There is no such standard thing such as a "straight out of the camera" image. There is only such a thing as a straight out of your camera and straight into your computer and straight onto your screen. If you don't take a hand in the process, the specific camera design and specific computer software determines exactly what your image looks like. Just because you didn't do any settings doesn't mean that they aren't being used as defaults.

Even for you to see an image on the screen of your camera, processing defaults are employed. Which ones, in the case of your camera, are a function of the manufacturer. They usually use jpg-like defaults for all files, raw included. Some raw files may contain a thumbnail for display purposes, and it's a jpg.

Have you ever heard that some cameras take better pictures than others? Different defaults, among other possible reasons.

Default values are employed to display an image on your computer as well. If it's a jpg file, the jpg default values are used for settings. Did you set a white balance? If not, the software assumes a white balance (not necessarily the right one) which determines how your image appears on the screen.

jpg processing is designed specifically to make images look acceptable, with little or no intervention on your part. If that's what you like, use it.

When you look at a "straight out of the camera" image from a raw file it often looks poor, or even worse than poor, because you have not yet intervened and corrected the settings. Just because it may look worse than an image from a comparable jpg shot doesn't mean, even for a moment, that the jpg is somehow better. It's just easier.

And also very different, like walking and riding a bicycle are different. The can both get you to exactly the same place, but comparisons between the two are not enlightened by comparing your destinations.

C'mon guys! How many different images can you make from a jpg file? From a raw file? The only thing that's always true about a "jpg image" is that it came from a jpg file. The same idea applies to raw images, or tif, or gif ....

The only significant comparisons between jpg and raw are the technical characteristics of the files themselves, and what can be done with them to produce images with with particular qualities. Are the results often similar or virtually identical? Of course they are.

It's not that the images are different or the same, it's what you can do with the image files that's different.

Yeah, you need some work with basic explanations of the digital color process..

Adobe 1998 isn't a color profile, but a color space. So is sRGB, the one you really need to use for just about any picture to be displayed on a computer monitor. Adobe 1998 has a wider gamut (range of colors) that it can produce, but the differences are pretty small.

1) In brief, start by calibrating your monitor. You'll need to buy some gear and the software that goes with it. Xrite Photo has a lot of stuff like that. It helps a lot to have a high quality monitor.

2) As indicated in an earlier post, try to find an icc profile for the paper and printer combination you are using. As an alternative, have a custom profile made for the combination. The service is easily found on the net: google "custom printer profiles". Engage the service and follow their directions to the letter.

Finally consider using custom printing services as an alternative to doing it yourself. In a word, it's an expensive pain in the posterior to do what you're trying to do and unless you intend to do a lot of printing, just not worth the effort and expense.

Your words express a serious resentment of those who use Camera Raw to process their image files. Where does that come from? "This forum is saturated with Raw users squeezing every last bit of data out of their camera for PP." Really? Have you counted? What is saturation, in this forum?? Do you disdain those with less talent or experience than you?

"I'm not saying there is no good use for Raw, but everytime I see a post with an underexposed photo resurrected by the "gift of Raw", it makes me laugh." How in the world do you identify such a picture, and what's funny about it? Is nudging the Exposure slider in Camera Raw some kind of photographically reprehensible act?

I'm just asking for a little more tolerance in these pages for those who see things differently and do things differently than you might see as ideal or ethical or even moral. There is no canon here, nor should there be.

(And I don't mean Canon; there are lots of those.)

You also have heavy-duty chromatic abberation. Check your edges at about 200%.

Maybe try a few at f 8?

Your basic problem is with white balance. Without knowing what kind of files you have, or your processing software, it's hard to be more specific than that. Some directions call it "color cast correction".

Don't adjust hue or luminance or other color controls until after you can get a reasonable image with a white balance sampler.

OK, you're a Luddite.

(Psssst: you're not the only on on this forum)

So a large aperture (small f/number) gets you a shallow depth of field, and a small aperture (large f/number gets you a deeper depth of field, what does an intermediate aperture get you?

Answer: maximum sharpness in the plane of focus. (It's called the sharpness sweet spot, and it's often somewhere close to f 8.)

I am no longer capable of thinking of photography as a camera-and-lens process. They're just the means by which to capture ones and the zeros, or induce chemical changes in a photosensitive film. It's not that how one sets the camera is not important, but that there's so much more to it.

For me, the really important stuff happens during the time leading up to the point at which the shutter is activated, and later all the great things that can happen after the raw data are uploaded into the computer.

My belief is that real photography includes everything between the first urge to make a picture and the moment when the image stands revealed. However you want to do that is entirely up to you.

Those who choose fancy camera gear and process their own images are not cheaters or falsifiers. There is no dishonor in getting pictures processed at the camera store or Walmart. If there is dishonor at all, it attaches to displaying bad images however they are produced.

In the last 30 years the world of photography has exploded into the universe of photography, and we can all live happily in it together.

But we have to stop saying or even thinking that "pictures never lie". Of course, they mislead sometimes. They also tell the truth, illuminate, inspire, amuse. confuse, denigrate and bore. That list is not complete, but you doubtless get the idea. In the new universe as in the old world of photography. the viewer is always responsible for his own interpretation.

Best wishes to all

First serious camera - a used Leica G in 1955. Stiall have and still love it (it still works!), but I don't still use it.

First twin-lens reflex (Yashicamat) in 1959, for glorious B&W negatives and beautiful color slides.

First SLR (Exakta) in 1961. Several Pentax cameras in the sixties and 70's. First Nikon (FE2) in 1985. First digital camera in 1994 (don't remember the brand), after 3 years of processing scans of positive and negative films in early image-processing software. First Photoshop in 1993. First Nikon Digital (D100) in 2002. Nikon D3 in 2009; D3100 in 2012. Current Photoshop CS5.

And have enjoyed every minute of it!

You need to save new files the edited versions, with another file name/type. Then post the new ones.

A strobe with a lot of power is a good place to start. Add slave units when the spaces get large.

Consider the use of a good diffuser on your flash unit(s), such as can be found at http://www.garyfongestore.com/.

There's a sensor inside the camera in what used to be called the film plane, but on the back of the camera? Whatsup?

This is really a good way to go, shooting in available light.

You will be left with a white balance problem, because the color of the daylightlight in each room will be influenced by the color of the walls, plus any illuminated lamps or fixtures in the room.

Get a white balance card or target, and take an extra shot in each room with the card inclluded in the image. ColorChecker is very good for advanced color control, but Opteka cards are less expensive and do a great job on simple white balance correction. (You'll need to read and understand the directions that come with either)

Oh, yeah. Make sure that your door and window frames are vertical in your final images.

Good luck!