What picture style.

[Simon Wantling]

Hi, I was wondering whether you had an opinion on what picture style is best when photographing wildlife in raw format. I tend to keep mine in standard but s that the best option.

Thanks

[arash_hazeghi]

Picture Style is not really relevant if you shoot in RAW. Only Canon DPP can read and apply the PS setting that you choose at the time of capture and you can easily change it during conversion, regardless of the in-camera settings.

[Mike Milicia]

As Arash pointed out, the Picture Style setting has no effect on the content of the RAW file. However, it does affect the embedded jpeg from which the histogram is built.
Many recommend creating a user-defined Picture Style with reduced Contrast in an attempt to make the histogram a better representation of the RAW file content.

[arash_hazeghi]

As Arash pointed out, the Picture Style setting has no effect on the content of the RAW file. However, it does affect the embedded jpeg from which the histogram is built.
Many recommend creating a user-defined Picture Style with reduced Contrast in an attempt to make the histogram a better representation of the RAW file content.

very good points. I forgot to mention for this reason I prefer to set mine to neutral so I can judge the images better when looking at the rear LCD.

[Markus Jais]

I set mine to standard but don't care too much as I only shoot raw and then convert them in Lightroom 4. It does not - unlike DPP - apply any picture style settings to the RAW files - at least not that I know of.
Some with White Balance. I almost always just leave it as sunny and do everything in LR 4.

Markus

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

I use DPP so whatever I set as picture style gets automatically applied to the RAW files. I like the natural colors that Neutral delivers but it lacks punch. I have created a customized version of neutral style with color tone 2, increased sharpness and increased color sat.

Mike's advice is great. I second that. I think I have highlight set to -1 and contrast also to -1 to make sure I am not misled by the blinkies/ histogram. Esp. because I always try to expose as much to the right as possible.

This delivers a base good true image as a starting point. Then I usually play with the sliders, curves, WB etc. based on what the image needs. After work, most images look different...as they should. But I believe my picture style delivers a good starting point.

With any other picture style...standard, portrait, landscape...I dont find the colors very true. I used to use them but always ended up doing more work in post to get the colors right. In my early days, 3 yrs back, I used to get many comments on forums about colors in my images but not that many any more.

[Charles Glatzer]

As Arash pointed out, the Picture Style setting has no effect on the content of the RAW file. However, it does affect the embedded jpeg from which the histogram is built.
Many recommend creating a user-defined Picture Style with reduced Contrast in an attempt to make the histogram a better representation of the RAW file content.

Yup.

Chas

[Simon Wantling]

Sorry for the late reply. Thanks for all the great advise. I shoot in raw and process in Lightroom 4 but have recently been dabbling with DPP. I'm not sure on this method yet and struggling to get on with it. How many actually use DPP these days? Is it seen to be equal to Lightroom etc.

[arash_hazeghi]

Sorry for the late reply. Thanks for all the great advise. I shoot in raw and process in Lightroom 4 but have recently been dabbling with DPP. I'm not sure on this method yet and struggling to get on with it. How many actually use DPP these days? Is it seen to be equal to Lightroom etc.

This was discussed in depth in another thread recently.

[John Chardine]

Hi Simon- I'll give you my perspective on this. I have given Lr a fair trial and have looked at version 4 too. I know it is widely used by photographers but for me it tries to do too many things, and IMHO doesn't do many of them very well. The idea of an "all-in-one" program for managing digital assets, developing raw images and post processing is compelling but my approach has been to use two separate programs, and now three, to accomplish these three key tasks. Incidentally, the deal-breaker for me with Lr was rather simple, some would say trivial: we ask that people posting to BPN critique forums also post the techs to the image. In Lr you can of course bring up the techs in a little side window but can you select, copy and paste these techs into BPN- NO! Not even in version 4.

Currently I use three programs that are well integrated- Photo Mechanic (5 beta) for digital asset management, DPP for raw development, and Photoshop for post-processing. I had looked at DPP many times and found it slow and clunky on Macs. The latest version is much better and with the addition of Digital Lens Optimiser (DLO), is clearly the best raw developer for Canon raw images. You can easily test this for yourself by processing two images, one with Lr and one with DPP, making sure to turn off sharpening and NR in both. Then when you add the superior (capture) sharpening or DLO in DPP, plus the other features that DLO gives you, it is a great performer.

[Simon Wantling]

Hi Simon- I'll give you my perspective on this. I have given Lr a fair trial and have looked at version 4 too. I know it is widely used by photographers but for me it tries to do too many things, and IMHO doesn't do many of them very well. The idea of an "all-in-one" program for managing digital assets, developing raw images and post processing is compelling but my approach has been to use two separate programs, and now three, to accomplish these three key tasks. Incidentally, the deal-breaker for me with Lr was rather simple, some would say trivial: we ask that people posting to BPN critique forums also post the techs to the image. In Lr you can of course bring up the techs in a little side window but can you select, copy and paste these techs into BPN- NO! Not even in version 4.

Currently I use three programs that are well integrated- Photo Mechanic (5 beta) for digital asset management, DPP for raw development, and Photoshop for post-processing. I had looked at DPP many times and found it slow and clunky on Macs. The latest version is much better and with the addition of Digital Lens Optimiser (DLO), is clearly the best raw developer for Canon raw images. You can easily test this for yourself by processing two images, one with Lr and one with DPP, making sure to turn off sharpening and NR in both. Then when you add the superior (capture) sharpening or DLO in DPP, plus the other features that DLO gives you, it is a great performer.

Thanks for your reply John. I took a look at DPP yesterday with the DLO module and I have to say I'm pretty impressed. It certainly processes my images from the 7D and 100-400mm combination better. The most apparent is the reduction in noise. Also, after using the DLO module, the images were pretty sharp. I'll certainly keep looking at that. Thanks for the advice.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Simon, in DPP you have luminance NR and chroma NR. The chroma NR is pretty good but I stay away from luminance NR. It removes details. Better to do selective NR( on background for example) on resized JPG using some other program.

You can go into options and set the default luminance NR to 0. If you don't do that, then based on ISO, DPP can use some non-zero default value and apply it to the image without you even noticing it.