Picture Control...

A

alfaholic

Banned
I am shooting RAW, without noise reduction, auto distortion control, and Active D-Lighting. My picture control is set to neutral in the camera and in Lightroom and Camera Raw defaults as well.
The idea was to get clean, unprocessed raw files that looks the same on the camera display and on the computer screen, and that is working well so far.
My photos looks dull and boring strait from the camera, but I do not care because I edit all of them.

Now I am thinking about picture control, maybe is better to use standard in camera and in Lightroom and Camera Raw by default.
Is that changes something other than my starting point regarding contrast and saturation?
What are your thoughts?
 
BackdoorArts

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
If you want a starting point that looks like the jpg preview you get from the back of the camera then by all means don't hesitate starting with Nikon Neutral as you Camera Profile. There's no right or wrong - it's your image and your edit - so if you're more comfortable starting at that point then that's what you should do. Some profiles are better for certain types of shots than others, so if Neutral doesn't do it you can always scroll through a couple others until you see something that gives you the look you want, or were expecting.

For me, if I am unsure about the look of the imported file I'll always click on the "Auto" button and see what it gives me, and while I almost always think that over-exposes the shot, I have a different starting point to tweak from.
 
L

LensWork

Senior Member
Only Nikon software can read Picture Control settings shot in raw (NEF). If you open NEF files in non-Nikon software, any Picture Controls settings will not be applied.
 
Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
LensWork said:
Only Nikon software can read Picture Control settings shot in raw (NEF). If you open NEF files in non-Nikon software, any Picture Controls settings will not be applied.
Click to expand...
Yup... Pretty much this. ... ^^^^^

Just to reiterate, only Nikon software will recognize "Picture Control" settings as applied to NEF files. Aperture, Photoshop, Lightroom, et al. do not. So if you shoot only RAW, you can forget about those settings entirely, assuming you're using something other than Nikon software to do your post processing.


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Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
alfaholic said:
Yes, Camera Calibration - Profiles.
Click to expand...
Those settings (Vivid, Landscape, Neutral, etc.) are Nikon configured "Presets"; but they do not offer the same control as making adjustments in Picture Control Settings. In fact, you'll get Canon "Presets" if you're using a Canon camera. So yes, you can apply those Presets to a RAW file (even by default if you want) but it's not the same thing as applying Picture Control options to a RAW file.

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A

alfaholic

Banned
I do not edit Picture Control presets while shooting, so if I use Natural in my camera and make Neutral as a default option in Lightroom I will have the same starting position. For example, if I decide to keep photos because of the results on my display, the same photos will look the same in my computer.
My questions was about that starting position, do you think it is better to stick with Neutral because it looks natural and almost the same as scene I am shooting, or maybe use Standard as my starting position because it looks more like my edited photos?
 
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