Pentax K2000

	Playback Summary
• Well designed on-screen displays for image playback • Magnification up to 16x for checking details and focus • Useful side by side image display for comparison purposes • Handy index print creation tool • Adequate image browser, poorly organized RAW file development software
	Sample Photos	Page 8 of 18	Hardware

Playback Mode (10.25)

There are four available screen layouts during playback mode, each available in turn by pressing the INFO button. These include a completely clean screen, a display of image format and file name, shutter speed and aperture, another display with a thumbnail of the image, the image with file format, file name and a histogram overlaid in the bottom section, and a view with a thumbnail version of the photo in the top left and a very complete image data readout taking up the rest of the screen. Histogram fans can switch from a single luminance graph to a full RGB display plus luminance by pressing the top button in the four-way controller.

During playback, photos can be enlarged up to 16x by turning the e-dial, which is plenty for judging image sharpness. Pressing the OK button while zoomed in jumps instantly to standard full-screen display, a handy shortcut compared to manually spinning the dial. There's also a quick zoom function, which can be enabled through the playback menu, that jumps instantly to 2x, 4x, 8x or 16x zoom with a single dial click.

Turning the dial in the opposite direction takes you to a navigable folder-by-folder thumbnail display. By default this shows nine images at once, but it's customizable to 4 or 16 images via the playback menu.

Another click brings up a nicely designed calendar view. You can also bring up a folder display from this view, by pressing the INFO button. Entire folders of images can be deleted in this view by simply pressing the erase button and confirming, a handy shortcut. (You can also choose up to 100 individual image for mass deletion using the thumbnail display, or choose Delete All from the playback menu to wipe out all your stored photos.)

You have the option to have underexposed areas blink yellow and overexposed areas blink red during playback if you like. This will encourage users to maintain proper exposure, since the psychedelic blinking is incredibly annoying. 

There's a slideshow utility, which allows selection of interval and between-picture effects (but no audio background) and a useful side-by-side image display capability. You choose two photos, each of which appears on one side of the screen. The images can be enlarged up to 16x, either individually or together. You can scroll the displays individually or in sync, making this a very handy tool for comparing shots in the field.

In-Camera Editing (5.25)

There's a generous assortment of filters to fiddle with, including six that are also available as filter effects while shooting. Up to 20 filters can be applied to a single image, and either JPEG or RAW files can be altered.

Creative Styles
Toy Camera Intentionally adds imperfection to a shot. Three parameters can be set: Shading Level (+1, +2 or +3), Blurring (+1, +2, +3) and Tone Break (Red/Green/Blue).	High Contrast As the name implies, intentionally blows out the light areas. Three settings available: +1, +2 and +3.	Soft Adds a simulated soft-focus effect, with +1, +2 and +3 settings available.
Star Burst Creates star-shaped highlights around bright points of light in photos. You can adjust the number of light sources (small, medium or large), size of the star bursts generated (short, medium, long) and even the angle (0, 30, 45 or 60), but you can't stop them from looking cheesy.	Retro Recreates the look of old-time photos, complete with a white frame border and odd coloration. You can set the toning on a blue-amber scale to -2, -1, Off, +1 or +2, and set the white frame to thin, medium or thick.	Extract Color Removes all the colors from the photo except for the one you specify. Available color choices include red, magenta, cyan, blue, green and yellow.
Illustration Transforms the photo into a simulated painting.	HDR Mimics the look of a high dynamic range image.	B&W Changes image to black and white.
Sepia Changes to sepia tone. Adjustable with weak, standard and strong settings.	Color Simulates the effect of a color filter. Available color choices include red, magenta, cyan, blue, green and yellow, each with three gradation settings: pale, standard and dark.	Slim Stretch or compress the image horizontally and vertically, with 17 levels of adjustment.
	Brightness Adjusts image brightness, in 17 steps.

You can also create your own custom filter effect if you like. Adjustable parameters include Color Intensity (Off, +1, +2, +3); Color (Red, Magenta, Cyan, Blue, Green, Yellow); High Contrast (Off, +1, +2, +3), Soft Focus (Off, +1, +2, +3), Outline Highlight (-3 to +3), Tone Break (Off, Red, Green, Blue); Shading Level (-3 to +3); and Shading Type (6 types).

The Index Print capability is surprisingly robust. You can choose from five different layouts, ranging from a standard rectangular grid to some artsy collages. Set the background to white or black, choose from 12, 24 or 36 images, and select images to include either one at at time or by the folder-full. The resulting compilation can be saved as a new file as is, or reshuffled if you want to try a different image layout. The resulting images are saved as 6-megapixel files, which is plenty to make a reasonable-size print.

 
The index print utility goes beyond ordinary layouts.

JPEG images can be resized to 10MP, 6MP, 2MP or 640x480 resolution, at any of the three available compression settings (you can't choose a size larger than the one you shot at, of course). There's a simple cropping utility, with seven image size options, the choice of horizontal or vertical orientation, and the ability to move the cropping rectangle around the image.

RAW files can be processed in-camera by choosing RAW Development in the playback menu. Many of the image parameters available as JPEG file settings can be applied to the RAW image file, including resolution and quality settings, custom image setting, white balance, ISO, high ISO noise reduction, color space and shadow compensation.

Software (4.00)

The K2000 ships with a CD containing two programs, each available for the PC and Mac. Pentax Photo Browser, as the name implies, is an image viewing program tailored to display Pentax image data details, while Pentax Photo Laboratory is used for processing RAW files in both formats the camera supports, PEF (the proprietary Olympus format) and DNG, an industry-standard RAW file. Neither program offers much in the way of JPEG image editing.

Software
	Pentax Photo Browser 3 This is the tool to use if you want to see at a glance all the settings in effect when you took a photo with your Pentax camera. Choosing an image in the browser window reveals every detail about it in the lower pane. There is also a useful synchronized view feature, which matches zoom level and scrolling across up to four open windows. Print capabilities are well thought out, including the option to print pages of small photos with their image properties listed. Editing tools are minimal, though -- just crop, auto fix and rotate.
	Pentax Photo Laboratory 3 This RAW image processing application is one of the ugliest pieces of software we've seen, a mishmash of separate resizable windows, each with a different function, arrayed with no rhyme or reason. The editing capabilities are actually fairly strong, including not only the same setting options you'd find in the camera itself but also lens distortion correction. Working with the program, though, is a chore.

Direct Print Options (2.75)

The Pentax K2000 supports direct printing via USB to PictBridge-compatible printers, and the creation of DPOF data to be used by professional photo processors when you hand them your SD card for output services.

Direct Print Options
	PictBridge The PictBridge utility provides access to a range of settings, inluding paper size, paper type, print quality and bordererd or full-page printing and number of prints. The process of choosing images to print is tedious, though: you can choose every photo on the SD card or choose photos individually, but can't print all the images in a particular folder, or taken on a specified date. There is also no way to create an index print here (you can use the index print utility in the playback menu, save the results and then print them, but this one-sheet-at-a-time process is less practical than an automatic index print output option.
	DPOF The DPOF printing utility is surprisingly barebones given the level of depth in so many other camera features. You can choose a single image at a time or all images, but can't manually choose a group of photos and apply the same settings to them all, nor can you choose all photos in a folder. Printing options are limited to number of copies to be printed and whether or not the date should be imprinted.

Sample Photos	Page 8 of 18		Hardware
Pentax K2000 Digital Camera Review Navigation
Intro	Product Tour	Color	Noise
Resolution	White Balance	Sample Photos	Playback
Hardware	Controls	Design & Handling	Speed & Timing
Nikon D90 Comparison	Canon 50D Comparison	Canon Rebel XS Comp	Olympus E30 Comparison
Conclusion	Specs & Ratings