Camera Settings for 20D with DPP

Duffy Pratt

I've got a 20D and I have been shooting JPGs. I'm switching to RAW and plan on using Digital Photo Professional for conversions, at least at the start. The 20D has two preset parameters for shooting, and allows you to create your own settings. There are four variables: Contrast, Sharpness, Saturation, and Color Tone.

Which settings should I use if I want to leave myself the most flexibility straight out of the camera? Here's what I think, but could easily be wrong:
Contrast -- as low as possible, I want to set my own endpoints; Sharpness -- again as low as possible, unless the lowest settings actually do an in-camera blur (which is kind of hard to believe); Saturation -- not sure but I would thing that the normal setting would be fine; and Color Tone -- again Normal should be fine, but I'm not sure.

I'd prefer not to have to do a bunch of testing on this, so I appreciate any input you all have to offer. Thanks.

Duffy

Tee Why

All those things are for JPEG. Adjustting those will affect the LCD image on your camera while reviewing, but when you look at the RAW image on DPP on your computer, no saturation, contrast, sharpening, or whatnot will have been added.

wxwax

Roger that.

FWIW, DPP seems to display a warmer RAW image than Photoshop. Not to worry, though, what you see is what you get.

Duffy Pratt

When DPP displays a file, it uses the internal Canon settings. They haven't altered the RAW data, but they are used as a recipe that sits on top of that data. So what you first see is the same as what you would see in a JPG.

The question, I guess, is which Parameter setting would allow me to retain the most flexibility with a straight move into Photoshop, while doing the least amount of manipulation possible in the RAW module (maybe White Balance, and thats about it)?

Duffy

Tee Why

If you are going to adjust the contrast, saturation, curves/levels anyway, it's just moving the slider a bit in my view, so I don't think one setting would be any better than another on DPP if you shoot RAW.

The 20D has parameters while the newest DPP has picture styles, so I don't know if the JPEG setting will or will not transfer automatically over to DPP, perhaps Standard as both the 20D and the DPP picture style have that.

wxwax

Duffy Pratt wrote:

When DPP displays a file, it uses the internal Canon settings. They haven't altered the RAW data, but they are used as a recipe that sits on top of that data. So what you first see is the same as what you would see in a JPG.

The question, I guess, is which Parameter setting would allow me to retain the most flexibility with a straight move into Photoshop, while doing the least amount of manipulation possible in the RAW module (maybe White Balance, and thats about it)?

Duffy

I believe that when you shunt it over to PS, it becomes a TIFF. No longer a RAW file. (My experience may be distorted because I only have CS and no raw plug-in for the 5D, hence my use of DPP.)

If I'm right, then you lose flexibility the moment you transfer it to PS. So you'd want to do your RAW manipulation before tranferring it.

Am I failing to understand something, here?

Jeffro

Duffy Pratt wrote:

When DPP displays a file, it uses the internal Canon settings. They haven't altered the RAW data, but they are used as a recipe that sits on top of that data. So what you first see is the same as what you would see in a JPG. Duffy

When you shoot RAW with the 20D you will get a jpg preview on your LCD, but when you open the RAW in DPP it will not look like the jpg you saw on your LCD. The LCD image will be shown with the parameters you had set, at least it looks that way to me.

If you shoot RAW + jpg you will see the difference, and I would suggest you try that before you shoot just RAW.

Cha-ching.......2-cents!

claudermilk

For the RAW file itself the Parameters and Color Space settings have no meaning.

The preview on the LCD will use the current Parameters settings.

AFAIK DPP does read those and use them as a baseline, all other RAW converters ignore them. I don't use DPP, so might be wrong, but this is what I've heard.

For myself, I set everything flat (IIRC Parameter set 1) and sRGB when shooting RAW. When switching to JPEG, I'll jump over to set 2 for a bit more punch.