Picture Control options (Nikon DSLR)

[Bletch]

Hi guys.
I noticed some of my photos lack a bit of something. I'm thinking this is maybe because I haven't messed around with the picture control options.
So then I stumbled upon an article by Ken Rockwell where he talked about the various settings (saturation, sharpness) you can change for portrait, landscape etc. The thing is, I'm not sure if this is good advice as some of the stuff I was reading, I didn't really want to follow.

Roughly what picture control settings do you use for your camera? - outdoor portrait and landscape would be my main interests.

Thanks for your time

 

[redhed17]

I don't know what Mr R has written on his site because I try not give the BS artist any traffic. That said, without reading what he has written about Picture Controls specifically, not everything on his site is cr*p. Just a lot of it.

Firstly, if you shoot in the RAW format Picture Controls make no difference to the Jpeg image that can be derived from the RAW file.

If I were shooting Jpegs I would be going through the settings in my camera to get the image as close to perfect coming out of the camera as possible. The less drastic image editing you can do in the computer the better. The manual may tell you what effect each Picture Control has, but there is nothing better than experimenting to see what works for you. Nikon has a microsite here to take you through what they do.

If you are always editing the same things to every image then I would try and get some settings in the camera to make the changes at source. Some people like the images looking more Vivid coming out of the camera, because they just like bright vivid images. Some people like things a bit more Natural. :shrug: Luckily the options are there to get the images closer to what you want.

The changes can sometimes be subtle, but can adapted by the user.

Set up a situation with a lot of bright colours in, reds, greens, blues and yellows and experiment with the different Picture Controls. And take some pictures of your normal subject type and see what difference the Picture Controls make. :shrug: If one of the preset Picture Controls is close to perfect, then you can normally make changes to get get closer to what you want.

Of course it helps if you can put your finger on what the little bit of something you think your pictures are lacking.

 

[Bletch]

Hi redhed17
Thanks for taking time to help out. I've only been shooting JPGs. and have also been changing most photos in Photoshop (contrast mainly, I'm no pro with this software though) Maybe I'll make a few minor changes to saturation & sharpness within camera to see if it prevents me from messing about with my photos later. I just want everything a bit more vivid, I think. Thanks for the Nikon link - off to have a read.

 

[ams99]

Just wondering, why do people have such a downer on KR.

One thing i have learned from his site is that i can take just as crap pictures with a really expensive camera. Therefore i will stick with my D5000.