What Parameter Settings Do You Use?

[GovtLawyer]

I've been using my Rebel XT with the Parameter 1 setting. On some of the photos of my cats it appears as if the color is a bit too strong. SInce I will be taking pro shots of pets, I have a set 1 with one stop plus on contrast and sharpness and neutral for color. Of course, I'll be shooting in RAW plus JPEG, so the parameters really don't matter, unless I get good jpegs right out of the camera.

What parameter settings do you people use and why?

[Leigh]

I shoot RAW, Parameter 2, because I prefer post-processing rather than in-camera (20D).

I do, however, have a custom Parameter Set with only the Contrast setting backed fully "off" which serves to help in keeping the highlights from being blown out when there are extremely bright objects in the scene.

By the way, the Parameters do effect RAW files, on the 20D at least, so it does matter.

Leigh

[Poco]

I assume that you are refering to the sharpening parameter affecting RAW files? From what I can tell using DPP with the CR2 from the Rebel XT, all the "color" parameters can be adjusted after the fact.

The "Contrast" setting affects the "Tone curve property:" in DPP. You can change it if you select "Custom" instead of "Shot Settings".

The "Saturation" and "Color tone" settings affect the "Color adjustment" in DPP. If you select the Custom option in DPP you can change the Hue (Color tone) and Saturation.

You will notice with Contrast, Saturation, and Color tone that if you change the manual settings above and select the same "notch" (they are all sliders with 5 notches, just like the in-camera settings) as you have it set in the camera that Custom will give you exactly the same results as choosing "Shot Settings".

I don't know about the "Sharpness". Logically I imagine that it would modify the RAW pixels, and there is no where to change it in DPP, so I suspect that it will change your RAW. This is also something that can easily be done in PS so should perhaps be set to 0?

I can only assume that someone at Canon thought that the default "Parameter 1" settings were good. That is what gets used in the Auto modes. I still use it because I haven't played around with it much and only the sharpness is likely to change your RAW pixels.

[Curtis N]

I don't know about the "Sharpness". Logically I imagine that it would modify the RAW pixels, and there is no where to change it in DPP, so I suspect that it will change your RAW.
With DPP, you set the sharpness setting when you save a s JPEG or TIFF, so I doubt that the sharpness setting in the camera would change the RAW file.

I'm not an expert on this though, so I hope to hear from someone who is.

[tzalman]

Curtis is right, none of the camera parameters change the Raw data, including sharpness. They merely inform the converter what to use as its default (as shot) settings. It's a bit strange that some Canon SW designer chose to put the sharpening selector on the Save window rather than on the Raw editing GUI where it is in every other converter I've seen.

[Curtis N]

It's a bit strange that some Canon SW designer chose to put the sharpening selector on the Save window rather than on the Raw editing GUI where it is in every other converter I've seen.
I agree, because this arrangement would seem to prevent batch processing of groups of files where you want to set the sharpness individually. Unless I'm missing something.