The RAW Dilemna

PEF or DNG? That was the question... and I think I've come up with an answer - that suits me, anyway. My camera (Pentax K20D) will take RAW photos in either DNG (Adobe compatible format) or PEF (the Pentax format), and of course in various JPEG formats. Since I have recently been attempting to use Photoshop CS3, I was wondering if it would be to my advantage to shoot in the DNG mode. CS3 can easily read and be used to edit DNG files, whereas I am limited to my Pentax Photo Browser/Laboratory software to even view the PEF files.
So, to see for myself, I spent a day with one camera set to take DNG's, and the other to take PEF's. Every other in-camera setting was identical. In all honesty, I have to say that I was a bit surprised at the outcome! Even though the post-processing of the Pentax RAW files is more cumbersome, I was completely more pleased with them. The colors and contrast in the RAW data are much more vibrant, and far less tweaking is required to achieve the same JPEG result. Who'd-a-thunk?? I must say I was under the impression that Photoshop was the be-all/end-all in editing software... and while it is quite an amazing tool, my opinion has changed somewhat. Pentax is pretty darn good itself, and I won't feel bad about leaving my camera in the PEF mode!
Cheers.