Computer/software features in a digital camera

Computer/software features in a digital camera.

I have my first digital camera that has any features. It is a Canon
PowerShot S1 IS. One thing I noticed is a feature called Photo
Effects. The Photo Effects feature has options called Vivid, Neutral,
Low Sharpening, Sepia and B/W.

My thinking is that these are really just software features built into
the camera and are actually useless. I believe that I would be better
off leaving that control alone, taking the shot with that
control/feature in the off position and if I want to add those
effects, do it with software on the computer at a later time.

Any help understanding this would be appreciated.

Thanks

Joe

On Sun, 11 Jul 2004 15:47:57 +0200, Gisle Hannemyr
wrote:

Joe writes:
Computer/software features in a digital camera.

I have my first digital camera that has any features. It is a Canon
PowerShot S1 IS. One thing I noticed is a feature called Photo
Effects. The Photo Effects feature has options called Vivid, Neutral,
Low Sharpening, Sepia and B/W.

My thinking is that these are really just software features built
into the camera and are actually useless. I believe that I would be
better off leaving that control alone, taking the shot with that
control/feature in the off position and if I want to add those
effects, do it with software on the computer at a later time.

Any help understanding this would be appreciated.

You've got it mostly right.

The only one I would consider is "low sharpening" (assuming that this
setting gives you lower sharpening than the default setting).
Sharpening is lossy, so if you intend to do a lot of post-processing,
you should have in-camera sharpening sett to minimum (and sharpen
yourself after you've done the other adjustments). On the other hand,
if you just want to print directly from the camera - in-camera
sharpening is probably what you want.

All the others, I'd leave alone - in particular: if you want
monochrome (sepia or B&W) you are much better off doing it
yourself where you can tune the conversion for best results.

Btw. If you set your camera to capture RAW (instead of JPEG),
all sort of in-camera software adjustments will be turned off
by definition (RAW is the data as captured by the sensor), so
RAW is the mode that will give the most latitude for post-processing
work. Many find RAW a bit of overkill for casual work, tho'.

Thanks for the explanation.

I will keep it all in mind as I go forward.

There really is a lot to learn

Thanks

Joe

On Sun, 11 Jul 2004 15:47:57 +0200, Gisle Hannemyr
wrote:

Joe writes:
Computer/software features in a digital camera.

I have my first digital camera that has any features. It is a Canon
PowerShot S1 IS. One thing I noticed is a feature called Photo
Effects. The Photo Effects feature has options called Vivid, Neutral,
Low Sharpening, Sepia and B/W.

My thinking is that these are really just software features built
into the camera and are actually useless. I believe that I would be
better off leaving that control alone, taking the shot with that
control/feature in the off position and if I want to add those
effects, do it with software on the computer at a later time.

Any help understanding this would be appreciated.

You've got it mostly right.

The only one I would consider is "low sharpening" (assuming that this
setting gives you lower sharpening than the default setting).
Sharpening is lossy, so if you intend to do a lot of post-processing,
you should have in-camera sharpening sett to minimum (and sharpen
yourself after you've done the other adjustments). On the other hand,
if you just want to print directly from the camera - in-camera
sharpening is probably what you want.

All the others, I'd leave alone - in particular: if you want
monochrome (sepia or B&W) you are much better off doing it
yourself where you can tune the conversion for best results.

Btw. If you set your camera to capture RAW (instead of JPEG),
all sort of in-camera software adjustments will be turned off
by definition (RAW is the data as captured by the sensor), so
RAW is the mode that will give the most latitude for post-processing
work. Many find RAW a bit of overkill for casual work, tho'.

Thanks for the explanation.

I will keep it all in mind as I go forward.

There really is a lot to learn

Thanks

Joe