Olympus contrast and sharpness settings??

[balls]

First let me start with "it's hell getting old(er)!"

So, what's my point? I can't remember where I read some information regarding contrast and sharpness settings.

I seem to recall the author advocating adjusting both settings in the negative direction - how much, I don't know.

It may very well have been for digital photography in general ... not specifically UW photography.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

OBTW, going to Sea of Cortez over Memorial Day. It's one of the best kept secrets in North America. Pics to follow...

 

[Dee]

LOL...DRS disease has hit me, too! I vaguely remember reading somethng similar but have no idea where or when. I keep my contrast and sharpness on 0. Any minor tweaking needed I'd rather do manually in PSElements than to have the camera control it.

 

[justleesa]

Same here..I'd rather do it on the puter because situations change so fast UW...I'd be spending my time changing the settings instead of taking pictures

 

[Gilligan]

I'll agree with Dee & justleesa. I do all my adjusting in my software program.

 

[lukeROB]

If you've got the option to decrease any settings - do it and leave it that way. This is because in camera processing is far worse than photoshop and other editing programs. Especially sharpening if you know what your doing. The camera just uses the settings you put in as a way of determing what 'improvements' and 'colour profiles' it uses in the jpg compression.

If you can't be bothered with all that post-processing and are satisfied leave it at default.

However since you have a 5050 just shoot RAW.

 

[lukeROB]

However since you have a 5050 just shoot RAW.

my bad you don't have a 5050 woops. :11:
So follow my initial advice - or shoot tiff if you have the memory as this is also uncompressed.

 

[ReyeR]

my bad you don't have a 5050 woops. :11:
So follow my initial advice - or shoot tiff if you have the memory as this is also uncompressed.

TIFF and sharpening/contrast settings are 2 different issues. Sharpening and contrast will be applied to the TIFF file regardless. Only in a RAW file will these settings not be applied.

Some phototgraphers have advised that the sharpening and contrast be set to -3 (or even -5) on Olympus cameras to reduce the noise levels as '0' on the camera doesn't necassarily mean no sharpening or contrast is applied.

Personally I haven't seen a noticable difference shooting at negative settings so I just leave it on '0'.

 

[lukeROB]

TIFF and sharpening/contrast settings are 2 different issues. Sharpening and contrast will be applied to the TIFF file regardless. Only in a RAW file will these settings not be applied.

Sorry I didn't clarify. Yes the sharpening/contrast/saturation etc will still be applied to TIFF. However (how I understand it - correct me if i'm wrong) since all the information is retained this process could be reversed. I never use TIFF and don't know if you can get ahold of what olympus actually does in camera so reversal process may not be possible.

So yes as I said before it is always advisable to shoot in RAW if you can - worry about the rest later. I don't own any olympus camera's and don't know how good their in camera processing procedures are. Only I can be sure they are not as good as photoshop or other programs which can use far more powerful hardware and constantly improving software. The difference is probably not noticeable, but if you are going to be doing a lot of post processing, in my opinion use the in camera algorithms that least degrade the image before you start 'hacking' away.

Again this is why shooting RAW is the best thing to do. I think all camera's should have this option. Sadly many don't.

 

[ReyeR]

Sorry I didn't clarify. Yes the sharpening/contrast/saturation etc will still be applied to TIFF. However (how I understand it - correct me if i'm wrong) since all the information is retained this process could be reversed.

Nope, the process can't be reversed. Once saved as a TIFF, like JPEG, the in-camera processes (WB, Sharpening etc) have already been applied. The only difference is TIFF is an uncompressed (or lossless compressed) file and JPEG has various degrees of compression (lossy) applied.

 

[lukeROB]

Nope, the process can't be reversed. Once saved as a TIFF, like JPEG, the in-camera processes (WB, Sharpening etc) have already been applied. The only difference is TIFF is an uncompressed (or lossless compressed) file and JPEG has various degrees of compression (lossy) applied.

No worries. So since jpg is a pretty good compression algorithm it is safe to say that shooting TIFF is pointless ?