AZ says: >didn't see a box or other items with the camera. And asks: >Would the software be downloadable from Olympus? Is it absolutely required? Don't know the answer to the first question, Alan. The answer to the second is yes and no. The Yes part... As with too many tech products, the printed manual is pretty sketchy. The full manual is on the CD with the imaging and file management software. I had to consult the full manual three or four times when I first got the camera. You may not have to; I had no prior experience with digicams. The No part... You don't need the (awful) imaging software or the file management software. For file management, Windows Explorer--which sees the camera and its SmartMedia card as just another USB device--works just fine. It is, however, a bit slower than the Oly software. The Oly imaging software is worse than useless. As I've mentioned, I was having trouble when printing camera-generated tiff files. The words <Olympus Digital Camera> were printed in the margin, just outside the image area. I'd been opening the files with the Oly software, then saving them as tiff files either to my harddisk or to a CD. I've just discovered that opening them directly into Photoshop (they open as jpegs), then saving them as a tiff avoids the problem of the unwanted words and gives me the (much) better print quality of tiff (after increasing the resolution to 300ppi). So... There's no reason to use any of the Oly software. But you might want to have the full manual. Cheers, John ===== J. Mason, Charlottesville, Virginia New Pics, Greg Howard Band at Starr Hill Music Hall: http://www.greghoward.com/sights/stills/starrhill/ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Sign up for SBC Yahoo! Dial - First Month Free http://sbc.yahoo.com
