Andrea, I shoot RAW exclusively now for the reasons you stated except occasionally flip it over to sports because it goes auto to burst (I think), and does only .jpg. I love Photoshop, has a very steep learning curve, waited years until I got a $299 upgrade with Elements to CS2. I don't just use it for my photographs, and I agree with you about some of the software that comes with cameras, read about Nikon's, refused to get in the camera wars, was really torn between Canon and Nikon, at the time I thought Canons had better noise reduction at the expense of IQ, understood that going in. I started just doing graphics learning all I could with PSP (quit upgrading at 5 because I didn't like some things), then bought Photo Impact (fun for awhile but a waste of money), but when I saw the power of PS, I was sold. I don't use all the features, no, don't jump on the upgrade bandwagon (lightbox is really cool, can't afford it), but I love their USM and ACR white balance corrections and several others such as highlight/shadows tool (because of the limited dynamic range with all digital cameras, may be better with the more expensive, super-high resolution ones), when I want to make them pop more. And a lot of it is strictly a matter of taste. There are some incredibly talented with PS; I'm not one of them. The actual conversion process doesn't take more than 30 seconds, and when I can, I batch convert using scripts. I know everything you said is true, especially you can use Nikon pics right out of the cam, sharp as a tack, same with some good P&S cameras. Have to watch oversharpening, too. For web viewing, people probably can't tell the difference about sharpening. I can see it, very occasionally I don't bother with it, depending, but do like to do my own cropping and straightening, can't stand really crooked photos unless for creative effect. Other software does that just as well. I highly respect your opinion, and it sounds like you are some kind of pro. I don't presume to know everything. Blowing blows more dust in than I get out sometimes, always do that first regardless, a couple tries, then test, but I have used the wet method only once, got it better, but just let the dustbunnies I missed be for now and try to be careful changing my lenses. The only people I'd really trust to clean my sensor filter, not the sensor on Canon, but extremely delicate, is Canon. Nobody on the Canon dslr forum I've read yet on dpreview for almost 5 years now sends theirs anywhere for sensor filter cleaning; they all clean them themselves, most very confidently (not me!) many, many use a wet method usually Copperhill or a pen. I used extra pure alcohol and qtips I got at the medical supply center, just a drop w/eyedropper. I first try the dry method with Walgreen's brand q-tips very gently. The camera store person told me some use plastic knives from McDonald's! Not for me! I don't really trust my local camera store or Best Buy technicians. With the camera store, last time I was in was tempted to butt in and tell the customer something I happened to know, while the salesman didn't seem to, held my peace. Had some photos and a painting scanned I wanted to retouch, state-of-the art, awful, ended up using my camera and tripod. The camera store wasn't set up to cater to dslr users, maybe they're more with it now. I hate cloning out dustbunnies once a bad one gets in there, most don't show at the sizes and resolution I use, but do clone quite a bit for other reasons and like the healing tool. Once a piece of fiber got in there, it drove me nuts, that I got out by blowing, need a better blower, the Hurricane one. Sorry for taking up so much "airtime". Sooner or later most dslr owners are going to have to choose how to deal with it. Then if I screw up, I screw up, and will pay the consequences. You HAVE to clean your lenses, even on P&S cameras, which I do as little as possible. I know Nikon has fine cameras and lenses; that is why the choice was so hard, and sometimes I still look back, but now I'm invested heavily in a few lenses not as many as some have, don't need them, but very expensive and wouldn't get near what I paid for them if I sold them, even though they are all in mint condition.

I forgot to add that when posting photos on forums or emailing to friends, it isn't the size of the photo in INCHES that matters as much as the file size. In other words, a photo that appears to be say 5" x 7" on your monitor may actually be a smaller file size (and therefore upload quicker) than one that appears to be 4" x 5" or smaller. That's because file size has to do more with resolution and the like than it does with the actual visible size of the photo. That's where the compression comes in. I don't believe Photobucket compresses images when it resizes them. (It didn't used to, anyway.) So you might be posting a smaller picture (from a viewing standpoint) that is till very high in file size and very slow to upload, if you aren't careful. I take my digital photos at a fairly high resolution in case I want to print them. But when I resize for posting, I compress them way down so they might go from over a million bytes to 50,00 bytes, or the like. It makes a huge difference, and is one other thing I like to do myself to be sure the photos don't bog everything down too much. And one last thing...photos that look HUGE one one monitor (maybe even larger than the actual screen) may be much smaller on another one. The size of the monitor and the settings on it will make it very different from computer to computer. It's impossible, of course, to post photos that will look good on everyone's monitor, so you try to find something not too far to either extreme, in order to have it look good on the most monitors you can. Often times photos that are posted on GW show up on my monitor somewhere between a wallet-sized photo and a postage stamp. Seriously. I've seen them the size of typical thumbnails, only it was the whole photo. I'm sure it looked different to the person posting, but when they are that small, detail is lost to many of us. Just something to keep in mind when you see some photos come through that look huge on your monitor and others that look tiny. It probably looks very different to the person who posted. And now back to the tree ID's....any more comments on what Bill is trying to identify? I think everyone is in agreement on the dwarf poinciana, but there seem to be different opinions on the others. Marcia

Resolution is confusing because you are dealing with 2 different measurements and 2 different systems for the UNITS of measurement. You have image dimensions (print size of the image) and pixel resolution (number of pixels in the image) which can each be in one of the two different units of measure (inches or centimeters). Then throw in a ruler that can have THREE different units of measure (inches, centimeters and pixels) and you have the all the ingredients for total confusion. If both circles are the same size in pixels (200 pixels in diameter) then they will look exactly the same on the screen at 100% because on the screen at 100% ONE PIXEL = ONE PIXEL. The resolution of #4 is 72ppi (pixels per INCH) and the resolution of #11 is 200ppcm (pixels per CENTIMETER). While the screen (at 100%) always displays 1 pixel at the same size (unless you change screen resolution), the printer makes pixels different sizes to match the image resolution of the image being printed. Here #4 is 200 pixels wide at 72ppi (INCH) making the printed image 2.777" wide. 200 pixels divided by 72 pixels per INCH = 2.777 inches. Then we have #11 which is 200 pixels wide at 200ppcm (CENTIMETERS) which makes the printed image 0.39" wide. 200 pixels divided by 200 pixels per CENTIMETER) = 1 centimeter, 1 centimeter = 0.39 inches. Whew!! That's why you have a BIG DOT and a little dot when you print. Now, the moral of this story is... when working with 2 images they need to have the same resolution. And to make sure they have the same resolution: 1. keep the UNITs of measure the same - all inches or all centimeters. 2. keep the resolution the same - if those 2 circles were heads in 2 different pictures and you wanted to swap one for the other you would end up with a tiny head or a giant head, depending on which way you swapped. 3. set the ruler to a meaningful unit of measure - pixels are fine if you are only working for screen display but inches (or centimeters) will be more useful when working for print. I hope that made sense. Does it help? Jill

Judy have you ever visited Red Flag Deals? It is a Canadian site where all the younger population (and me) go to post and view the best prices. A valuable tool. 50% of the members are around the greater Toronto area. You might consider advertising on the buy and sell forum there, you never know who has Paint Shop Pro and no longer need it. I see Corel want $99 for version 12 yet Amazon.com has used copies of version 9 for $12.99 and up. However they do not ship to the Great White North yet they ship to many other countries. You can download the free Gimp photo editing program. This is a full featured program but there is a learning curve - as there is with all higher end photo editing software. Or if your aims are more modest you could give Irfanview or Xnview a try. Both are free, both are very versatile. Be sure to grab the plugins if you download Irfanview Here is a link that might be useful: RedFlagDeals Canada