Manufacturer-supplied processing software

[HannahsDad]

Very interesting. I just have always shot in raw and made adjustments from there. I suppose a preset could cut down on some of that workflow.

 

[RDKirk]

"Cinema" is a customized Canon Picture Style that you can buy online (USD $8.00, last I checked). The Cinema Picture Style is accurate in color and contrast. The regular Canon Picture Styles really were that inaccurate. Cinema is actually designed to be used as a style that has the benefits of LOG without really needing color grading. But until I created my own custom Picture Styles, I used it heavily.

 

[RDKirk]

Here is another set, this time including my own customized Picture Styles. I still use Cinema for video.

Remember that these are also applied to video. One could set up a "Sin City" Picture Style (even with select red and yellow colors) and shoot a simple video directly with no color grading necessary in editing.

 

[West Coast Birder]

Do these styles work better for darker skin tones in your experience? I am particularly interested in that use case.

 

[RDKirk]

Do these styles work better for darker skin tones in your experience? I am particularly interested in that use case.

Canon picture styles are too red, IMO, for darker skin tones.

 

[West Coast Birder]

Cinema in the first example and RealTone in the second example look great!

 

[paddler4]

I have one set up in my camera to reduce contrast, saturation, and a couple other things to get a more realistic neautral look in camera. It isn't as much about a starting point as it is about getting a balanced histogram without too much modification (for me).

Some people use either Neutral or Faithful to get a more accurate histogram. Faithful does nothing but reduce contrast, and neutral also reduces saturation. I've used both, but I've never compared them to the histograms on import into Lightroom to see which is closer. I think the reduction in contrast is the essential piece.

 

[Nature's Spectrum]

Some people use either Neutral or Faithful to get a more accurate histogram. Faithful does nothing but reduce contrast, and neutral also reduces saturation. I've used both, but I've never compared them to the histograms on import into Lightroom to see which is closer. I think the reduction in contrast is the essential piece.

Mine is modified from neutral, I'd have to go check to remember exactly how. Camera Neutral is my starting point in Lr, along with a preset to remove the default sharpening. I feel better starting at zero for nearly everything. I ahhot landscape though, if I shot weddings/portrait I suspect I might feel different.

 

[paddler4]

Mine is modified from neutral, I'd have to go check to remember exactly how. Camera Neutral is my starting point in Lr, along with a preset to remove the default sharpening. I feel better starting at zero for nearly everything. I ahhot landscape though, if I shot weddings/portrait I suspect I might feel different.

I've sometimes set the import default sharpening to zero, but I never left it at zero, so I found it didn't make a practical difference.

I'm curious how the Camera Neutral simulation and Adobe Color differ. I haven't played around with different default renderings for so long that I don't remember.

 

[Levina de Ruijter]

I use DPP and I'm certainly not going to argue that it's fantastic, but it's a totally useful tool.

It is, and very much so. It’s my first stop after downloading my pics to the Mac. I use Quick Check to do a first cull. It's very fast and simply excellent.

I would actually want to use it for more than that, but the problem with DPP is that it takes ages to export/convert a file. One measly little file from my R6m2 takes too long. There is actually a progress bar. For just one file of a 24mpx camera! Do, say 10 files, and you need to leave your computer, spend time doing other things because it will take forever to finish. And my Mac Mini M2Pro is lightening fast (does DXO Pure Raw or Topaz AI in a few seconds).

Maybe the key to the copied post isn't software quality, or at least not only that, but this:

Familiarity or lack thereof is definitely part of it. But not just...

I was going to post to @garryknight's or @Dicky109's thread about Affinity Photo offering a 6 months trial? But I decided my sort-of rant about Affinity would fit better here.

See, I have Affinity. And it’s pretty good, it can do most everything Photoshop does. But the devil is in the detail.

Unlike Photoshop tools, in Affinity your last used settings aren't remembered and there is no way to change the default setting. So the crop tool goes back to “unrestrained” with every new image you import. Even if you re-import a previously cropped image you have to change the crop tool back to -in my case- “original ratio”. Or try making selections. You have to click the “add” options with every new image because it always defaults back to "new". It drove me bonkers.

Also, working with layers in Affinity is unnecessarily awkward because Adjustments and Layers are two different tabs, meaning I constantly had to switch between the two, whereas in Photoshop you just have it all in one panel: you click on the image thumbnail, you can edit it, you click on the mask, you can edit it. No need to go anywhere else.

I think in the end all those Photoshop alternatives are equally good, and why not, after all curves are curves and levels are levels. It's just in the way they do things that causes problems. From one or two crazy convoluted and badly designed, unintuitive apps to the clumsy and inefficient ways Affinity does things, nothing compares to Photoshop. Not for me it doesn't. And I really, really hate having to say this.

I could have used CS6 for the rest of my life, as it still does everything I need. But like others, the moment I upgraded my hardware CS6 didn't work any longer. And none of the alternatives worked for me. So I caved. Sigh…

The good thing is that whilst exploring PS alternatives I discovered DXO Pure Raw and it is truly magnificent. Better than anything else I used before.

 

[paddler4]

I curious what you found that DXO Pure Raw does for you that the Adobe suite doesn't do, or doesn't do as well. It's not cheap for a plug-in, so I'm curious whether it would do enough that it would be worth it, for what I shoot.

Re CS6: it all depends on what you do, of course, but I've found the additions to Photoshop and Lightroom over the past few years very useful for my work. I think the improvements to Lightroom have helped even more than those made to Photoshop.