eric_brody

<p>There really is nothing in the marketplace quite like Lightroom. As Ellis said more eloquently, you can basically run your photographic life with it, from capture and RAW conversion to image editing, sharpening, and all the way to printing. I still use Photoshop to a significant degree for pixel level editing, layers and masks but there are an awful lot of very capable photographers who use Lightroom and nothing else. I can find almost any of the 50,000 or so images in my catalog in less than a second, review it, email it, or print it. Try doing that with any other program. Needless to say, I'm a fan and have no connection with Adobe.</p>

<p>Consider the Fuji system. The manual focus on the X T-1 is superb, you look at the entire image and see a magnified portion on the side. With adapters, you can use your Nikon lenses, even G ones. I do not know for sure if the same system is on the less expensive X E-2 but I suspect it is, great images. The X E-2 body is $849 @ B&H and if you include the quite excellent "kit" 18-55 it's still just $1199.</p>

<p>Sorry, the correct statement is:<br> Ink used during conversion:<br /> Matte Black to Photo Black<br /> Approx. 4.6 ml<br /> Photo Black to Matte Black<br /> Approx. 1.6 ml</p>

<p>FYI here is the amount of Ink used during conversion:<br /> Matte to Photo Black<br /> Approx. 4.6 ml<br /> Photo to Photo Black<br /> Approx. 1.6 ml<br> <br />You can judge whether that's "a lot" of ink.<br /><br> </p>

<p>It's likely you can achieve the same or "better" results using any of the common post processing programs and will also have the flexibility of adjusting or eliminating the effect should you choose. I won't get into the "protective" filter debate but using any colored filter on a digital camera is more limiting than anything else. Also, I agree with Craig about AWB. Good luck.</p>

<p>What interests me about this thread is that the OP is going to all the trouble and expense of building a new computer for photo editing and he is using Photoshop CS2?? I've been using Photoshop for a long time and CS2 is pretty old. Photoshop CS6 is officially version 13! If he's building a computer for photography, I'd wonder if his efforts might be better placed into a better photo software platform. He did not mention Lightroom, which has almost supplanted Photoshop for many users. I have no expertise in Windows systems but regardless of what CPU, hard drive or SSD, it's all about the images and those use software to process. I'd also be interested in what kind of images he'll be processing with this cool new machine. I hope he's able to come up with a suitable computer and gets some enjoyment from his photography.</p>

<p>Printers seem to be at an asymptotic part of their improvement curve. I have an 3880 and it's pretty hard to think of how I would improve the output. There are always things to make the mechanics and operation better, but the quality of the images is simply outstanding.</p>