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Picture styles or picture profiles are different ways that your camera reads contrast, saturation and sharpness. Some cameras will also have color tones. What you’re effectively doing with these different picture profiles are adjusting how saturated your picture looks, how contrasty it is and how sharp it is. This is all being processed within the camera. So, if you’re shooting RAW, this won’t end up being in your end up photo, but if you are shooting JPEG this will be part of the that is taken. Let’s see the main differences on these profiles:
- The camera will select the best fit for the situation, what it thinks will look the best.
- It is meant for sort of just the most general look.
- This is ideal for people, it makes the skin look a little bit smoother, nothing too contrasting or too sharp, it should be a little bit more flattering.
- It is going to be a little bit sharper, it is going to be a little bit more saturated.
- It is meant for editing, it takes down the saturation making a little bit less contrasty, maybe making the image look a little bit flatter in terms of color and sharpness.
- This basically takes out all the saturation and enables you to shoot in black and white.
Depending on the camera you have, there might be other options in there or maybe you don’t have some of these but typically portrait, landscape, neutral or some sort of flat is going to be part of these picture profiles. They are just a way for you to customize the look of your camera. Within many cameras there’s also going to be typically around three different customizable scene settings and within these you can choose what saturation, what contrasts, what sharpness you prefer for your images.