The issue is that, unlike sharpening and saturation, which you can just add later, contrast needs to be "correct" to get maximum dynamic range and information in your shot - set it too high and you blow out highlights and shadows, too low and you lose fine detail in midtones (easily seen from enlargement in Photoshop).
Even when shooting in raw, the histogram will (presumably) reflect your chosen parameter setting, and it is hard to set exposure to allow room for postprocessing of contrast such that the range will just be full, not too much or too little - you are basing your exposure on your preset.
so which setting (low, normal, high) really captures the most dymanic range from the sensor, i.e., how does RAW capture the data? In JPEG, you just set it for high on low contrast scenes, and low in high contrast scenes, then expose to fill the histogram....but is there a "least manipulated" setting for JPEG contrast?
Check out http://www.robgalbraith.com …bb=get_topic&f=8&t=001478
for the complete discussion......
