Confused

Ive just been out with my new camera for the first time and decided to shoot in Raw mode at ISO 100 to get the best possible image quality, its a Panasonic Lumix fz8 and comes with raw software, Ive tried viewing my images in Elements 4.0 but it wont recognise them,however I can view them in the bundled software which came with the camera, anyway my question is, if I covert my 11Mb image to a jpeg will I lose loads of quality ? Sorry if I am not clearer, just a bit baffled as to how to get the best out of it.
Ta

The RAW software that comes with your camera, does it allow you to make refinements? If so you can make the initial tweaks in there and then export?

Might also be worth firing and email off to them and asking them which photo software can accept their raw files.

Just had a look and cant find an export option, mm dunno will have a think, thanks Azz.

Check their website ...they often have updates to software on the sites

Thanks Melody, think im going to plump for elements 6.0,seems to have a good write up anyway.
Thanks
stew

What do you want to use the finished files for?

Email?

Printing?

Digital photo frame?

Depends what you want to do with them - will depend on what settings and files are best suited...

Woo hoo, think I figured it out, I have Picassa 2 from google and I didnt realise it handles RAW, so all I need to do is import an image into picassa then export to another folder on the computer at max image quality and size and I have a 9mb JPEG from an 11mb RAW image, now all I gotta do is take some decent shots with it

Bit of everything tbh Chris, thanks.

Are you planning on editing the photos in "Picassa"? If you're just going to convert them straight to a jpeg you might aswell let the camera do the exposure work and just save it as a fine/high quality jpg instead of RAW on the camera.

The main point in shooting RAW (as i understand, correct me if i'm wrong) is to stop the camera doing it's white balance/exposure stuff, so you can do it on the computer later, where you can spend more time planning/thinking without messing the photo up.

Well tbh I'm kinda new to the digital side of things and I'm just trying to find me feet as it were, basically I will convert in picassa for the time being but edit on elements 4.0, though looking to get hold of elements 6.0 in the next few weeks and see what happens there.Thanks for advice though, its all appreciated, and if I get 5 mins away from work at the minute I might even go and take some shots