[WMBP]

I wouldn't have Photoshop and Camera Raw if it wasn't for my graphic designer wife. Without them, I also wouldn't be able to shoot in RAW since Apple are a little slow getting on the iPhoto RAW file bandwagon for Pentax. They were really quick with the Canon and Nikon dSLRs - it's disheartening.

I wonder if that's a reflection on how they view the photographer market.

If I understand it correctly, Apple made the decision to include its Raw converters in the operating system, rather than providing them as add-ins for their applications. I imagine they see some advantage in doing things this way - but it means that they have to prep and issue an OS update in order to support new cameras.

I continue to disagree with the insinuation that Photoshop is somehow an indispensable tool. If you need something like PHotoshop, well, there's nothing else like Photoshop, really, so you need PHotoshop. But not everybody needs something like Photoshop. I seem to be getting along quite nicely without it. I have Essentials 5. I just don't crank it up, um, ever any more. For my own purposes, anyway, Lightroom + Picasa provide just about everything I need. I do occasionally get the urge to copy a pair of open eyes from one shot and paste them into another shot. But the urge passes. I spend far too much time in front of my computer as it is. I'm happier processing images fairly quickly in Lightroom and getting out with the camera again.

Will

[MShawn63]

Hi Will,

Thanks for the feedback, I'll give it a try. The first time I used the PEF format shooting a wedding with a friend, we couldn't open the PEF formatted files in Photoshop and he had a heck of a time getting them converted. Since then I've stuck to DNG.

Shawn

[WMBP]

Hi Will, Thanks for the feedback, I'll give it a try. The first time I used the PEF format shooting a wedding with a friend, we couldn't open the PEF formatted files in Photoshop and he had a heck of a time getting them converted. Since then I've stuck to DNG.

Shawn,

I do not want to be understood as in any way knocking DNG. I'm still making my mind up about what format I want to use to save files in the camera. I want my files to end up as DNG one way or the other. I'm not so sure DNG is going to succeed in establishing itself as a standard; but it seems to have a better chance of doing so than PEF. The problem is simply that Pentax chose for some reason not to compress the DNG files they create, so the files end up almost 50% larger than the PEF files, which means I get far fewer photos on a 2 GB card. Sometimes it's a problem. Converting on the computer is painless, and I've been assured by an engineer at Adobe that absolutely no information is lost in the conversion. So for the moment, I'm mostly saving as PEF and converting later.

What I'd really like is for some future firmware upgrade to the K10D to add compression to the DNG format so that the file sizes get down around 10 MB like the PEF files. Actually, I don't know if this is doable in a firmware update or not. But it would make me happy if this were to happen.

Will

[LeoTaylor]

Pentax Photo Laboratory, wich comes with the camera, only converts PEF to JPEG.

The Pentax Photo Laboratory that came with my K100D can also convert PEF to TIFF (8 or 16 bit), including batch mode. It is rather slow, only a couple of files per minute, but free. I can load TIFF into PSP-X to process images.

It looks like you will want something more upscale.

[KennJ]

Has anyone give Helicon Filter a try as far as a RAW converter and workflow editor ? It has a free 30 day full trial if anyone has an interest in giving it a try out. Helicon Soft: Features is the link to the site.

Kenn

[klopus]

From what everyone is saying, RAW is the way to go because it is more flexible. I have the K100D which does RAW, but it uses the PEF extension. I have rawshooter, but it doesnt see PEF files. Pentax Photo Laboratory, which comes with the camera, only converts PEF to JPEG. Does anyone have any solutions for this?

Despite what was said in other messages there're many free or very cheap ways to process PEF files and/or convert them to DNG (this format has a wider support among 3rd part RAW converters):

1. Upgrade PPL that came with your K100D to a latest version 3.10 found on Pentax site. It's free and will give you an ability to save PEFs as DNG.
2. Check on Adobe site if latest ACR 4.0 supports PS7 that you indicated you use. If so you'll get PEF support for free in PS.
3. While you're at this grab free Adobe DNG Converter that as a standalone app will convert your PEFs into DNGs.
4. Download Silkypix Free - even in a limited (relative to full version) free form it's an excellent, fast and powerful RAW converter with support for PEF and DNG.
5. Download free RAW Therapee - excellent and powerful RAW converter with support for PEF and DNG.
6. Download free UFRaw - GUI front-end to Dave Coffin's open-source DCRaw command-line RAW conversion engine that supports PEF and DNG.
7. Download any of the free image editors and organizers that under the hood use DCRaw to show and convert RAW images including PEF and DNG - FastStone (excellent image organizer and basic editor), IrfanView (small and fast image viewer and editor), Google Picasa (excellent image organizer and basic editor), etc.
8. If you already have RawShooter (Premium or Essentials) then search DPR Pentax DSLR Forum for the link to the patched version of RawShooter that supports K100D and K10D RAW files.
9. If you own a legal copy of RawShooter Essentials then Adobe will upgrade you for free to Lightroom which's a great organizing and conversion tool.

Enjoy

[PDL]

I agree that there are many different programs out there to convert RAW - the list by klopus is a very nice summation. However, PPL does a very nice job of converting PEF's to TIFF's, JPEG's and DNG's. The interface does take some work, but the program does a very nice job - and it came with the Camera and is a free upgrade (if you have a fast connection).

Apple has taken a different route for converters for its OS. Microsoft started putting the work on the vendors when they came out with Windows 3.1 --- way back then. This means that if the vendor wants to play - they have to produce the interface code for the vendor's own proprietary formats. I remember in the good old days (before Windows) that every time a new printer came out -- you had to wait for LOTUS-123 to get is driver updated and the driver only worked for LOTUS-123 and not Word-Star. Extremely frustrating and very expensive. Now Microsoft has come out with WIC and we will have to see how/if it morphs through time. Adobe writes their own RAW converters - and I do not know if they charge the camera vendors to write ACR --- they may see it as a income stream --- but that is pure speculation on my part.

As for why to shoot RAW/PEF/DNG over JPEG? Digital imaging is about information - the more you have, the better off you will be. I have a reasonably large number of JPEG's that could use some --- shall I say --- assitance? Since they are JPEG's - they do not have much in the way of "wiggle" room - where if they were PEF's (off my *ist Ds) I would be able to --- "stress" --- them a whole lot more than I can the JPEG's.

My advise - get hooked on RAW using PPL - Get Lightroom (cheaper than CSanyting) and stay away from Elements. Worse 80 USD I ever spent - Just upgraded my box to Vista - Elements is not there - just do not like it.

PDL -- OK - let's go out and capture something