Digital cameras 101

[bobg3590]

Gail, you have recommended settings for the FZ18 such as contrast -2, etc etc.  Could you tell us whether these settings are intended to give you printable/displayable photos right off the card, or are they designed to give you the latitude you want for your usual pattern of post-processing?

[ShutterbugGail]

Hi bobg3590 and welcome!

My settings are designed primarily to give me more control for when I post process. I've never printed a photo without doing some editing.

I take a minimalist approach and rarely do processing other than cropping and reducing an image in size, doing a brightness and contrast adjustment (levels) and sharpening (unsharp mask). When necessary, I do noise reduction.

As to the camera settings.

Contrast -2

I use this to help increase dynamic range, the range of brightness and gradations than can be recorded in a photo.

Sharpness -1

I decrease sharpness because I like to control the amount of sharpness in an image. Sometimes I do selective sharpening because I don't want certain elements in a scene to be sharpened.

Saturation 1

I'm used to Canon cameras, which tend to give more saturated colors right out of the camera. In this case, I'll let the FZ18 add more saturation, which I can adjust when editing.

Noise Reduction -2

Noise reduction will degrade details in a photo, especially in a low light photograph. Like Sharpening, I want to decide what needs noise reduction and what does not.

[quacker1964]

Gail (or anyone feel free) if I may re-open this thread, what about a set of numbers for those who DON'T do post-processing.  Yes, I aknow I must find my own settings (part of the fun of setting up a new camera) but just curious as some of us are too lazy to photoshop

[ShutterbugGail]

If I didn't like to edit, I'd start by experimenting with these settings:

Contrast  -1
Sharpness  +1
Saturation  +1 or 2
Noise Reduction  0

Because of the increased saturation, you may get redder faces than you'd like when using the flash. I haven't tried it yet, but I've heard Flash White Balance may produce better color than Auto White Balance.

[quacker1964]

Therein lies my reference or starting point

Thanks for the welcome and answer to my other post by the way.  The phenomena of the extended or easy zoom on here is a bit like the 1.6 sensor factor of my Canon 350d - Digital Rebel I believe in the States.