The Pentax photo lab (PPL) white balance is very nice, but I only need it so often. I haven't had quite as much luck as Bill with the manual white balance. That indoor swimming pool (where I have done most of my manual balancing) has the most troublesome lights. I also wonder if the lighting changes from one end to the other. Anyway, the PPL with raw fixed that well, so if I suspect a difficult white balance I switch to raw. Most times, however, ***L works fine. As for exposure, I admit I'm not quite good enough with that Curves-style tool to make those fine adjustments worth while. I practice when I can, however, and hope springs eternal . . .
Steven Desjardins Department of Chemistry Washington and Lee University Lexington, VA 24450 (540) 458-8873 FAX: (540) 458-8878 [EMAIL PROTECTED] >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 01/23/04 05:38PM >>> On Fri, 23 Jan 2004, Steve Desjardins wrote: > I also shoot ***L (*ist D for highest quality/res jpeg). It's easily > sufficient unto the task. If I need better, I can switch to Tiff or Raw > on the fly. To be honest, however, unless I'm also using a tripod there > probably isn't much point. I have one Lexar 1GB card, 1 GB IBM > microdrive and a 256 MB eFilm card. If I were going on a trip, I'd > probably buy a few more 1 GB cards. There is a big point to RAW besides extra resolution that you might get from avoiding compression artificacts. RAW saves 12 bits of data per pixel (instead of 8) and the data hasn't been run through the white balance or exposure code yet. As a result you can make sweeping white balance changes and better exposure changes than you can make to a JPEG file. alex
