Andrea, I shoot RAW exclusively now for the reasons you stated except occasionally flip it over to sports because it goes auto to burst (I think), and does only .jpg. I love Photoshop, has a very steep learning curve, waited years until I got a $299 upgrade with Elements to CS2. I don't just use it for my photographs, and I agree with you about some of the software that comes with cameras, read about Nikon's, refused to get in the camera wars, was really torn between Canon and Nikon, at the time I thought Canons had better noise reduction at the expense of IQ, understood that going in. I started just doing graphics learning all I could with PSP (quit upgrading at 5 because I didn't like some things), then bought Photo Impact (fun for awhile but a waste of money), but when I saw the power of PS, I was sold. I don't use all the features, no, don't jump on the upgrade bandwagon (lightbox is really cool, can't afford it), but I love their USM and ACR white balance corrections and several others such as highlight/shadows tool (because of the limited dynamic range with all digital cameras, may be better with the more expensive, super-high resolution ones), when I want to make them pop more. And a lot of it is strictly a matter of taste. There are some incredibly talented with PS; I'm not one of them. The actual conversion process doesn't take more than 30 seconds, and when I can, I batch convert using scripts. I know everything you said is true, especially you can use Nikon pics right out of the cam, sharp as a tack, same with some good P&S cameras. Have to watch oversharpening, too. For web viewing, people probably can't tell the difference about sharpening. I can see it, very occasionally I don't bother with it, depending, but do like to do my own cropping and straightening, can't stand really crooked photos unless for creative effect. Other software does that just as well. I highly respect your opinion, and it sounds like you are some kind of pro. I don't presume to know everything. Blowing blows more dust in than I get out sometimes, always do that first regardless, a couple tries, then test, but I have used the wet method only once, got it better, but just let the dustbunnies I missed be for now and try to be careful changing my lenses. The only people I'd really trust to clean my sensor filter, not the sensor on Canon, but extremely delicate, is Canon. Nobody on the Canon dslr forum I've read yet on dpreview for almost 5 years now sends theirs anywhere for sensor filter cleaning; they all clean them themselves, most very confidently (not me!) many, many use a wet method usually Copperhill or a pen. I used extra pure alcohol and qtips I got at the medical supply center, just a drop w/eyedropper. I first try the dry method with Walgreen's brand q-tips very gently. The camera store person told me some use plastic knives from McDonald's! Not for me! I don't really trust my local camera store or Best Buy technicians. With the camera store, last time I was in was tempted to butt in and tell the customer something I happened to know, while the salesman didn't seem to, held my peace. Had some photos and a painting scanned I wanted to retouch, state-of-the art, awful, ended up using my camera and tripod. The camera store wasn't set up to cater to dslr users, maybe they're more with it now. I hate cloning out dustbunnies once a bad one gets in there, most don't show at the sizes and resolution I use, but do clone quite a bit for other reasons and like the healing tool. Once a piece of fiber got in there, it drove me nuts, that I got out by blowing, need a better blower, the Hurricane one. Sorry for taking up so much "airtime". Sooner or later most dslr owners are going to have to choose how to deal with it. Then if I screw up, I screw up, and will pay the consequences. You HAVE to clean your lenses, even on P&S cameras, which I do as little as possible. I know Nikon has fine cameras and lenses; that is why the choice was so hard, and sometimes I still look back, but now I'm invested heavily in a few lenses not as many as some have, don't need them, but very expensive and wouldn't get near what I paid for them if I sold them, even though they are all in mint condition.

Yes, I often stop down to 1 1/2 stopss too, depending on if I'm seeing a lot of light areas in the image. In fact, I don't have a whole lot of time and a big garden, so I have to be efficient. Not knowing what mood I'll be in re depth of field when I look at them later on, I'll take multiple pictures in multiple f stops and in each of those f stops, I'll usually take multiple bracketed exposures, if I explained that right. It's not unusual for me to take 200-300 pictures on a 30 minutes walk around the garden being really efficient! The problem I'm having now is that my lens is too slow and I'm getting lots of slightly blurred images. I need a faster lens, which is too expensive for the moment. Re the reds, if you use the magnetic lasso in photoshop you can isolate areas that you want to have a separate exposure. Also, there is now very exciting new technology by Nik software where you can just click on any area and change that area. I'll definitely be getting that at some point. In the meantime, if it's really a problem, I'll isolate the part of the image I need to change with the magnetic lasso or just manipulate the exposure with levels, but I don't like super saturated reds, so I'll underexpose the reds by a variety of settings to be sure that there is detail in the bloom later on. Working with the exposure should help with the color. If not, you can always manipulate the individual color tones.

Hi Nora! I saw your post on the kt, sorry I didn't get back with you. I am on my third digital. My first was an olympus, then the fugiS5000 with a 10x zoom. I had my fugi for 5 years and I love it. I just bought a Sony Alpha100 dslr a few weeks ago. I really like it so far, but I am still learning with it. It had very good reviews. The reason I choose it over the canon or nikon, was because I had minolta lenses that were compatible with it and would keep my cost down. Why don't you check out the site listed below, steves digicam. They give very good reviews on all cameras. I studied reviews for over a month until I made the decision on this latest camera. Good luck! Here is a link that might be useful: Steves digicam reviews

Hi Ronald, The problem is your camera's exposure system. Photographers figured out a very long time ago that the visible world on average reflects back 18 percent of the light shining upon it. All camera exposure systems function on this principle and assume that what you are photographing matches that average. Weathered and faded asphalt is about the right tone. When your camera exposure system is faced with something that is brighter than this average it doesn't know any better and drags it down. This problem often occurs in snow scenes, scenes where you are photographing a light source and bright silver coins. Look on your camera for a control that is marked -/+ it's usually a button or menu item and it is often split in half one side dark one side light. You need to adjust your exposure to +1 or +1.5 for the coin.