# Picture styles?



## DanCanon (Dec 18, 2008)

Does anyone use these at all.  I recently got a Canon XS and I noticed in the menu there are picture styles.  Standard,  Portrait, landscape, neutral, faithful, and monochrome.  Just wondering if anyone uses these and if so any pros/cons.  Thanks for the input.


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## majorpayne66 (Dec 18, 2008)




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## ksmattfish (Dec 19, 2008)

If you are shooting jpeg it's probably worth your while to go to the Canon website and read up on them.  There's not a lot of in-depth info, but they'll explain why you might want to pick one or the other, and they give some examples.  With some of the cameras you can also upload a few new pic modes that aren't already built in.

If you are shooting raw they are probably less important, although I sometimes like to set my in-camera processing so that the LCD reflects what I intend to do with the photo.  I shoot raw, and almost always leave my cameras in neutral pic mode.


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## Harmony (Dec 21, 2008)

Majorpayne66... this isn't a manual vs green box debate... so chill . You'll have to put the popcorn away for another day!

When I shoot JPEG, I use Standard. If you look at the differences between the different styles, they vary only on "sharpness". In fact, Neutral and Faithful have no settings at all! When I shoot RAW, I choose either Neutral or Faithful, so that the camera doesn't do anything to the photos at all. 

The picture styles are the Canon equivalent of Nikon's Vivid, etc etc. It's like very shallow Photoshop in camera - obviously it's better to do it yourself!


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## TwoRails (Dec 21, 2008)

DanCanon said:


> Does anyone use these at all. I recently got a Canon XS and I noticed in the menu there are picture styles. Standard, Portrait, landscape, neutral, faithful, and monochrome. Just wondering if anyone uses these and if so any pros/cons. Thanks for the input.


I use them but a lot of folks are embarrassed to say they use them.They are great for quick shots and learning.  I'm use to calling them "scenes"  and for one example, they helped me learn to take better snow shots.  Take a few in each mode and see what the camera does to take that kinda of photo.  One handy scene is "night portrait" if your camera has one.  It does in most cases do a pretty good job: no need to already know about slow shutter speeds, flash curtains, flash strength, and so on.  They are also very useful if you don't have time to try to set things up: just turn a dial and there ya go.

Try them out. See what works.  Learn and if you feel like setting up shots differently, you have a good starting point.

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majorpayne66 said:


>



Second vote for useless post of the day


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## Harmony (Dec 21, 2008)

TwoRails said:


> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
> 
> Second vote for useless post of the day




 Yeah! Somebody pm VillageIdiot!


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## DanCanon (Dec 21, 2008)

thanks for all the input.  I'm going to mess around with them a little bit and see what differences I can tell.  I'm pretty comfortable in Photoshop so I'd rather do any kind of color correction in there than letting the camera tweak the colors for me.  No one seems to have anything too bad to say so it's worth a shot.


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## majorpayne66 (Dec 21, 2008)

Harmony and Tworails,     If my little smiley face eating popcorn bothered you so much, you guys need to get a real life. In the grown up world we have better things to worry about.  All I was doing was bumping the post because I was interested in reading some replies. I am sorry you don&#8217;t have real lives. Grow up.


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## ksmattfish (Dec 21, 2008)

Harmony said:


> If you look at the differences between the different styles, they vary only on "sharpness".



Sharpness may be the only parameter you've noticed being adjusted, but if you read the descriptions at Canon USA you will see that there are actually some fairly significant things going on with color, contrast, and saturation, including selective saturation adjustments.  Use the Canon Picture Styles Editor to design your own.

Canon Picture Style

If your camera will show an rgb histogram you can shoot the same subject with the same exposure settings on different pic styles, and see how the channels change.


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## TwoRails (Dec 21, 2008)

majorpayne66 said:


> Harmony and Tworails,     If my little smiley face eating popcorn bothered you so much, you guys need to get a real life. In the grown up world we have better things to worry about.  All I was doing was bumping the post because I was interested in reading some replies. I am sorry you don&#8217;t have real lives. Grow up.


That's funny :lmao:  --  a bump on a 3 hour old thread...  Why not just post if you use scenes / styles or not?  That would have bumped it...


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## ksmattfish (Dec 22, 2008)

I took the popcorn eating smiley face to mean the poster was interested in reading some replies.


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## DanCanon (Dec 22, 2008)

ksmattfish said:


> I took the popcorn eating smiley face to mean the poster was interested in reading some replies.



Thats what I got out of it.




ksmattfish said:


> Sharpness may be the only parameter you've noticed being adjusted, but if you read the descriptions at Canon USA you will see that there are actually some fairly significant things going on with color, contrast, and saturation, including selective saturation adjustments.  Use the Canon Picture Styles Editor to design your own.
> 
> Canon Picture Style
> 
> If your camera will show an rgb histogram you can shoot the same subject with the same exposure settings on different pic styles, and see how the channels change.



Thanks for the Canon link, very useful in describing and showing examples of just how all the different picture styles work/look.  It's amazing what can be done in the camera, it's like a computer with a lens.


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## TwoRails (Dec 22, 2008)

ksmattfish said:


> I took the popcorn eating smiley face to mean the poster was interested in reading some replies.





DanCanon said:


> Thats what I got out of it...


Thanks for pointing that out.  I viewed it differently so it's good to see a different perspective.


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## majorpayne66 (Dec 22, 2008)

majorpayne66 said:


>


Sorry to the OP for messing up your Post.
I learned a lesson, Must......try.....to.....type......WORDS


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## epp_b (Dec 22, 2008)

Picture Styles are in-camera processing tweaks that are instantly applied to the photos you shoot.  These consist of saturation, sharpness and contrast adjustments.  "Picture Styles" for Canon, or "Image Optimization" in Nikonese, are simply presets that are optimized for specific types of photos.

I like to set my Nikon D40 to full saturation, sharpness and contrast, but that's just because that configuration works for the majority of things I shoot.


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