Noob looking to start shooting RAW!?!

Hi, I am quite new to this site and my D5100. My D60's shutter is no longer operating and I made the much deliberated, thoroughly researched, decision to purchase this fine piece of equipment. It seems worlds better than my D60 and I am happy. That being said, I have revived my interest and pursuit of becoming a better photographer, thus joining this site. I have been reading here and there that a lot of the quality can come with post production. Other than the occasional tweek through picasa I have been more or less focused on taking good shots and haven't invested time or effort in post editing. I'm going to be acquiring my first software in photoshop elements 9, don't laugh I'm cheap, and I will soon begin the learning process with said software.
Should I be shooting in RAW 100% of the time? What is the learning curve for shooting in RAW and editing with photoshop? I am open to any and all advice or tips including adjusting settings with the camera for shooting the best RAW photos, mostly of my children and landscapes, and beginning to work with photoshop.

Please help!

Hi there, Adam. Welcome to Nikonites. Congrats on the new camera. I'm sure you'll make good use of it.

In answer to your question about shooting in RAW:

Will you be using your photos to earn income? Most certainly use RAW.
Will you be blowing up a lot of images to have printed and hang on the wall? Absolutely use RAW.
Just taking a lot of shots of children for the family album? Landscapes? Nature shots for your own enjoyment? Stick to JPG!

Remember.....these are my opinions and mine alone. Others will certainly disagree and/or have alternate opinions of shooting in RAW. By the way....there is NO earthly reason to spell raw with capitol letters! It is NOT an acronym for anything! It simply means the data collected to make the digital image is in its raw state before processing....either by the camera or other means.

Sound advice Jack...

You know I never realized that RAW didn't stand for anything in particular...thank you for educating me Jack...so now I am going to start calling it raw damn it!

Why not set your camera to raw+jpeg and shoot like that for a while, play around with the raw (nef) files and see how you go. Jack's advice is good and i'm sure most would agree.

Welcome and enjoy your D5100.

I shot a few pics in rAw then used ViewNX2 to convert them to jpg - didn't do much (read as any) post work on them before or after to be fair, as I'm no expert in the photoshops of this world (yet).

I took a few pics this morning in RaW and jpg, and if I get a few moments later, will do another conversion of the raW files and then see what they look like compared to the in camera conversion.
I think what will be interesting to see is what if any differences exist in the two conversion types, whether I can even spot them, and also, whether the differences are significant enough to make me decide RAw over jpg and do conversions on a PC, or just go straight to jpg's.

Maybe when my photography skills have improved a little to lot more, I will understand the need to have raw more then jpg's to work with, but until then, I think I might just revert back to letting my camera do all the conversions for me

Thank you for informing me that it is just raw. Now it looks like I'm screaming it in my post... I will be enlarging some of the family prints and I would like the option to go back through some of my photos and have the ability to really enhance them if I wanted to. I don't want to be limited or regret not shooting in raw and storage space is not an issue at this time. I like the idea of shooting in raw + jpeg.
Like most noobies I have read some of Ken Rockwells material and took most of it with a grain of salt. I have adjusted some of my settings to a little more saturation and sharpness. Do these adjustments only affect jpeg or does it also influence raw?

Sharpness / Contrast / Brightness settings are generally for the .JPG setting. These are a bit of a compromise in that you havent got a vast leeway in how much you can apply or detract. RAW will give you almost infinite adjustments in comparison. Another reason for RAW shooting ( there are many more ) is the ability to adjust the white balance in software after the shot has been taken.