I'm SO happy with the Rebel results!!!

[Guillermo Freige]

Boy, this camera rocks!!
The image quality is amazing, even at ISO 400-800 and heavily postprocessed. And it's so good to be able to use the old EOS viewfinder to compose pictures and the EF lenses....
The 18-55 isn't stellar, but it's in the same league of the 75-300 IS in sharpness, even a little sharper, so the two lenses work together pretty seamesly in image quality. And the 28-135 is a very different beast (nothing new here). The image sharpness from this baby is much better than the 18-55.
I'd a couple of focus problems with the 75-300, but they are partly lens and mostly my fault. And I must remember to check the shutter speed, I've already ruined a couple of shots because of motion blur at 300 (I made the mistake of using ISO 100 instead of 200-400).
Overall, I love the Rebel. AF is a mixed bag, sometimes the switch to AI servo has saved the picture, and sometimes not. But well, compromises are good sometimes :)
All my Rebel pictures can be found here:

http://gfreige.homelinux.org/gallery/list.php?exhibition=21

[lightandlife]

Wow, the pictures are great! I especially like the night scenes.

With 10Ds and 300Ds, what you see is what you get (WYSIWYG)!

[Vegas Poboy]

Nice !!!! & I'm very impressed.

[Guillermo Freige]

Thanks people, but in my case digital cameras never are WYSIWYG :)
Both in the S50 and Rebel pictures, there is a lot of work (or little, it depends) after the RAW to TIFF conversion (and some more during conversion itself). I used to develop my own pictures in a darkroom, so to me the RAW is only the "digital negative" and I develop it in a very similar way I've done with real negatives (and with scanned negatives later).
In the Digital Rebel, the workflow is even more complex, as more corrections can be done during conversions, and there is also the AdobeRGB to sRGB conversion for web publishing.
Compared to the final result, the embedded JPEG in the RAW file looks plain awful :)

[tarves57]

Guillermo, would you mind sharing with us how you go about getting such astounding colours? And how far do you go with sharpening? (if at all)

Susan

[Guillermo Freige]

Susan:
I think the color issue has multiple factors. First I use AdobeRGB color scheme, RAW format, and always try to keep the image well exposed, avoiding any overexposure. If needed I dialed negative exposure compensation and reshoot, and always check exposures using the histogram.
The correct exposure and wide color gamut of AdobeRGB reduces the risk of strong colors clipping as in the case of strong reds or oranges, and RAW format allows me to correct some errors or wrong WB during conversion. Also, the TIFF generated from RAW has full resolution color information in the three channels (4:4:4) instead of the JPEG reduced red and blue resolution (4:2:2) so less color artifacts are present.
Usually during conversion I use normal saturation and sharpening, normal to low contrast (depending of the image), and some positive or negative exposure compensation if needed, and save the image as 16bit TIFF. As you can see I don't use the more saturated colors or increased sharpening used by Parameter 1 (the standard 300D/Rebel setting) but a more controlled color during all the stages of the photo taking and processing.
Once the AdobeRGB TIFF is generated, I load it in PS7 and then the fun begins :)
First I check the levels and reduce contrast if needed to keep all three channels in sRGB gamut space. I do this simply seeing in the monitor if there is some color cliping sliding the white point, because the monitor is already sRGB calibrated. When the colors looks good, I convert colors from AdobeRGB to sRGB and readjust levels. Then all selective curves and levels begin, and finally the cropping.
Once all is ok, i transform the image to 8bit and apply some sharpening. If the image is already sharp (as usually it is when the EF 28-135 is used) I apply the "clarifier" setting (400-500%, 0.2, 0-2 depending of the image noise), but if the image is soft, I use some more aggresive (200-300%, 0.3-0.4, 0-3 depending of noise again).
And that's all. I save the final image as quality-10 JPEG to keep full color (4:4:4) resolution.

To publish in the web, I took the JPEG, rescale it, apply a weaker variant of the "clarifier" sharpening, using only a 200%, and save as quality 7 to reduce size.

The S50 RAW workflow is similar, except as no AdobeRGB is available, I use normal to low contrast, saturation and low sharpening during conversion, and all the workflow is done in sRGB. Sharpening used in almost all cases is the "clarifier" setting.

[tarves57]

Wow thanks for that .... Sounds complicated, but I'm off to try this out on some of my photos!

Susan