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Just bought a new Olympus 5060 and wondering am I best to tweak the settings
on the camera or once I have downloaded the photos and then tweak on the
photographic software.

Ken

Ken <noone@nowhere> wrote:
: Just bought a new Olympus 5060 and wondering am I best to tweak the
: settings on the camera or once I have downloaded the photos and then
: tweak on the photographic software.

In part the answer will depend on what you are trying to do. If these
photos are for personal use, with a print size of 8x10 at most, you can
possibly get by with the post production tweaking. If you are going to use
these photos professionally, you may want to try some camera settings to
maximize the photos. You will probably still need to do some slight tweek
in post, but the less post production you have to do will give you a
larger latitude to play with. Also if you plan on doing lots of post
adjusting, you may want to look at saving your photos in the camera's RAW
format. This format is specifically made to make post production better.
Of course this will also generally sidetrack all the in camera settings
and so you will Have to do all your corrections in post.

So the answer isn't a simple one. My advice is to take your camera into
locations and situations that would represent your main interrest, and try
it many different ways. By compairing the finished product and applying
your very personal standards to deciding "the best" output, you can make
the choice yourself. You may even find that there is a different answer
for different shooting situations. But by exploring you will be better
armed to prejudge what will give you the desired results.

Randy

==========
Randy Berbaum
Champaign, IL

Ken wrote:
> Just bought a new Olympus 5060 and wondering am I best to tweak the
> settings on the camera or once I have downloaded the photos and then
> tweak on the photographic software.
>
> Ken

Best is a funny word. It seldom means the same thing to you as to me.

Normally I would say it is best to change the settings in the camera.
However if that means you spend some much effort worrying about the setting
when you should be worrying about capturing the image, then best is post
production. I might add that individual camera and post production
software also come into the formula.

--
Joseph Meehan

26 + 6 = 1 It's Irish Math

Ken wrote:
> Just bought a new Olympus 5060 and wondering am I best to tweak the settings
> on the camera or once I have downloaded the photos and then tweak on the
> photographic software.
>
> Ken
>
>

If you are short on time, just get the picture (use Auto), then process
with software.
If you have time, adjust the camera for the best possible picture you
can, and save a bit of time in the post-processing. The better the
initial image, the better the post-processed image will be, all other
things being equal.


--
Ron Hunter

Ken wrote:

> Just bought a new Olympus 5060 and wondering am I best to tweak the settings
> on the camera or once I have downloaded the photos and then tweak on the
> photographic software.
>
> Ken

Settings ?

Do you mean sharpness, contrast, saturation etc ?

It all depends.. Many people like to leave these settings in
the neutral position and then tweak them using post processing.

For example, some people feel that Photoshop can do a better
job at sharpening than the camera firmware can, so they adjust
the sharpen setting to its minimum.

If you don't want to bother with a lot of post processing
(many don't), then just set the camera to what pleases you

"Ken" <noone@nowhere> wrote:

> Just bought a new Olympus 5060 and wondering am I best to tweak the settings
> on the camera or once I have downloaded the photos and then tweak on the
> photographic software.

Take the best pictures you can so you don't have to tweak them in the
computer. Or take the best pictures you can *knowing* that you'll *have*
to tweak them in the computer.

But whatever you do, don't take crap pictures *expecting* to be able to
tweak them in the computer.

Good luck with the 5060. You might consider browsing through this guy's
web site: <http://www.wrotniak.net/photo/c5050/index.html>

Especially this page:
<http://www.wrotniak.net/photo/c5050/c5050-imgset.html>

Ken wrote:

> Just bought a new Olympus 5060 and wondering am I best to tweak the settings
> on the camera or once I have downloaded the photos and then tweak on the
> photographic software.


I think it may be best to do the adjusting in the camera because that is
taking advantage of the RAW data. I'm not 100% sure that this is true;
just following logic.

The thing to remember is it's easier to darken an image than bring
detail out of the shadows so increasing contrast is dangerous. If you
aren't willing to remember to reset contrast for high contrast scenes,
it's best not to boost in-camera. But, if it's a pale scene, you'll
probably get better results in-camera, like a weekend on the coast in
the fog, you;ll save a lot of time bumpiing up the contrast. Increasing
contrast increases jpeg artifacts so it's better to do that before
jpegging in-camera.

It seems increasing saturation should be safe in-camera and probably
slightly better results before it's crunched down from 12 bit RAW to 8
bit jpeg (if you like more saturation like I do).

Sharpening is always advised to do last though I'm skeptical about the
importance of that, you'd really have to 'geek out' to do better
sharpening than the camera <g> especially considering the camera has the
RAW file to work with & you'll just have a jpeg.