Before you buy DXO, you might want to try out Exposure 7 from Alien. It should work with Aperture just fine, but Exposure 7 works great in standalone mode if you’re looking for a replacement to Aperture, which Apple has given up on anyway. There's a free trial on Exposure 7. I love it.

I was taught:
Sunny f16
Clear f11
Hazy f8
Cloudy f5.6
Shady f4

Whoopee!!! It looks like the KS1 still has a fixed display but the brand new KS2 has a "vari-angle" LCD -- a first for Pentax!

Dreams do come true.

Thanks for your message.

As for super wide angle lenses, here's a good one: Tamron SP 10-24MM F/3.5-4.5 Di II LD Aspherical IF for Pentax mount.

You might want to consider the Pentax K-50 as an alternative to the K7 or some of the other Pentaxes mentioned already. It's got a fully weather-sealed body and has a 100% coverage viewfinder, front and rear control dials and 6fps burst, along with in-camera Shake Reduction.

For a good all-purpose lens you might want to look at the Pentax 21977 DA 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 ED AL (IF) DC WR. Be sure any zoom lens you select is WR (weather resistant), so that your whole setup is as weatherproof as any on the market. This is one of the real pluses of Pentax, along with its excellent image quality, especially its superior (IMO) jpg processing.

For excellent fast primes at decent prices, consider the Pentax smc DA 50mm f1.8 and/or the Pentax smc DA 35mm F2.4 AL. Sigma makes the astonishing Sigma 35mm F1.4 DG HSM A with a Pentax mount, but it's not cheap -- around $900.

All that being said, I'm seriously considering moving away from Pentax for one reason: none of their cameras offer a tilting or articulating lcd. This is a real problem for an old timer like me who is finding it harder and harder to get down on the ground (and get up again!). It's probably not such a big deal for a twenty something, or a limber 50-something; but for a stove up 60-something it's the difference between getting a shot and giving up on the shot.

Anyway, best wishes to you.

OK. I've pretty much gone all out for mirrorless, for all the obvious reasons. I still have a Pentax K5iis and a Sony A57, but am fixing, with great reluctance, to sell these in order to finance my next step -- full frame mirrorless, probably the Sony A7ii (to get the in camera image stabilization). This will also mean selling off my OMD EM5 and a full complement of mft zoom lenses from wide angle to telephoto along with an Oly 60mm macro f2.8.

So -- my two questions: (1) Am I crazy?

(2) Regardless of the answer to (1), what's my best roadmap for lenses for the A7ii to try to regain the scope I now have with my 3 zoom lenses and the portrait macro?

Any suggestions would be welcome. Thanks.

You can get great prices (<$600 easily) on the first generation Olympus OMD EM5, both used and new, now that the Mark II is on the market. Add on the Olympus 40-150mm F4.0-5.6 R Zoom, which can be found for just over $100, and you're way under your $1K maximum with a sturdy gem that won just about every award there is only a couple of years ago. With the 2x crop factor, the lens puts you at a full frame equivalent of 300mm.

Is it still the case that there's a limit on the number of PSD files that can be uploaded to Prime? Also, can the amazon cloud drive be added to Lightroom for backup?

Sigma makes a good, pretty fast wide angle lens for the e-mount at a decent price -- $199.

Sigma 19mm f2.8 DN Lens (Sony E) --http://www.sigmaphoto.com/product/19mm-f28-dn-a

Or, although you specified 3rd party lenses, Sony does a wide-angle zoom, the Sony 10-18mm f/4 OSS Alpha E-mount for considerably more money. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/892389-REG/Sony_sel1018_10_18mm_F_4_0mm_Optical_SteadyShot.html

I looked at the A6000 long and hard and it had a lot of nice qualities; but in the end I passed and went with the Oly OMD models because: in-body stabilization on the OMDs while there is none on A6000 and you need to get OSS lenses in order to get the stabilization (and that lets out some of the nice sigma art lenses that otherwise would be very attractive at the price); (2) I like dual dials for aperture & shutter when shooting manual. On the A6000 you have to use the rear dial, which isn't nearly as easy when using the EVF; (3) very aggressive noise reduction in default mode, although otherwise jpg's are nice on the A6000, which isn't always the case with other Sony cameras.

So much of this is specific to the user, though. For IQ and compact size, the A6000 is a very good choice.

Best of luck.

There is so much on youtube, though -- it's hard to know where to start.

A couple of my favorite channels are: Iceflow Studios Photoshop Tutorials by Howard Pinsky -- https://www.youtube.com/user/IceflowStudios

These include "one-minute" tips -- like how to erase wrinkles in one minute or how to change eye color in one minute.

For a more graded approach, you could try TutorVid, which gives a series for the beginner, another series for the intermediate, and then more for the advanced. There's also a series called "Learn Photoshop in 60 Seconds/Day" that's pretty good. You can find the channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/TutorVidCom

Some of my favorites are from Mama Shan aka Photoshopmama, but they're not really for beginners -- more intermediate to advanced. https://www.youtube.com/user/photoshopmama

If you're looking for more of a structured course, a good one is "Total Training for Photoshop CS5 Essentials" -- starting from the basics on Pixels and Resolution and moving step by step up the ladder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDwe5nRdaCI

Good luck!!

Personally, I like it quite a bit -- it reminds me a little of a hyperrealistic painting. That may not be, though, what you were wanting. Sometimes people want the viewer to get a feeling that the image has been hyped up -- but sometimes the photographer doesn't want the viewer to consciously register the enhancements. Not sure what you were looking for.

Did you boost the sharpening across the entire image? Did you use the "auto-sharpen" feature? I wonder what would happen if you lowered the sharpening on the branch.

At any rate, good effort. I like it.

If nobody cares, why are there so many replies?

As for me:
OMD EM-5
Pentax K-5ii s
Sony a57 (so I can still pull out my old Minolta lenses every now and then)

OMG. I love it! Snap Art looks pretty good, too. The "artistic" effects in PS Elements leave something to be desired. If Snap Art works as well as Exposure -- I may have something else to try out. Any experience with Snap Art?

Thanks so much!

Exposure 6 looks great. Thanks for the tip. I'm going to download right now. Hopefully, Vista won't give me trouble.

Best wishes