Contrast, saturation settings

[oslermarine]

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Hi everyone, I'm new to the forum. Quick question, what do you guys set for the contrast, saturation? Thanks

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[Rick]

Welcome to the forum.

 

Most of us shoot RAW (DNG) and set these in post processing in, for example, LightRoom. If, this is your question, then I set the saturation often down to -10 and contrast is dependent on how I feel the photograph should look. To be honest, it can be all over the place. If, it is a portrait I could be very conservative. If, I am printing, super saturated settings often look bad to my eye. If, it is for screen, I often crank up the settings to get a certain look that doesn't go over in a print. It is all up to you. No right or wrong answers, obviously.

 

If, you are setting them in the camera they are applied to the cameras JPEGs. Set them to how you like your photos to turn out. This may change depending on subject matter and lighting and your artistic license.

 

Rick

[Dannybuoy]

Not shot jpg on my M so the various settings in camera have no effect on dng files. But when in Lightroom I probably add a smidge of contrast to most photos. Adding saturation is only very occasional. Possibly some desaturation at times. The M usually knocks out files that need only a small amount of post. Hope that helps

[oslermarine]

Thanks guys, yea I meant in camera setting but I guess it's only for JPEG so nvm. Do you guys use custom white balance with a card or do you use auto? Their patch was supposed to improve the auto WB

[Guest redge]

Thanks guys, yea I meant in camera setting but I guess it's only for JPEG so nvm. Do you guys use custom white balance with a card or do you use auto? Their patch was supposed to improve the auto WB

 

Hey, if you look at the menu, you'll find that in addition to Auto, there are seven other settings for various lighting conditions plus setting white balance from a card plus setting your own colour temperature.

 

Cheers

[jaapv]

Thanks guys, yea I meant in camera setting but I guess it's only for JPEG so nvm. Do you guys use custom white balance with a card or do you use auto? Their patch was supposed to improve the auto WB

Depends on the light. With normal lighting conditions the AWB is pretty good, but I always tweak it to myb taste.. With indoor mixed light I prefer a greycard setting. It looks horrendous, but it gives a perfect neutral starting point to develop the image.

I find it essential to have a good profile in Photoshop (or Lightroom or C1 ) too. Even then I will often move the red hue slider a tad to the right and desaturate red a bit .

[jaapv]

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But all this is of not much use if you do not have your colour management on the rails.

 

1. Calibrate your monitor!!

2. Preferably use a monitor that is built for photo editing and can display Adobe RGB. In practice that means an NEC Spectraview or Eizo GC.

Other screens can be expensive and good, but are built for other uses. Apple, for instance, is more aimed at graphic designers.

3. Calibrate your monitor.

4 Use the correct colourspace. If you are not very experienced I would recommend Adobe RGB. Otherwise Prophoto RGB. Never drop down into sRGB unless you absolutely have to, for instance for web display or for third party use if you are not sure they can handle wider colourspaces. Once you have converted to sRGB you have lost the colour gamut of the wider space and it cannot be recovered.

5. Use 16 bits unless your editing software demands 8 bits.

6. Did I mention this before?: Calibrate your monitor.

 

Points 4 and 5 are handled automatically by Lightroom.

 

All this presupposes you use DNG. The RGB output of your camera is far less flexible.

 

Printing is another matter. Nowadays you can let your printer handle colour, using the profiles provided by the paper manufacturer.

[rirakuma]

^Strongly agree with the above. Monitor calibration is invaluable and it would be a waste of time correcting colour and contrast on an off monitor. Back to your original question, I like to adjust contrast using curves rather than the slider. This can also affect your saturation. The saturation slider is probably the last setting I use in post and its usually no more than 10.

[Guest redge]

I'd like to suggest that there are practical issues about monitor calibration that are not always taken into account in these discussions.

 

I own an Eizo monitor with calibration hardware and software, but it is currently 1600 miles away.

 

I travel a good deal and the reality is that for the last two months I have had to process photos, at least for upload to the internet, with a 15" MacBook Pro (late 2013) and sometimes with a retina iPad.

 

Lately, I have been able to compare photos uploaded to sites on the internet, especially Twitter and Tumblr, on a 30" Dell, my 15" MacBook, a retina iPad, a non-retina iPad Mini and the latest iPhone. The reality is that the images look different on these various devices, and if anything what I have learned is that images processed on my retina MacBook need to be punched up a bit to have "presence" on some other screens.

 

Tomorrow, I am going to pick up locally a copy of i1Display Pro to calibrate my MacBook, but the reality is that I am not convinced that it is going to make a practical difference on how my images are seen on the internet. I'm only buying it because I want to upgrade the hardware/software calibration on my Eizo, which I use for printing.

 

I think that it is arguable that if one is mostly posting images to the internet, the key is to have access to a variety of devices and displays, and that calibration software is a waste of money.

 

As someone moving from analogue to digital, tomorrow I shall also be purchasing a card to facilitate custom white balance. However, my read on this issue is that going this route may work in fewer circumstances than the proponents suggest, and may actually be a bad idea in many lighting situations. In other words, maybe the best case for these cards is a situation where one is using more than one camera that need to be synchronized. In any event, I am about to find out, but I'm pretty skeptical.

[mirekti]

I have bought i1display pro, and a color checker. The difference in monitor display is huge!! The monitor was, as many regular monitors are, way on the blue side.

 

What confused me the most were the camera profiles which differed between Adobe's Dng profile editor and X-rite's color checker, but both made from the same dng. ???

 

Still, I guess this is either a sensor characteristc or a firmware code, I had to play with the red hue slider afterwards, and magenta hue slider in some flowers shots. I have a funky orange stroller for my boy, and the part in the shade turns red if I dont move red hue towards orange. I cannot explain it, but as if there is some sharp cut how camera renders it. I also had to move magenta hue in some photos as red suddenly turned pink.

 

All in all the colors are not great out of the box, and color checker and calibrated monitor will help a lot, yet not fully. I still belive Leica should tweek the firmware for better colors, but I'm affraid this will not happen.

[jaapv]

I must confess I am not really interested in going to all this trouble for internet display. As you remark justly results vary wildly between devices. In my book a photograph is a print.

I’d like to suggest that there are practical issues about monitor calibration that are not always taken into account in these discussions.

 

I own an Eizo monitor with calibration hardware and software, but it is currently 1600 miles away.

 

I travel a good deal and the reality is that for the last two months I have had to process photos, at least for upload to the internet, with a 15" MacBook Pro (late 2013) and sometimes with a retina iPad.

 

Lately, I have been able to compare photos uploaded to sites on the internet, especially Twitter and Tumblr, on a 30" Dell, my 15" MacBook, a retina iPad, a non-retina iPad Mini and the latest iPhone. The reality is that the images look different on these various devices, and if anything what I have learned is that images processed on my retina MacBook need to be punched up a bit to have "presence" on some other screens.

 

Tomorrow, I am going to pick up locally a copy of i1Display Pro to calibrate my MacBook, but the reality is that I am not convinced that it is going to make a practical difference on how my images are seen on the internet. I'm only buying it because I want to upgrade the hardware/software calibration on my Eizo, which I use for printing.

 

I think that it is arguable that if one is mostly posting images to the internet, the key is to have access to a variety of devices and displays, and that calibration software is a waste of money.

 

As someone moving from analogue to digital, tomorrow I shall also be purchasing a card to facilitate custom white balance. However, my read on this issue is that going this route may work in fewer circumstances than the proponents suggest, and may actually be a bad idea in many lighting situations. In other words, maybe the best case for these cards is a situation where one is using more than one camera that need to be synchronized. In any event, I am about to find out, but I'm pretty skeptical.

[jaapv]

In the end, the colour rendering we strive for is subjective. It took me a while to get used to the more muted colour rendering of the M. Now I prefer it. But then, in the past I preferred Agfa colours over Kodak slides and actively disliked Fujichrome.

I have bought i1display pro, and a color checker. The difference in monitor display is huge!! The monitor was, as many regular monitors are, way on the blue side.

 

What confused me the most were the camera profiles which differed between Adobe's Dng profile editor and X-rite's color checker, but both made from the same dng. ???

 

Still, I guess this is either a sensor characteristc or a firmware code, I had to play with the red hue slider afterwards, and magenta hue slider in some flowers shots. I have a funky orange stroller for my boy, and the part in the shade turns red if I dont move red hue towards orange. I cannot explain it, but as if there is some sharp cut how camera renders it. I also had to move magenta hue in some photos as red suddenly turned pink.

 

All in all the colors are not great out of the box, and color checker and calibrated monitor will help a lot, yet not fully. I still belive Leica should tweek the firmware for better colors, but I'm affraid this will not happen.

[01af]

...yeah I meant in-camera setting but I guess it's only for JPEG ...

I always use DNG+JPG format and turn the in-camera settings for sharpness, contrast, and saturation down to the lowest levels the menues provide.

 

 

Do you guys use custom white balance with a card or do you use auto?

I use the daylight preset usually, tungsten or fluorescent light presets occasionally, custom white-balance on a white or grey card rarely, and Auto WB never.

[CheshireCat]

Thanks guys, yea I meant in camera setting but I guess it's only for JPEG so nvm. Do you guys use custom white balance with a card or do you use auto? Their patch was supposed to improve the auto WB

 

White Balance is also only for JPEG. I find it more convenient to set WB in post.

[jaapv]

I find it quite useful to have a decent white balance out of camera as a neutral starting point. It saves time and fiddling in the raw converter.

[DigitalHeMan]

I must confess I am not really interested in going to all this trouble for internet display. As you remark justly results vary wildly between devices. In my book a photograph is a print.

 

 

I would agree with this completely. I have often processed images on a calibrated display, and then viewed the results on a Jon calibrated display (for example my work laptop) and been unhappy with the results. Given that the average Internet user doesn't calibrate his display either, I've realized that one processes photo is never going to be right for everyone (and lore to the point, most people don't care), so as long as it looks good on the screen I process it on, calibrated or not, I just go with that.

 

Printing images on the other hand I always make sure I have used a calibrated screen along with the appropriate profile for the paper that it will be printed on.

[Leonil]

But all this is of not much use if you do not have your colour management on the rails.

 

1. Calibrate your monitor!!

2. Preferably use a monitor that is built for photo editing and can display Adobe RGB. In practice that means an NEC Spectraview or Eizo GC.

Other screens can be expensive and good, but are built for other uses. Apple, for instance, is more aimed at graphic designers.

3. Calibrate your monitor.

4 Use the correct colourspace. If you are not very experienced I would recommend Adobe RGB. Otherwise Prophoto RGB. Never drop down into sRGB unless you absolutely have to, for instance for web display or for third party use if you are not sure they can handle wider colourspaces. Once you have converted to sRGB you have lost the colour gamut of the wider space and it cannot be recovered.

5. Use 16 bits unless your editing software demands 8 bits.

6. Did I mention this before?: Calibrate your monitor.

 

Points 4 and 5 are handled automatically by Lightroom.

 

All this presupposes you use DNG. The RGB output of your camera is far less flexible.

 

Printing is another matter. Nowadays you can let your printer handle colour, using the profiles provided by the paper manufacturer.

 

Assuming funds are limited - I got myself a IPS Dell monitor that cost a pretty penny. What are the methods to calibrate your monitor?

[DigitalHeMan]

Assuming funds are limited - I got myself a IPS Dell monitor that cost a pretty penny. What are the methods to calibrate your monitor?

 

 

Personally I use the http://www.xrite.com/i1display-pro - can't remember the exact cost, but I think around 150€/$

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[jto555]

I always use DNG+JPG format and turn the in-camera settings for sharpness, contrast, and saturation down to the lowest levels the menues provide.

 

 

I agree with the contrast been turned down low and I find that by turning the Sharpness up full it makes it easer to check for focus on the screen.

[ttheinz]

Assuming funds are limited - I got myself a IPS Dell monitor that cost a pretty penny. What are the methods to calibrate your monitor?

 

 

I use the Pantone Huey. Small, portable, inexpensive, and works well for me.

 

 

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