Hi Nic many thanks for the feedback, good to know that I'm on the right track.
You are very right, I was shooting in custom mode, black and white in jpeg. I have since changed to colour, as my daughter also pointed out that I can always change it to black and white in the camera or Photoshop cs2. I will try to shoot in raw and jpeg and see if that makes a difference and have a look at conversion software.
Many thanks for all the advice, I'm really enjoying using my G12 and getting alot out of it.
Best wishes
Kev