[BirdDude007]

I have recently purchased a K-5 and have basically handed the K-x down to my wife who is very interested in learning photography, however I have always shot in RAW, I really never messed with the JPEG settings.
My question here is-what are the best settings to have the camera set in while set in JPEG? from what I understand it should be set to Vibrant but beyond that I am totally clueless because I like to get my images into PP in LR and tweek them just the way I like them and I really like the control that I have with RAW files.
I want my wife to learn the photography side of things first and foremost, we will then start to teach her the ins and outs of PP at a later date. I have had her camera set on RAW and she has been disappointed in how the images are coming out compared to my finished JPEG images stored on my computer. Instead of trying to explain RAW files to her and all that you can do with them I just want her to concentrate on the basics of taking photos, I have a feeling that she will be a natural at it and I really don't want her to get frustrated with the technical aspects of RAW files.
Any advice is welcome and appreciated. She is learning to take shots without using the "auto" mode, learning about light, aperture, shutter speed, ISO, etc... Now is not the right time to shove RAW into the mix, even though I understand RAW, I can wait for however long it takes so that she can get a grasp on photography.

[vladimiroltean]

Well, try raw+jpeg, it should give you best of both worlds, instant JPEGs for now and raw files to process later. On my K-x I use the vibrant setting with stronger saturation, contrast and sharpening, and sometimes I can get better colours out of the original JPEG than I can get from Lightroom, but strange enough, sometimes the image renders chaotically colors such as red or blue. I find this to be because of improper white balance, first of all.

[Mareket]

Vibrant or Bright give you the nice colours that most people look for in the shots yeah, but I think a frustrating thing will be White Balance.

As a guide, I have mine on Bright with the following:
Saturation +2
Hue +0
High/Low Key + 1
Contrast + 3
Sharpness +1

That should give nice bright images that look like the kind of thing most people want DSLRs to produce. WB is an issue though, if you can't help her understand the need to set it for the conditions when shooting in JPEG, try and get her either shooting in B&W (where it has a much less noticeable impact) or set it in Auto with a little bit of an adjustment towards the warm side. That should give the most hassle free processing for her to learn with.

Hope some of that helped And if she zooms in on a photo tell her off for pixel peeping. I go for 4x zoom maximum to check focus, otherwise everything looks like horrible mush and you feel crap about the photo you just took.

[JinDesu]

Vibrant for brighter scenes, Bright for darker scenes. Vibrant can tend to look underexposed and a bit muted (ironically) sometimes.

[BirdDude007]

Well, try raw+jpeg, it should give you best of both worlds, instant JPEGs for now and raw files to process later. On my K-x I use the vibrant setting with stronger saturation, contrast and sharpening, and sometimes I can get better colours out of the original JPEG than I can get from Lightroom, but strange enough, sometimes the image renders chaotically colors such as red or blue. I find this to be because of improper white balance, first of all.

I tried that with her camera but she is not wanting doubles of each image, she is just starting out and I figure once she realizes that a blown JPEG image is just that- a blown JPEG image, then she will be looking for alternatives such as having the RAW image as well that she can at least have a better chance of saving if the JPEG copy is ruined, but like I said before I will cover all those basics once she learns photography.
It seams that the RAW+ JPEGs are not as nice as just JPEGS taken alone, I find there are more settings for the JPEGs alone then there are for the RAW+ JPEGs
Thanks for your help

[BirdDude007]

Vibrant or Bright give you the nice colours that most people look for in the shots yeah, but I think a frustrating thing will be White Balance.

As a guide, I have mine on Bright with the following:
Saturation +2
Hue +0
High/Low Key + 1
Contrast + 3
Sharpness +1

That should give nice bright images that look like the kind of thing most people want DSLRs to produce. WB is an issue though, if you can't help her understand the need to set it for the conditions when shooting in JPEG, try and get her either shooting in B&W (where it has a much less noticeable impact) or set it in Auto with a little bit of an adjustment towards the warm side. That should give the most hassle free processing for her to learn with.

Hope some of that helped And if she zooms in on a photo tell her off for pixel peeping. I go for 4x zoom maximum to check focus, otherwise everything looks like horrible mush and you feel crap about the photo you just took.

Those are looking like the kinds of settings I will try out, thanks. I already have the White balance set to Auto and on the warmer side, I appreciate the help, thanks

[wildweasel]

I tend to use one of the four fluorescent wb settings most on the kx, even under daylight. They seem to have more 'punch' than the other presets. It's definitely worth taking a test shot and then using custom wb to get it how you want it to look if you're going to be taking several shots under the same lighting conditions, only takes a few seconds and can save hours in pp. Oh, and Mareket's settings sound pretty similar to mine too, so + 1 for them.

[newarts]

Another possibility is have her use Picasa to load the images then use "I'm feeling lucky" to adjust them.

[altopiet]

I want my wife to learn the photography side of things first and foremost

Give her the K-x manual, let her learn about the K-x and the different settings and help her along the way. If she is really interested in photography and DSLR's she shouldn't have a problem with that.

Now is not the right time to shove RAW into the mix

Why not, the files must be downloaded to a computer in any case, or is she going to have the photo's printed directly from the card? Set it for RAW+ and as newarts proposed, let her download it and fiddle around with the RAW file, then she can compare and see the difference, and see the value of shooting RAW.

Finally, let her join and explore this forum and all the good advice here, it might save you some time explaining a lot of things

[Docrwm]

Thanks, I hadn't played with the JPG setting myself because I shoot RAW but I think I'll try some of these with RAW+JPG to see how the camera does as opposed to LR or CS.