Wow, you must be loved! Thats some gift you recieved. Personaly I'm not a firm believer in raw. I shoot in jpeg because I havent seen a significant difference between the two. I believe more in composition and exsposure. You can do almost anything with a well composed and exsposed image, (even if it's a jpeg) but if it's not a good picture you cant do anything with it. I dont find the extra memory and time worth the wild.

Many photographs are manipulated in photoshop now days, even the ones taken in raw with mark cameras. This is just my personal oppionion. I'm sure there are gonna be many say that it's wrong to shoot in jpeg and your not a true photographer unless you have an exspensive camera and you only shoot in raw. I would suggest you try both and wiegh out the diffences.home.woh.rr.com/chadtyree..

Congratulations! You are beginning with a pro rig that most members of this forum would love to have. I recommend that you take your time and become totally proficient with your rig. Learn to shoot raw for important stuff, but don't forget jpeg for routine stuff. Have fun, and report back once you have some photos to share. Good shooting..

Jerry..

1. I want the best image quality I can get, so I plan to capture inRAW, right?.

'Raw vs. JPEG' comes up an awful lot..

My personal opinion is that while using a raw format may feel right if you're a perfectionist, it's not usually *necessary* under good conditions. Under *bad* conditions, when you're trying to capture both shadow and highlight detail, dealing with a mixture of lighting that could throw of WB, or when you MUST underexpose, and so forth it may be very helpful..

For instance, I've shot softball games after sunset. For stop-motion shots, I need a rather short shutter speed but after sunset, with no other lighting other than some lamp posts along two edges of a field, there's very little light... and I'm not exactly standing within the field of play with an f/1 lens. In such a case, I -will- be underexposing significantly (accepting noise to reduce motion blur) and should be shooting raw (because I'm going to need to push during post-processing, and therefore shouldn't let the camera clip shadows and highlights beyond what it absolutely must)..

I still shoot raw for late-afternoon games where I shoot now, actually, because the field has a mix of lighting conditions (trees cast shadows over some parts of the field as the sun sets), uniforms can throw off metering / WB (bright red uniforms, bright white), and there's a slight risk of specular highlights from cars throwing off the metering, but it's less critical than for the evening games..

But under more 'normal' conditions, where ex. you can deal with color casts by doing custom WB, and take some test shots and choose a sane exposure, and stable conditions mean that you won't have to change settings shot-to-shot, you may be perfectly fine with JPEG..

If there's a RAW+JPEG option, this gives you the best of both worlds at the cost of storage space. The storage cost isn't that bad, if you get your CF cards during a sale ex. after a rebate (which did go through, no tricks on their part), my Lexar 8GB 133x CF card was about $45 incl. shipping. Trying this will also let you decide whether you're happy with how the in-camera JPEG processing works..

2. I had planned to do the conversion in Canon DPP. Can I or ShouldI do it in Photoshop? Or is there another program that would besignificantly better (understanding that "significant" is a relativeterm)?.

Why don't you try without, first? Or, at least, try the Photoshop downloadable demo, before you buy? For what it's worth, Paint Shop Pro also usually has downloadable demos, IIRC..

I tend not to heavily process images, beyond what my raw conversion software does and the occasional cleaning with Noise Ninja, but hey do what floats your boat..

3. Do I need to purchase a newer version of Photoshop?.

Not before you decide that what you have is inadequate. Your purposes should come first. It's not like you're a professional designer needing software that's compatible with co-worker's software so you can collaborate on projects. If it works well for you, and it's worked for many in the past why change?.

Note that this sort of assumes that Adobe Camera Raw for your version of Photoshop can handle native 5D images. Haven't looked into that, personally. But even if it doesn't... it's your workflow..

4. Is there a "must have" book, or online tuturial, that will helpme get started on the technical side? I've read a lot about colormanagement (and have calibrated my monitor), but I would just likesomeone who knows what they're talking about to tell me what colorspace I should work in. (sRGB? Adobe RGB? Something else?) I don'tas yet plan to do a lot of conversion from RGB to CMYK (maybe later,if I'm lucky enough to sell something)..

A lot will tell you to use aRGB for printing, and sRGB for display..

OTOH, I tend to leave my conversion software on aRGB regardless of purpose, and while people call -me- weird, they haven't really said there's something 'off' about the colors in either my online galleries, or the prints on my walls..

*snip*..

LUCKY You! Photoshop7 can't do RAW. So you'll either have to go Photoshop Elements 5 or PSCS2 or 3 Or whatever else you decide on for RAW.....But First things first, Go JPG to start (PS7 will work) then try RAW every once in a while...Good Luck.MrScary (DennisR)Swansea, Wales. UK.

Http://www.pbase.com/dennisrhttp://community.webshots.com/user/mrscarecrowhttp://www.russ4to.KMD5DImages.photoshare.co.nz..

I am not sure about Photoshop 7 but I know that Photoshop CS2 can handle RAW very well. If you open up a RAW file, a conversion routine opens up. There are a number of other conversion programs that may work better (I use Nikon Capture NX) but you can do it very well with the later versions of Photoshop..

If you want to continue to use Photoshop 7 and it does not do RAW, you can buy a RAW conversion program that will convert your RAW files to JPEG or TIFF files..

Have fun with your new toys.Don..

First I shoot jpeg all the time. I use a pentax *istD dslr. have tried raw and got no improvement in my pics, though before my little jpeg vs raw test I thought that there would be a difference. there wasn't FOR ME. the reason I concluded was that my pics as shot in the field require almost zero processing. the great rpt great rpt great advantage of raw is the amount and type of post processing the picture taker does in the pc.

I am currently pp about 5% of all jpegs I shoot. also, I currently crop in the pc 0% of what I shoot. I do it in the camera, it's called composition..

The two great areas that raw absolutely shine in is when you have no time to properly set up the shot. the other is when the lighting is so odd or undetermined that you have no idea what it is and you have to rely on pp to give you the proper color and white balance adjustments. a possible third necessity for post-processing would be that if the camera or scene has something that you have to correct for on virtually every picture..

In other words, it all depends on the quality of pictures you are delivering to the pc. if you consistedly shoot pics and they are such that the pc is used for sorting storage and printing, like me, then you can go to the convieniece of jpeg..

But, if you find yourself adjusting correcting or fixing the iso, exposure, white balance, color, and cropping THEN you should be using raw. only you know your photographic abilities and what type of pics you are taking. for this reason, the decision to shoot raw or jpegs is yours alone based on your needs..

For me jpegs work, BUT that might not work for others. raw for others could be the way to go..

The ONLY rpt only rpt only time the shot is a jpeg is when it is brought to the computer. it is either discarded or changed(i tend to have small tweaks) on the pc in some way, then it "save as" a tiff. the jpeg is never "save" or "save as" a jpeg ever. the original jpeg is stored in a jpeg folder that is a holdall..

This keeps the as shot quality intact..

With a raw file you have to convert the file to jpeg or tiff to use it for any other purpose. you cannot print a raw file, for example. with jpegs they can be used immediately as soon as they are downloaded into the pc. as far.

As batch processing is concerned, yes it speeds up the raw conversion process, but it eliminates one of the advantages of the raw process. this is the individual care and effort an individual raw pic gets when it is not batch processed. the individual raw file gets the maxium care it needs to give it's best picture. with batch processing this is gone, you are not achieving the max from each shot. and this is the reason you are shooting raw in the first place. to me if you are batch processing, you might as well go with jpeg..

I have made enlargements of my shots to 16X20 and 20X30 with very good results..

Yes, I have pe3 and cs2 and can use both..

My view. gary..

Thanks, everyone, for such considered responses. After considering what I've heard so far, I plan to shoot mostly JPEGs, except for those shots that I think might require more extensive pp or that I think have particularly great potential and that I want to play with in post. We'll see what that ratio turns out to be..

I haven't yet heard any reason to upgrade to CS from PS7, except for the RAW conversion, which I currently plan to do in DPP. If someone can think of another reason that would justify the expense, I'm all ears..

BTW, I haven't had much luck calibrating my (cheap Dell flat screen) monitor. I think it may be a lost cause, and reason to spring for a new monitor..

Again, thanks everyone for your time and thoughts...