Nikon D90 Picture Control preferences

[bmil128]

I just upgraded from a D80 to D90 and was wanting some input on preferences for the Picture Control settings; on the D80 I think I only increased sharpening +1; I am reading most places to go with Standard and sharpening +5 and saturation +1; unless you read Ken Rockwell. Any input is appreciated

[revjvegas]

Originally Posted by Rockwell's site

While often inspired by actual products and events, just like any other good news organization, I like to make things up and stretch the truth if they make an article more fun. In the case of new products, rumors and just plain silly stuff, it's all pretend. If you lack a good BS detector or sense of humor, please treat this entire site as a work of fiction.

Do NOT trust anything you read from that site.
If it was on printed paper, you'd put it down for the pooch to poop on.
By his own admission, he says to treat everything on his site as fiction.

Now back to the camera...

I've left the picture control settings for the most part on my D90 at factory. During PP is where I apply a little bit of unsharp mask and/or high pass to the images.

In fact, I read in a couple of books that for best results you shouldn't even use the picture control to sharpen the image if you do plan to apply an unsharp mask during processing. Plus, you tend to get better results using the USM in my opinion.

[Carl Stone]

Originally Posted by bmil128

I just upgraded from a D80 to D90 and was wanting some input on preferences for the Picture Control settings; on the D80 I think I only increased sharpening +1; I am reading most places to go with Standard and sharpening +5 and saturation +1; unless you read Ken Rockwell. Any input is appreciated

Are you shooting jpegs or raw? Are you wanting ready to print images from your camera, or do you plan to edit them? You do realize that there will be a difference in the output of the D80 vs the D90, due to the advancement of technology since the release of the D80? Go do some shooting, and adjust the camera settings to fit your own preferences. For one thing, settings for landscapes are not likely to be the best for shooting portraits, etc. Some folks love the look of Velvia 50, and they will crank up the saturation on their DSLR. Other folks hate the look of Velvia 50, and they won't crank up the saturation on their DSLR. Each individual photographer makes the decisions that govern how their images look. There are no hard and fast rules here, I'm afraid it's going to be trial and error to get what YOU want. Digital photography makes this a lot easier than it sounds, doing it with film was infinitely more time consuming and difficult, not to mention way more expensive.

Sharpening is normally best done in post processing. KR is telling you how he likes to do things, which is perfectly fine, but you're not obligated to follow suit. This is exactly like using a recipe for cooking, the recipe is only a guide, you can adjust to suit your own tastes at will.

[dmcantrell]

Since you've spent almost $1000 on a nice new camera body, my advice is to shoot in raw and capture all the quality that the camera can provide. Also, by shooting in raw you have more latitude in post-processing (Photoshop) to create the results you desire.

If you shoot in JPEG and force the camera to do sharpening or color boosting, you have forever cast those settings into the resulting images. Also, the (sharpening and color enhancing) algorithms in post-processing software (Photoshop) are so much more advanced than the ones that are in the camera body.

[TXhummer2]

I am still taking RAW+JPEG, and have gone from about middle-minus to middle-plus on most settings to see how the jpeg processing looks compared to the raw. Only sometimes have I seen a jpeg from camera that I would consider "print quality". And of course, I favor blues and saturated greens...

Now, take any raw D90 file into Lightroom 3 Beta 2, adjust individual colors, and magic starts to happen!

[bmil128]

I should have mentioned previously I mainly shoot JPEG as I now have two little ones in the house and only have so much time to do any pp work. I also should have mentioned I was using 1A color space on my D80; I was just trying to get close to what it had been on that camera.

[Dobick]

I understand about limited time to do post work and all, but in reality, If you set up lightroom, you can use a custom preset when you import to apply all the changes that you want as soon as they are imported. The reason that this is different than doing it with the camera to a jpg, is that any changes you make to a RAW file in lightroom are not permanent changes, whereas the jpg from the camera is.

[tc95]

I would shoot RAW and do all the adjustments in the processing phase...just like everyone else has said...if you have not played with it...I would...makes a world of difference...

JPG is good...RAW is like 10x better...

[revjvegas]

Heck, set the D90 to RAW+Jpeg-Fine and that way you've got options.