Much to my surprise, Santa brought me a Nikon D40. One of the camera's great advantages, as I understand it, is the option to work with images in RAW format. Nikon's Picture Project 1.7 came with the camera. Before I load it though, I was hoping to find out how this is going to work.

Currently I do a lot of tinkering, layer blending, etc. with PSP X2. I don't want to give up the range of capabilities that PSP offers, but I also want to be able to work with the expanded potential that the unprocessed RAW files provide.

Is there any way to get the best from both? And if so, is Nikon's Picture Project likely to be the best RAW converter for me to use?

Thanks for any suggestions.

S.