does the "picture styles" affect RAW files also, or only JPEG?

[alexsommers]

I couldn't seem to find a definitive answer in the manual so I thought I'd ask the excellent people in the forum.


The various picture styles in canon's EOS DSLRs, such as standard, portrait, landscape, faithful, etc, affect the pictures in certain settings such as sharpness, contrast, etc.


What I'm not sure is this: I shoot primarily in RAW. Are the RAW files affected by the picture styles at all, or does that only affect the JPEGs with the in camera processing?


thanks,


Alex

[btaylor]

You have it spot on there Alex. The RAW files remain unchanged, but the JPEG preview that is shown on the camera (or the ones you download from the camera if shooting JPEG) are altered.

[neuroanatomist]

As Ben stated, the picture style is applied to the JPG (permanently) and affects the on-camera LCD display of the RAW image, too. The image data in the RAW file are not altered by the Picture Style setting, but the selected Picture Style information is included in the metadata. So, if you open the RAW file in DPP, the Picture Style you selected for the shot is also pre-selected in DPP, and that's how it will show up when you open the file. Of course, since it's RAW,you can change it to something else if you like, without any IQ penalty. If you open the RAW file in another image editor, the Picture Style metadata is just ignored.

[btaylor]

Hmmm I didn't know that. I don't use DPP (ACR for me) so I haven't noticed it though. Maybe I should revisit DPP at some stage but I just love Adobe Bridge.

[Sinh Nhut Nguyen]

Are the RAW files affected by the picture styles at all

Yes, they are. Let's say you set Sharpness = 4, Contrast = +1, Saturation = +1, the Raw files will show those amount in DPP and if you convert the RAWs to JPEGs it will retain those amount. If you don't like those amount you can adjust them to your liking in RAW, of course you can always set them to all zero. With JPEGs once you set the picture styles (or white balance) you cannotchange it afterward.


P.S. you can adjust saturation, contrast, sharpness in photoshop if you got the white balance and picture style wrong in the place. This just make it a pain if you have to do 500 images.

[neuroanatomist]

One of the things I like about DPP is that it also automatically applies the appropriate (determined by Canon for each of their lenses) peripheral illumination correction to the RAW files. Vignetting correction can be done manually in PS, but I like that DPP does it for you with the lens manufacturer's own calculations.

[alexsommers]

so with this in mind, should I start incorporating DPP into my workflow? I currently only just useAdobe Lightroom 2

[Mark Elberson]

One of the things I like about DPP is that it also automatically applies the appropriate (determined by Canon for each of their lenses) peripheral illumination correction to the RAW files

Me too. Although I could use ACR I still choose DPP for RAW conversions. Coincidentally my work flow is almost identical to Bryan's.


1) Assign rating of 1 to keepers and 3 to ones that will be deleted
2) Crop
3) Adjust levels
4) Batch process to jpeg


DPP is quick, simple and built for Canon bodies and lenses...oh yeah, it's free too :-)

[Sheiky]

so with this in mind, should I start incorporating DPP into my workflow? I currently only just useAdobe Lightroom 2

Depends on your needs. Personally I'm fine with using Lightroom 2 [] It does miss the automatic lens-correction that DPP offers though...


Jan