Hi! I have finally entered the world of the Digital SLR having just bought a Digital Rebel XT. I would greatly apprecaite recommendations on what photo/image editing software I should start out with and also what format to shoot in.

I have a couple of 2GB Compact FLash cards so storage is not an issue so I thought I'd shoot in RAW format and then enhance/sharpen the images on the PC.

Right, wrong, indifferent?

What software package would you recommend? Would prefer to keep it under $100 or at least well under $200. Is the Canon software worth anything?

Thanks!

Shooting RAW is the best way of wringing out every last drop of quality from your images... but it's a real time-consuming, processor-intensive, harddrive-draining faff...

The gang of regulars here at DCI discussed the computer-side of things HERE in this thread a little while ago.

The software that camera manufacturers bundle with their gear consistently gives the best results (they are, after all, the ones who know how their own RAW files work) but they can be slow and inefficient. I can't speak for the Canon software as I've not had a go yet.

My advice for someone new to digital photography? Take a good look at out-of-camera jpegs and see if they satisfy your needs. I'd say about 90% of my work is done on jpeg at the moment and I'm quite happy! I save RAW for those critical events, or difficult shooting moments where I'll want to tweak exposure or white balance later. Hope this helps!

Shooting RAW files is an attractive option, and certainly gets talked up a lot in photo mags and "how to" books, but converting RAW files can be time-consuming while storing them requires lots of hard disk space. Don't underestimate the utility of shooting jpg files at the lowest possible compression rate, then converting them to a lossless format on your computer (e.g., tiff or Adobe's proprietary psd format).

As for software, given the price range you want, Photoshop Elements will probably do the trick. Version 5 has just been released and seems to be a genuine improvement, especially the inclusion of a weaker version of the Photoshop curves function, though it is also very heavy on the cutesy scrapbooking end of things and its cataloging function is pretty clunky. Still, there are a quite a few things you can do in PSE to bring out the best in an image. You'll want to go to the Adobe site to download the latest RAW converter update, plus you can use many Photoshop plug-ins available from Adobe or other sources.

PSE 5 seems to be selling for $85 and under, depending on vendor and rebate. And you could take some of whatever money you have left over and buy a card reader for transferring files from memory card to computer, thus sparing your camera's batteries.