Canon Picture Styles

Bambi72

Bambi72

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Ok, this maybe a dumb question, but they are often the best ones.
With Canon DSLR's you have various different picture styles which effect colour, sharpness etc. of the image.
Are these only applied when you shoot jpegs, or do they effect the image recorded in RAW?
 
Bambi72 said:
Ok, this maybe a dumb question, but they are often the best ones.
With Canon DSLR's you have various different picture styles which effect colour, sharpness etc. of the image.
Are these only applied when you shoot jpegs, or do they effect the image recorded in RAW?
Click to expand...

Yes. Though if you shoot Raw, the LCD image is a small JPEG tagged to the Raw file and that shows whatever pictures styles effects set. This JPEG also drives the histogram and blinkies. But these settings are not recorded on the Raw.

I believe that the only in-camera presets applied to Canon Raw files are ISO, obviously, and Highlight Tone Priority.
 
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If you use canon dpp software and shoot RAW the software will automatically apply the style you set in camera.

However you can also unselect, tweak or change the style too.
 
Phil V said:
If you use canon dpp software and shoot RAW the software will automatically apply the style you set in camera.

However you can also unselect, tweak or change the style too.
Click to expand...

I have 140+ styles download from a site that I can no longer find :)
 
I'd usually shoot in Neutral to capture a 'flat' photograph with subtle contrasts rather than dramatic as I prefer to do that myself during post production. If you shoot in RAW however, picture styles can be edited after you've shot & thats often a decent way to gauge which styles you prefer :}
 
IamAshlyRose said:
I'd usually shoot in Neutral to capture a 'flat' photograph with subtle contrasts rather than dramatic as I prefer to do that myself during post production. If you shoot in RAW however, picture styles can be edited after you've shot & thats often a decent way to gauge which styles you prefer :}
Click to expand...

That's good info. I got a trial version of lightroom 4 and saw that. Today wail shooting I started to mess with it a bit on my slr but had to many other things to figure out so I stopped. I didn't think about the fact I can just go apply them and see what I like and how they effect the outcome. Seems pretty obvious now that you point it out. Thanks :)

Oh what did you mean by "flat" in your pictured?
 
shaylou said:
Oh what did you mean by "flat" in your pictured?
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:} & The more you mess the more you can learn!

By "flat" I meant not much contrast.
Dramatic shadows & highlights can be introduced when changing the picture style. When shooting in Neutral it doesn't add that contrast to the shadows & highlights which takes out that depth. I used the word 'flat' just to describe the opposite to depth if that makes sense?

I always then add my own contrasts afterwards in Post Production to give some depth rather than leaving the photograph looking 'flat'. I hope I've helped? hahaha.
 
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When i shoot RAW i like to use a custom picture style for the previews, i bump up the saturation, contrast and sharpening by 2 points. They are the main edits i make, so it shows me what the image is likely to look like when processed
 
redhed17 said:
I use a Neutral Picture style to also give me a more accurate Histogram. ;)
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Contrast setting shifts the histogram more than anything else, or rather it stretches it. But you'll get more highlight headroom, and blinkies are activated later, with contrast turned down.
 
This is interesting stuff, just trying to work with these now :) Does anyone have a link to picture style settings so I can edit them on the camera without downloading and plugging into PC?
 
Not had this camera long so not really had a go at editing these settings. Usually just leave it in standard, yet am I best using other settings? Mostly shoot nature photos, including plants, trees, landscapes and some animals (mostly birds).

I 99% of the time shoot RAW and use aperture 3 on my MBA to edit the photos to my personal tastes.

Due to that, would shooting "faithful" or "neutral" (whatever its called) be a better bet?
 
James J said:
Not had this camera long so not really had a go at editing these settings. Usually just leave it in standard, yet am I best using other settings? Mostly shoot nature photos, including plants, trees, landscapes and some animals (mostly birds).

I 99% of the time shoot RAW and use aperture 3 on my MBA to edit the photos to my personal tastes.

Due to that, would shooting "faithful" or "neutral" (whatever its called) be a better bet?
Click to expand...

If you're shooting in the RAW format, and not processing using the Canon software, then any Picture Style changes are ignored as far as the data recorded is concerned, because other processing software takes no notice of what Picture Style was used. The Canon Digital Picture Professional software would recreate Picture Style used by the camera when displaying the RAW file, but allow you to change settings.

The Picture Style will affect the accuracy of the Histogram, should you use it, because the Histogram, and the review image, are derived from the RAW file + Picture Style settings, which is why the RAW files can sometimes look a bit flat when opened in a 3rd party processing software.

If you shoot in Jpeg, then you may want to experiment with the Picture Styles to see if they have a positive effect on your images. You could start with a Landscape Picture Style, judging from what you say you shoot, but all the Picture Styles can be customised if not quite right.
 
Is there a custom function that would force the camera to take each shot in the styles of my choosing without having to change the style for each one?

Also, on the picture style settings, in each case it looks like the only value that changes is the sharpness number, the others are all set at '0', however, the different styles (downloaded from Canon's website) produce vastly different colours...Is there a part of the style which is a hidden editable item?
 
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