Pentax RAW conversion - stick with Lightroom?

I shoot a Pentax *ist DL, and Lightroom on my Mac handles the Raw conversion.

 

Lightroom seems quite flexible, and simplifies my life -- shooting RAW doesn't

actually seem any different than shooting JPEG, I just shoot, import into

Lightroom, and can tweak to my heart's content, knowing that I have the full

RAW data there to tweak with. Round-trips to Photoshop are nice, although I

suspect they eat a lot of disc space by creating those lossless Adobe

intermediary files.

 

So my question is -- am I getting the most out of my Pentax RAW files?

 

Am I missing out on any quality/flexibility/features by not using the Pentax

Photo Lab software?

 

(To be honest, I never even installed Photo Lab because Lightroom support was

so seamless.)

 

Are there other options I should consider? (Limited by two things: the desire

to not spend any more money, and the need to run on a Mac.) Perhaps "Rawker"

or "UFRaw" offer advantages I haven't thought of?

Sometimes mfgr software can pull more from underexposed or overexposed images. Other wise no difference.

I find that the default white balance and exposure is the best in Photo Lab. However, I find that Lightroom is much more flexible in arriving at a final image--far more editing flexibility. If you want to spend less and get about 80% of Lightroom's power, Bibble Light is an excellent alternative.

I use Lightroom for all my work, having tested everything else available. If I'm missing

anything, it doesn't matter ... it is of no significance.

 

Godfrey

Good to hear. I'll stop worrying and go back to shooting.

 

Dave