web developer, but, in this case, I just might. Superb product.

Thanks again.

[marlon]

The software is a weak excuse.
I have never used the camera supplied software, and this would be the same for any brand. They are all plastic fantastic.
My k20D loves Bibble4(soon 5), gimp and lightroom!

[woodworm]

I only shoot RAW and use Silkpix as well - I like the output from it a lot but I do find the interface a little clunky and slow to work with.

For image viewing I use Picasa3 - it displays .pef images and gives you some very basic adjustment controls, but it's by far the fastest viewer I've used and I would highly recommend it.

I never installed the software that came with my K10D.

[ddhytz]

I have compared RAW conversion from PPL, Silkypix, Capture One, Lightroom, Photoshop on the default settings. To me PPL RAW conversion is the best.

[joele]

Bibblelabs ;-)

[roentarre]

Bibblelabs ;-)

Ditto

[davek]

Bibblelabs ;-)

Ditto

Tritto ? (what's the third tense for ditto?)

[Clicker]

There are countless free alternatives for organizing and workflow. Just take your pic.

Changing your system because of the software is like changing your system because you don't like the letter colouring on the camera strap.

I find free stuff online all the time, i only took the camera and stap out of the box

and to answer the OP, try these and they're FREE

http://www.photo-freeware.net/raw-shooter-essentials.php

http://pagesperso-orange.fr/pierre.g/xnview/enhome.html

http://www.faststone.org/index.htm

[Bramela]

I agree. It becomes obvious, Pentax makes camera equipment (and bloody good equipment at that IMHO )and definitely not software.
Buy the gear and get into third party software!

[skamaraju]

The software is a weak excuse.
I have never used the camera supplied software, and this would be the same for any brand. They are all plastic fantastic.
My k20D loves Bibble4(soon 5), gimp and lightroom!

Not for every brand. Check out reviews of Nikon Capture NX2 for Nikon cameras.

[SpecialK]

Why don't we all mail Pentax about improving the Pentax Photo Browser?

I did, two times.

I used PPL for 18 months, but I've moved to Elements 6. It reads PEFs, I can level the horizon (Pentax apparently needs to work on sensor/viewfinder alignment - my K20D is as bad or worse than the K100D), and it has a spot-healing brush. I will never use the Organizer, but I may make some slideshows..

If I shot only jpgs, I'd probably just use my now-discontinued (?) Firehand.com's Ember. I still use it as my viewer and organizer.

Oh, the three things Browser is good for is 1) renaming different file-type files with the same root because it does not highlight the extension do so you don't have to worry about overwriting that, 2) "extracting" jpgs for a quick look in another more-convenient viewer, and last but not least 3) making a list of exif data I can store in a spreadsheet.

[rfortson]

Okay, there's one in every crowd, and this time it's me.

I like the Pentax software and prefer it over Photoshop Elements 5 or Lightroom 2 beta. The only thing I can't do with PPB/PPL is selective editing (removing dust, dodge and burn, etc). For that, I use PSE5. However, PPL gives me better raw conversions, I can correct a variety of lens distortions, I can filter noise, I can save settings for individual files for later processing, or for applying to other files. And it's definitely quicker than the Adobe products (though, to be fair, Adobe is not about speed). Plus, with a large/wide screen monitor, or two monitors, PPL is very easy to navigate (need the room to spread out the menus you want open).

I came to this conclusion after I was forced to use the Pentax software while waiting for Adobe Camera Raw to add support for the then new K100D. Once I got over the learning curve, I found that I preferred PPL to PSE, and that didn't change from playing with Lightroom.

I realize the OP was commenting on PPB specifically (since he shoots jpeg exclusively). I mainly use PPB as a gateway to PPL, so I don't spend a lot of time there. However, I do find it quick to get around in. Sounds like there are limitations that I haven't run into yet, though.