Sharpness and Contrast Camera settings

RF
Posted By
Robert_F_Carruth
Apr 6, 2004
Views
180
Replies
6
Status
Closed
After over a year of mainly point and shoot with my Olympus D-550 I decided it was time to understand and use some of the override options. (White Balance for cloudy sky really helped in Challenge 11.) I can get a couple of stops +/-, change to spot metering, lock the ISO. These I understand.

However, the explanation of Sharpness and Contrast don’t make sense to me. For Sharpness adjustment I have hard, normal (default) and soft which effects outlines. The manual says to use Soft (outlines not strongly emphasized) WHEN YOU WANT TO EDIT IMAGES ON A PC. For Contrast, high, normal (default), and low (Light and shadows are less defined and the image becomes softer). Use low WHEN YOU WANT TO EDIT IMAGES ON A PC.

Of course I’m going to experiment but does it make any sense to reduce Sharpness and Contrast if I’m going to use Elements to edit? (See not completely OT.)

All thoughts appreciated.

Bob
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BB
Barbara_Brundage
Apr 6, 2004
Hi, Bob. I think you’ve been using PE long enough to know that when working in PE you want to save the unsharp mask for the last step and not apply it repeatedly–no doubt you’ve seen what happens to your photos when you use USM more than once or make other adjustments after applying it.

Well, your camera is doing the same kind of processing within the camera when it records your photos. So the theory is that if you want the most control over your images when working on them in PS/PE, you should leave it at the Soft (ie, un-processed) setting in-camera to avoid the possibility of the kind of noise and image degradation that can come from applying these commands repeatedly.

Particularly when shooting in RAW, a lot of people would rather make ALL the adjustments manually on the computer.

(This varies a bit from camera to camera, BTW. I have a dimage A1 and the manual implies that there is actually softening processing going on within the camera if I choose Soft instead of normal, but there’s some debate over whether or not it really does that.)

Most consumer digicams are set up to apply quite a bit of saturation, contrast and sharpening in-camera by default. That’s one reason so many people are surprised by how "flat" the pictures are that they get from the default settings on prosumer/DSLR cameras-they’re not used to photos that haven’t been worked on quite a bit in the camera. It was one thing that bugged me quite a bit about my s400–everything was always so technicolor with it. With the A1 I can make that call.
RF
Robert_F_Carruth
Apr 6, 2004
Barbara,

Actually I just discovered the USM rule (last and once) the other day but I do see now how it can really ruin a shot used wrong.

Thank you! Now it makes sense. I just assumed that default was the least processing. The disadvantage with the D-550 is that settings reset on shutdown is an all or nothing choice. To keep soft and low active between sessions I’ll have to be very careful about resetting the others to default before I close the lens cover. A lot of my interest is in nature and targets of opportunity don’t give much time for anything but open and shoot.

Off to try the settings on some Crocus. They don’t run or fly away.

Bob
DN
DS_Nelson
Apr 6, 2004
Barbara, how do you like your Dimage A1 so far? I just bought one a couple weeks ago. So far I love it, but I’ve barely scratched the surface of all the manual settings. I have a lot of learning ahead of me.
BB
Barbara_Brundage
Apr 6, 2004
I like it more and more every day–it’s a wonderful camera! But you are right–there’s SO much to learn on it. It’s not a camera that is friendly to using as a point-and-shoot, that’s for sure. I just try to tackle one more setting each day.

Here <http://www.pbase.com/klaudio/faq#Ax> is a terrific FAQ site for the Dimage Ax series that you might want to bookmark. I found it enormously helpful, as is the minolta talk forum over at dpreview.com.
DN
DS_Nelson
Apr 6, 2004
Thanks for the link, Barbara. I’ve added it to my collection.

Actually, I’m doubly handicapped. I found a good deal on Photoshop CS, and installed that around the same time I bought the camera. So, I have two very complex toys to learn at the same time. Sometimes I feel like a six-month old baby trying to absorb a college physics textbook!
RF
Robert_F_Carruth
Apr 7, 2004
Update:

Took my test shots both with sharpness and contrast set as recommended above and identical with default settings. What a difference! Barbara, as you said the colors don’t have that technicolor look and the edits I make produce a much better rendition. Thanks again for a very clear answer.

Bob

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