do presets affect sharpness and contrast of raw files?

Question

Do the presets like portrait and landscape also affect the sharpness and contrast (and so on) of the raw files or does it only apply on the jpgs ? And if so, is it recommended to turn down the sharpness of the preset in order to have more control of it afterwards in post editing ?

I am a bit unsure about this, because i heard that it is best to turn down contrast (again for more control in post) while taking video. Is this true only because you have no equivalent of Raw in video on most cameras ?

The second half of your question would be better as a separate question - but is also off-topic here as it's about video, not photography; it may be on-topic at Audio-Video Production. — Philip Kendall, Jan 10 '14 at 21:05
And that said, the answer to the second half is "yes, it's only because there is no raw video". (And that's related to What does it mean to shoot in flat colors? — the same advice was common for digital still photography before RAW became common. — mattdm, Jan 10 '14 at 21:10

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 10 '14 at 21:13

Presets and picture effects, such as sharpness and contrast, are only applied to the file types that are 'developed' in the camera, such as jpegs and video files, and not to the raw data that can be saved to the memory card. But even though changing jpeg-only effects like Sharpness has no effect on the raw image, you might still have reasons to use them.

The camera will generate a jpeg image based on your image preset settings, and it uses this to show you the image on the LCD as well as provide information for the Histogram and highlight warnings. Boosting your contrast settings, for example, can make the tones that your camera reports too extreme, giving the impression of exposure problems that don't exist in the underlying information.

Once nice side effect of this is being able to use the monochrome camera settings to preview/review an image in black and white right on your camera, without giving up colour and all of the options it provides in the recorded image. And if you like a particular look that can be set in the camera, but don't want to record it as a jpeg, it will also let you see what the potential result can be.

Better to provide answers to questions like this which are likely to be closed on the marked duplicates. See http://meta.photo.stackexchange.com/questions/4174/should-i-vote-up-good-answers-to-questions-that-obviously-should-be-closed — mattdm, Jan 10 '14 at 21:17

do presets affect sharpness and contrast of raw files?

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