[dcmsox2004]

g'day all...........
i'm the proud owner of a k200d, just purchased the tamron 28-70 2.8 lens.... but am still wondering about shootin' raw.........
i never have (girly man fright) but need some advice.......
first and foremost...
hows the raw software supplied with the camera..
and, what affordable, easy to use interface software would be recommended for the novice raw shooter/processor............
and last, but not least............
for those who habitually shoot jpegs.......... what settings (aside from factory preset) do you recommend for outside shooting... whether it be sun or clouds,
(i've bumped up the e.comp by usually +0.5 on cloudy days, and i do use the tungsten preset for indoor shots with indoor lighting)...
as always, thanks for the anticipated help/tips.......
this website is why i would rather fight than switch......... a pentax guy through and through......

[bymy141]

g'day all...........
i'm the proud owner of a k200d, just purchased the tamron 28-70 2.8 lens.... but am still wondering about shootin' raw.........
i never have (girly man fright) but need some advice.......
first and foremost...
hows the raw software supplied with the camera..
and, what affordable, easy to use interface software would be recommended for the novice raw shooter/processor............
and last, but not least............
for those who habitually shoot jpegs.......... what settings (aside from factory preset) do you recommend for outside shooting... whether it be sun or clouds,
(i've bumped up the e.comp by usually +0.5 on cloudy days, and i do use the tungsten preset for indoor shots with indoor lighting)...
as always, thanks for the anticipated help/tips.......
this website is why i would rather fight than switch......... a pentax guy through and through......

Well, the opinions differ on the RAW supplied software.
RAW shooting will delay many decisions on converting the picture till later.
This enables you to change all JPG settings till a later time. Colour temp, sharpning, contrast, etc etc
The easiest way (IMHO) to handle RAW pictures is using Google's Picasa: change the picture to your liking, use to export option to create JPG's and you are done.
I cannot comment on the K200D jpeg settings, don't have that camera. Sorry.
Myself I love Adobes LightRoom, it does not only do all my postprocessing, it also organises my photos. The learning curve is somewhat more difficult, it just has more options and capabilities to understand.

Hope this helps, Bert

[Mark Castleman]

I would take a look at the free trial versions of Lightroom and Aperture (if you have a mac). Both make working with RAW files as easy as working with jpegs. If you have a mac you have iPhoto already and it will handle RAW files as well.

[Marc Sabatella]

There is a fundamental difference between older-design programs like the Pentax software (PPL) and more modern progams like the recent versions of Photoshop (including Elements), Lightroom, Aperture, ACDSee, Lightzone, and some others. I find it's pretty hard to put into words. But an analogy may help. The older programs are like PC's were in the days before Windows. You could only do one thing at a time as there was only one "window" - your fiull screen. You had to run applications one at a time, finishing your work completely and closing one application before starting the next. There was little or no facility for sharing information between applications (even as simple as cutting and pasting of text). The newer applications are more like running either Windows or a Mac - having several applications open at once, copying and pasting information between them, etc.

The applications in this analogy are images. The old software forces you to work one *image* at a time, converting each one to JPEG or TIFF before moving on to the next. More modern software lets you move from image to image, copying settigns form one to another if desired, and always remembers the settings you used for every image. You can wait until you're done working with a whole batch of images before converting any to JPEG, and indeed, you don't even have to convert except for images you plan to post to the web or otherwise share with others - meaning the JPEG's you generate don't even have to be full size or highest quality. older software forces you to convert everything as it is the only way to preserve your changes, but modern software remembers your changes and lets you print and otherwise work directly from your RAW files without converting.

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Last edited by Marc Sabatella; 02-02-2009 at 11:45 AM.

[Maffer]

I actually do like the fact that PPL let's you process only one image at time. It helps concentrating on one picture at a time. I browse bunch of RAW file quickly with pentax photo browser and pick up the best canditates which I then convert in PPL to 16bit TIFF files and move on to Photoshop CS2. If you mess with 10 files at once you're gonna get average results at best if you ain't some multitasking monster

[sinus007]

Hi,
Been there, done that.
I have k200d and was shooting jpegs and was a happy camper. More or less. Then one day 'I said to myself what a wonderful world' you can see through RAW.
There are a lot of RAW converters. Some are free, others are not. The high end ones, such as Bibble, Silkypix, Lightroom, you can 'test drive' for free. I use LR ( just personal preference). Yes, you can spent more time with conversion but, I think, it's worth the flexibility that RAW gives you.
Just my $0.02
Good luck,