HEMI-Powered wrote:

There's an old saying that covers my view on this: "the algorithm
to solve this problem or that one is straigt-forward but not
trivial. So, I would submit that if what you learned through the
school of hard knocks you readily admit isn't trivial, it likely
also is not for novices or the faint of heart.


I didn't have any trouble learning how to do it. I have drawn on several
online resources and browsed a couple of books to get ideas on how to
streamline my approach, but there was no attendance at the "school of hard
knocks".

Have it your way ... it is extremely difficult, not for the faint of heart and
everybody [except extremely advanced individuals, such as myself] should just
simply use JPEG ;-)

I have scoured my local bookstores and their on-line stores
looking for exactly what you describe, but every one I've come
across so far assumes I have either PS CS or PS Elements, while I
have PSP 9 and like it. So, workflow tutorials would be quite
helpful to me, but NOT when they are illustrated with photographs
shot off a PhotoShop screen with the steps involved. I also have
the last version of Raw Shooter Premium before Adobe bought them,
killed it, and launched Lightroom. It has these really nifty 89-
page manual, but it is a reference manual and assumes I already
know what I want to do and why and simply tells me what tools I
want. What it is NOT is a leg-up on the learning curve, which I
find so steep that RAW is outside the range of my radar and sonar
for time management reasons.


You have to have a RAW converter, and as such, it requires a workflow that
uses it. The workflow using the RAW converter in PSP will be different than
the workflow using the RAW converter in Adobe Lightroom and yet again
different the using the RAW converter in PS and Bridge.

You know what? You have the same issue with JPEG. You need to establish a
workflow, plain and simple. You will find as many opinions on the best
workflow as there are people who have opinions on workflow. Everybody will do
it differently.

Excuse my denseness, but a "full" 16-bit image of which only 12
or 14 bits are usuable, is NOT what I meant. You just confirmed
my supposition, nobody is yet actually producing images that have
legitimate data in all 16 bits.


Yes they are. Nikon Coolscan scanners are available that are 16-bit (some
lower scale images are 14-bit). More important than a 16-bit image is a
16-bit workflow. You want more data to work with and the reason should be
obvious at this point. Having the room to work with it is why a 16-bit
workflow has advantages over an 8-bit workflow.

What can I say? You're obviously better/faster than I am. I
applaud you for that skill, I simply don't have it and many of my
friends who are fellow car show and musueum photographers are in
about the same boat as I am.


You know, I am not sure where you are trying to go with this thread. Perhaps
you want to legitimize your approach by minimizing the 16-bit workflow
including RAW that I mention. Be my guest. But I don't think this thread has
progressed, so I am departing it.

I think the OP here, like so many, got completely blown away from
my middle-ground technical discussions and yours, blowing him out
to sea with wild stories about 16-bit color and RAW when all he
likely wants to do is what my daughter does - just get a fairly
decent 4 x 6 prints at Meijer, she simply isn't at all interested
in being an accomplished digital photographer. So, what would you
say to her, that's she's just as stupid and stubborn as I am just
because we have alternative views from your own? Surely some of
the advanced people in this NG that get into the range of what I
call elitists and image bigots must recognize that there isn't
one right way to do things, there are literally hundreds of ways.

Ask the OP's opinion on the matter. The thread moved on, as they usually do
on USENET and does not and should not be constrained to a scope arbitrarily
imposed by you.

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse

We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from the
machinations of the wicked.