Question about Camera Contrast

Hi,

I have a question about the contrast. Most of my photographs taken with my rebel xti look dull and I have to boost the contrast in photoshop to look brighter and more natural.

Is there any settings availble in camera to achieve the better contrast and brighter pictures?

I use no external flash. I increased the contrast in camera but i see no difference with it.

appreciate your suggestions to overcome this problem.

Canon Rebel Xti
28-135 IS lens

Perhaps your experience has been with P&S cameras up until now. They do boost some settings in camera to give pix more "pop." Not uncommon for a first time user of an SLR to complain of a lack of pop. As long as you can get what you want in photoshop, feel good about the results. Different picture styles can give you more pop out of the camera.

Yeah picture styles are great, canon actually offers a piece of software that gives you the ability to download additional ones (as opposed to standard, portrait, landscape, etc)
you also have the ability to set user defined picture styles, give it a try its in the menu and you'll be amazed of how you can paint your camera.
heres the link
http://web.canon.jp …g/picturestyle/​index.html

Also on a side note, if your finding your pictures lack brightness pay closer attention to your light meter and check your histogram to confirm proper exposure, don't be fooled into thinking your LCD is an accurate representation of brightness because its really not, I mean after all the LCD brightness is adjustable.
Hope this helps! Have fun and good luck!

Contrast and value range have a lot to do with how you expose. If your images are turning out dark, dull, and devoid of lots of tone.....then it's an indication that you're underexposing. I notice with my XTi, I normally have EC set a +1. There's no easy way to say what exact settings to set as each situation is different. But an understanding of how to get the best exposure in camera is key.

I usually shoot with a custom profile, where I have contrast set to +1, and Saturation set to +1.

Now I always shoot RAW, which means that if these defaults are bad, I can change them in DPP before I make the JPGs. But in general, I find that these settings give me pics straight out of the camera that I like better than the defaults.

I do default the EC to +1/3 also, just to brighten them up a bit. Watch the highlights though!