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Why are the colours so plain? If you've just upgraded to a Canon DSLR from a point and shoot camera, you'll have noticed how plain your shots look with your new Canon DSLR. Don't fret because you've come to the right place.

This article will show you how you can knock the socks off your point and shoot with colour from your new DSLR. For some reason, Canon didn't preset the picture style settings for natural contrast straight out of the box. Perhaps they deliberately wanted to spur people on to play with the settings and understand how each works. Well it worked for me anyway. In a nutshell, the basic reason the colours are so plain is because the contrast setting is too high. There are some subtle colour differences between the different picture styles too. We'll have a look at tweaking each setting to getting more colour out of your shots.

A good tip for comparing the Picture Style settings is to shoot Raw and upload the Raw shots into Canon's Digital Photo Professional bundled software, where you can play with the settings to your heart's content. For each image I'll use Canon's In-camera convention of reporting Picture Style settings, separated by commas: Picture Style, Sharpness, Contrast, Saturation, Color Tone. Click on any image to see an enlargement. Standard 7,0,0,0. This is a typical Canon DSLR shot, straight out of the box. Contrast is slightly too high with tones either very bright or very dark. Choosing the Picture Style There are 6 different preinstalled Picture Styles to choose from: Standard, Portrait, Landscape, Neutral, Faithful and Monochrome.

Sep 18, 2011 - ASH commented below that the 600D / t2i installation is a little different. I have included his comments below. “For 600D it is slightly different. I loaded the picture style onto the camera using canon utility while in the P (or M) setting (in movie setting it wont let you load them). Then once the profile is loaded,. Thank you Paul Technicolor and Marvel. I loaded the picture styles, Cine Style and Marvels Advanced and also I loaded a still picture style offered by Canon called.

Each of these Picture Styles emphasises certain colours more or less than others. For example, Portrait Picture Style makes skin tones more rosy, Landscape overlays a slightly orange-brown overtone whilst Neutral gives the most accurate colours. You can also download other Picture Styles from website, and upload them to your computer or camera. For accurate colours with a bit more pop to blue skies, I can recommend the Autumn Hues picture style from Canon's Picture Style website. The skin tones from this picture style are more natural than any of the built in picture styles, with no overtones. Standard 7,0,0,0.

Although the manual claims that Standard gives vivid colours, for most scenic shots you'll find that the colours are quite natural. Colours are neutral overall with just a hint of redness in skintones and slightly saturated reds.

Portrait 7,0,0,0. Portrait saturates the colours by 1 notch over Standard. Skintones are hue shifted dramatically to the magenta side for pinker skin. Landscape 7,0,0,0. Landscape saturates colours by 1 notch over Standard except for blues which are saturated by 2 notches to give bright blue skies. There is a slight orange-brown overtone to photos, most noticible in beige areas. Neutral 7,0,0,0.

Neutral outputs all colours evenly so that there are no overtones. The saturation level is 1 notch lower than Standard. The Contrast is also 1 notch softer than Standard. Neutral is good for accurate colours. Faithful 7,0,0,0.

Faithful has a slight pinkish overtone on photos. It uses the same contrast curve as Neutral. Autumn Hues 7,0,0,0. Autumn Hues is similar to Neutral but is more saturated by 2 notches. Colours are quite vivid. Autumn Hues uses the Standard contrast curve so midtones are slightly brighter than Neutral PS.

Skintones are quite natural with the Autumn Hues PS. Autumn Hues must be downloaded from Canon's Picture Style website. It may be installed with recent versions of Digital Photo Professional. Look in C driveProgram FilesCanonDigital Photo Professionalpf2ww05AutumnHues.pf2 Contrast The contrast control adjusts the separation between light tones and dark tones.

The factory preset contrast is actually quite high making highlights very bright and shadows very dark. This doesn't suit many outdoor shots. Lowering the contrast reduces this harshness and saturates colours more. Standard 7,0,0,0. This is the standard contrast that comes out of the box. The contrast between light and shadows here is already quite harsh. Standard 7,1,0,0.

A common recommendation given to give photos more pop is to increase the contrast. This shot was set at Contrast +1.

This makes the problem worse as colours become more pale, and shadows become even darker. Standard 7,-2,0,0. A much better recommendation is to reduce the contrast so that colours are more saturated. Here I have reduced the contrast to -2. The correct contrast setting is really scene dependant. There is no single contrast setting that will work for all situations. Even though I commonly set my contrast to -2, there are times such as the following when I need to reduce or increase the contrast, depending on the scene.

Autumn Hues 7,-2,0,0. This is a very high dynamic range scene. The foreground is slightly dark, due to exposing for the bright sky. Autumn Hues 7,-4,0,0. By reducing the contrast to -4, we brighten up the foreground slightly.

Autumn Hues 7,-2,0,0. In this scene, the sun was slightly obscured by thin clouds, which diffused the sunlight and thus gave flatter lighting. Notice the shadows are soft.

Autumn Hues 7,0,0,0. By increasing the contrast to 0, we brighten bright tones whilst darkening dark tones to give better tone separation. The leafless tree and the dark clouds appear much more dramatic. Saturation After setting the contrast we can adjust the saturation. Saturation is the intensity of colours. Straight out of the box the Standard picture style is Neutrally Saturated for most scenic shots, so increasing it to 1 pushes colours into vivid territory. Standard 7,-2,0,0.

Saturation set to 0. Colours are realistically saturated. Standard 7,-2,1,0. Saturation set to 1. A more vivid saturation.

Standard 7,-2,2,0. Saturation set to 2. Even more vivid.

Portrait, Landscape and Autumn Hues should be reduced to -1 for realistic saturation. Neutral and Faithful need the saturation increased to 1 for a similar degree of saturation. When shooting flowers and other vivid objects, the colours can oversaturate with regular saturation settings.

Reduce the saturation for more realistic colour. Autumn Hues 7,-2,0,0. Saturation set to 0. Autumn Hues 7,-2,-4,0. Saturation set to -4. Color Tone The Color Tone setting shifts colours (Hue) around the colour wheel to give a different tint. Although the manual says that it only shifts skin tones between pink and yellow, it also affects other colours too.

You can use it to correct skin tones but be aware that it will also shift other colours too. Standard 7,-2,0,-4. Color Tone set to -4. Standard 7,-2,0,4. Color Tone set to 4. Standard 7,-2,0,0. Color Tone set to 0.

WB The White Balance helps to correct colour casts caused by different sources of lighting. Sunlight is bluish, whilst tungsten light is reddish. AWB automatically adjusts for different lighting conditions but occasionally it misses the mark, which can lead to either very pale (overblue) photos, or very saturated (overamber) photos.

Shooting Raw makes WB correction very easy since Digital Photo Professional has all the same WB presets found in the camera. Standard 7,-2,0,0. By changing the WB to 'Cloudy' the colours look much more warmer and saturated. You can use the WB control in Digital Photo Professional just like attaching a colour filter onto your lens. In the White Balance Adjustment, select 'Color Temperature' and drag the slider to the right to make it warmer, or to the left to make it cooler. Autumn Hues 7,-2,0,0. AWB Autumn Hues 7,-2,0,0.

Color Temperature 7700K Skin Tones Each Picture Style renders skin tones slightly differently so a particular Picture Style may be chosen depending on whether pink skin or tanned skin is preferred. An example of each Picture Style is shown below, with the Contrast and Saturation levels similarly matched. Standard 7,-2,0,0.

Standard gives quite natural skin tones. If you're really picky you'll just notice a hint of pinkness. Portrait 7,-2,-1,0.

Portrait gives a strong, rosy overtone to skin tones. It is more of a specialty application if you want rosy skin. Landscape 7,-2,-1,0. Landscape overlays a slight orange overtone which gives a slight goldness to skin tones. Neutral 7,-1,1,0. Neutral balances all colours evenly so it gives no overtones and accurate colours. Faithful 7,-1,1,0.

Faithful also gives rosy skin tones but not as intense as Portrait. Autumn Hues 7,-2,-1,0. Autumn Hues gives a nice, natural and tanned look to skin tones.

Final Comparison Following all of these tweaks you should get much more vibrant and colourful photos now. Here is a comparison of factory and custom settings (click to enlarge): Standard 7,0,0,0. Autumn Hues 7,-2,-1,0. Equivalent to Standard 7,-2,0,0. For even more vibrant grass and folliage I also have a customised Autumn Hues Picture style which can be downloaded from here and used in Digital Photo Professional or in-camera: Enjoy your photos and I wish you well with beautiful colours. Autumn Hues 7,-2,0,0.

I have been a Nikon user for many years & just recently bought a Canon 5D Mark II for it's full frame advantage and color rendition over the Nikon's. ( My older Nikon DSLRs are great.) I shoot Interior Design (RAW of course) I'm finding a magenta hue to the rooms, especially in the neutral painted ones, and am trying to get a handle on this awesome camera. Your explanations of the Picture Styles greatly helped. The color of the items in the room need to be dead on as the paint on the walls, so I need to get it somewhat close before adjusting in PS or Canon's software. I've tried WB, even the Kelvin.

I'm using color corrected lights. What's your suggestion for Picture Style? I need to get a recipe that will work. Any suggestions or help would be appreciated as I have not used it long enough to really know it yet. What about the graph in the color tone?

If you own a Canon DSLR then chances are you’ll have access to a selection of useful presets known as Picture Styles. If you haven’t come across these before, and are oblivious to what they are, they refer to a selection of presets that determine how your EOS DSLR goes about processing and rendering your images. If you’d like your images to be sharper, feature more contrast or benefit from increased saturation you’ll want to know how these picture styles work. Before we get stuck into the finer details and reveal the different styles on offer, how they change the appearance of your photographs and the way they can be refined to your personal preference, it’s important to understand how picture styles are applied to your images.

There’s a misconception that picture styles only affect JPEG files, but they also have relevance to Raw files, both during and after an exposure. One of the key things to understand if you’re shooting JPEGs is that once a picture style has been selected and an image taken, the effect of the picture style is irreversible, meaning you’re stuck with the outcome if you don’t like it. For Raw files the picture style you choose only affects how images are rendered on the camera’s LED display.

For example, if you intend to convert Raw images to black and white, the monochrome picture style will provide a preview of the image in black and white while retaining all original colour information in the Raw file. It’s also important to note that monochrome JPEG images cannot be reconverted back to colour so if you have any doubt it’s always best to protect yourself by selecting Raw + JPEG. The list of common picture styles as you’ll find them presented in the menu The different choices Locating picture styles on your DSLR couldn’t be easier.

Simply head into the main menu, select the picture styles option and you’ll be greeted by a list of picture style choices. The likelihood is your picture style will be set to the standard default setting. Below it are portrait, landscape, neutral, faithful and monochrome options. Starting with the basics, the auto picture style (introduced into the EOS 600D and after) analyses your shooting conditions looking at parameters such as a subject’s face, colour, brightness, movement, contrast and focus distance. It’ll create what it thinks is the best result for any given scene, however it’s not the best choice if you’re looking to create a consistent style to a set of images.

The standard style provides crisp, vivid images with increased saturation, contrast and sharpening applied. This differs from the portrait style, which optimises skin colour tones and saturation while reducing the sharpness of edges to create smoother skin texture. If you’d like to produce punchier greens and blues in your images with a stronger sharpening effect to accentuate mountain edges, trees or building outlines then the landscape picture style is the one for you. Select the neutral picture style and you’ll find your images have a lower contrast and saturation than the standard picture style.

Those who prefer to selectively adjust colour, saturation, contrast and sharpening themselves during post processing often use it. This brings us to the last colour picture style, which is faithful. This is similar to the neutral style but produces images that are almost identical to the actual colours when shot under standard daylight conditions. If you’d like your image to reflect the scene as you see with your eyes, faithful is a great place to start.

Towards the bottom of the styles list is monochrome. This is great to use for an instant preview of what an image, or series of shots will look like in black and white. Adjusting picture styles The great thing about picture styles is that they’re not set in stone, meaning if you’d like to alter or adjust them manually you can do so easily. Say you like the effect the landscape picture file offers but you’d like to refine the sharpness, contrast, saturation or colour tone a little.

To do this simply select the landscape style from the list, hit the info button on your camera and you’ll be given the option to increase or decrease the effect of each parameter. When you adjust a parameter the white point reveals the new parameter setting whereas the grey point signifies the original setting. To quickly return to the original picture style settings, simply select the Default set option.

Create your own style The alternative to using and adjusting the default picture styles is to create your own. At the bottom of the picture styles list you’ll find three user-defined settings – User Def.

2 and User Def. Here, you can create your own style by adjusting the sharpness, contrast, saturation and colour tone parameters on the camera (via the Picture Style menu option), or alternatively you may want to visit Canon’s dedicated Picture Style website where a selection of other styles are made available ready to download onto your DSLR. There’s a good selection of additional styles available. Examples include Autumn Hues, which emphasises the reds and browns of autumnal scenes, and Nostalgia, which reduces blue and green saturation to give the impression of an old photograph.

Adding a new picture style file (.pf2) to your camera involves installing Canon’s EOS Utility software (Version 2.6 or later) onto your computer. From here you can download the new picture style then transfer it onto your camera via a USB cable. You’ll find a full breakdown of how to install a new picture style onto your DSLR from Canon’s Picture Style website and we recommend visiting. In addition to the common picture styles on your camera, you’ll find there are a number of extra styles available to download from Canon’s Picture Style website Applying styles post capture If you like the sound of applying picture styles to your images but are under the impression you can’t because you only shoot in the Raw format you’re mistaken.

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Picture styles can be applied post-exposure using the latest version of Digital Photo Professional (DPP) that’s supplied as part of the software package with the camera. It is worth bearing in mind however that Picture Style files downloaded from the Canon Picture Style website which have the.pse extension cannot be used with DPP version 3.0 or later. You’ll need to return to the website and download the latest file, with the.pf2 extension. The latest version of the files is also needed for EOS Utility version 2.1 or later. Fine detail picture style There have been six picture styles in the menu of Canon EOS DSLRs for as long as we can remember, but now there’s a seventh style that’s starting to appear on Canon’s latest DSLRs. The Fine Detail picture style was first introduced on the Canon EOS 5Ds and EOS 5DS R and differs from the other picture styles in the way it’s designed to maximise the level of detail that can be achieved from the sensor. It does so by prioritising the gradation of tones and detail, enabling advanced sharpness adjustment without the need for editing software.

Those who’d like to clearly define edges of thin lines and minute details are the most likely to use this picture style. The fact we’ve seen it rolled out across other DSLRs in the EOS line-up such as the Canon EOS 80D suggests it’s a picture style that has a long-term future and is here to stay. How to select, use and refine picture styles on your Canon DSLR Step 1 – Decide which file format to shoot in Before experimenting with picture styles, you’ll want to carefully consider which file format you’re shooting in. Remember if you shoot in the JPEG format, the effect of the picture style is irreversible. If you shoot in Raw the picture style will affect the image as you see it on the rear screen, however it won’t affect the colour information in the Raw file. It’s always good to get into the habit of selecting RAW+JPEG so you can always revert to the original Raw file later down the line if you need to.

Step 2 – Find picture styles from the menu. Hit the menu button on your Canon DSLR and navigate your way to the picture styles heading. Use the Set button to select picture styles and load the list of different styles on screen. You’ll find the picture style is set to Standard.

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If you’d like the camera to automatically analyse the shooting conditions, use your rear scroll dial or upwards directional button to select it and confirm your selection by hitting the Set button. Auto should be avoided if you want the look of your images to be consistent between a series of shots. Step 3 – Refine your favourite picture style After experimenting with the different picture styles you’ll probably find a favourite, but you may wish to tweak the effect to suit your requirements.

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With your favourite picture style selected, hit the info button on your DSLR. From here you can navigate between sharpness, contrast, saturation and colour tone. To adjust any of these parameters simply use the Set button followed by the scroll dial or directional buttons to increase or decrease the effect. To apply the change hit the Set button once again. Step 4 – Reverting to the default settings If you adjust a picture style and later find you’re not entirely happy with the result, you can return to the default settings of that picture style very easily. With the picture style selected simply hit the info button again to load the sharpness, contrast, saturation and colour tone parameters. You can return each parameter back to its default setting (indicated with a grey pointer) manually, or quicker still, head down and select the Default set option.

Setting up your own custom-made picture style is easy to do thanks to the user-defined settings. You’ll find these towards the bottom of the picture styles list. To create your own picture style simply find User Def.1, User Def.2 or User Def.3, then hit the info button. From here you can adjust the sharpness, contrast, saturation or colour tone to your liking. Alternatively you can download a new picture style from Canon’s Picture Style website and assign it to any one of these user-defined settings for instant access in the future.