E-M1 - SooC JPEG. --- settings? Need to improve

[Huff]

Thanks in advance for any suggestions. I'd be curious what you guys are finding for your "standard" all-around in-camera JPEG settings. I've tried several combinations and I' m just not thrilled with the results I'm getting. I really like what I can pull out (easily) from the raw files, but there are times when I'd like to use some SooC stuff to quickly share with family, friends, posts, whatever. For what it's worth, when I jpeg always do RAW+ jpeg.

Currently I've got it back to defaults on "neutral". I grabbed some quick shots this afternoon to show my wife part of a local mission, and when I loaded them for her I was super underwhelmed.

Can you help me fix this? Maybe I'm just hitting some system limits...who knows.

EDIT: BTW, please excuse me if this is covered elsewhere. I didn't find it while digging through but am the first to say I could of easily missed it

Mike

 

[OzRay]

I always shoot RAW, but sometimes I just want some quick JPGs for whatever reason and that's when I use: http://michaeltapesdesign.com/instant-jpeg-from-raw.html. It seems to produce some pretty reasonable JPGs colour and noise wise, albeit, the file sizes are 3200 x 2400, rather than full sized (the program hasn't been updated for the new files sizes). It's extremely fast in converting RAW to JPG, so no waiting. It might be worth giving it a try.

 

[Huff]

Thanks OzRay. I will take a look into that.

I was also just doing some additional searching and found what seems to be a pretty comprehensive breakdown of the settings. I'm going to dig through this a bit more for some clues.

http://www.biofos.com/mft/omd_em1_settings.html


Mike

 

[dhazeghi]

I always shoot RAW, but sometimes I just want some quick JPGs for whatever reason and that's when I use: http://michaeltapesdesign.com/instant-jpeg-from-raw.html. It seems to produce some pretty reasonable JPGs colour and noise wise, albeit, the file sizes are 3200 x 2400, rather than full sized (the program hasn't been updated for the new files sizes). It's extremely fast in converting RAW to JPG, so no waiting. It might be worth giving it a try.

Note that it doesn't convert the RAW (that's why it's so fast). It extracts the JPEG preview that's embedded in the RAW file. The colors/noise are precisely what the camera's JPEG engine produces.

 

[OzRay]

Note that it doesn't convert the RAW (that's why it's so fast). It extracts the JPEG preview that's embedded in the RAW file. The colors/noise are precisely what the camera's JPEG engine produces.

However it works, it seems to produce a pretty good JPG with little lag. But it clearly does more than just extract info from a JPG preview as, for example, I have noise reduction turned off, yet it reduces noise in the conversion process (sometimes better than what other programs can achieve)

 

[jyc860923]

However it works, it seems to produce a pretty good JPG with little lag. But it clearly does more than just extract info from a JPG preview as, for example, I have noise reduction turned off, yet it reduces noise in the conversion process (sometimes better than what other programs can achieve)

it must be extracting jpg preview from the raw file, as the preview is exactly 3200*2400 embedded in ORFs, it doesn't matter what quality you do or do not choose for JPGs.

1920*1440 in Panasonic RAWs.

 

[Growltiger]

I find the default JPG settings work well, although I increase quality to maximum (and make a raw file) using L-SF+RAW.

Please show us an example of one of the SOOC photos you were not happy with, including its EXIF settings. The reason for the problem may not be the JPG settings at all - there are many other factors.

I would not use the extraction of the previews from the raw file, although I can quite understand why it can be useful to get a quick preview to email.

 

[Mikefellh]

Well, I've always chosen vivid no matter which Oly I'm using, but I like punchy colour. Also (currently) on my E-M5 I have sharpness, contrast, and saturation all +1.

But settings are a very personal thing...YOU have to experiment with what YOU like.

There is no such thing as a set of magic settings that give you perfect images.

If you want the best you have to shoot RAW and process the image yourself.

 

[Deleted member 20897]

I don't like the in camera JPG settings of any camera to be honest. I always process them in post. If I am not shooting RAW, I shoot a flat JPG and add in the processing to my liking in Lightroom.

I've found over the years that one JPG setting woks well for one situation and not others, so I stopped trying to get that part in camera 100% to alleviate the frustration and enjoy the shooting.

 

[Ulfric M Douglas]

VIVID on all my Olympus cameras,
however the OP might just have bumped into the way these high-DR modern sensors haven't been set up at factory defaults to give us pictures with pop ...
unlike the lower-DR sensors in the first generation m4/3rds : their OOC Jpegs are more pleasing to my eyes.

If you are prepared to do some tweaking and testing the E-M1 seems actually to be the very best camera for the huge range of Jpeg tweaks it offers.
I would set to Vivid first, then tweak the highlight and shadow curves which are probably preset to be too gentle at default.
This feature came in with the e-pL1, but the E-M1 also has funky colour adjustment stuff ...

 

[Huff]

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

While appreciate the idea of RAW extraction, I don't think this is a direction I will be going for this.

I'll try to get a couple samples added. I don't think this is something I'm doing...RAW data is fine.

I also agree that for many things, the in-camera jpeg processing is not acceptable. However, for many things jpeg is just fine. I've been shooting for decades and do understand the differences. I've shot 100's of thousands of frames in sports environments in jpeg with other gear. jpeg quality is more than acceptable in that case. The jpegs from other bodies/P&S that I've used (and still have/use) are better than what I think I'm seeing with this E-M1.

I suppose my thought is that a flagship body should produce better results without having to deeply tinker with settings. I also can't believe I'm the only one who feels this way.

I have no desire to turn this into a jpeg verses raw debate. I have a solid understanding of the differences. BUT, I know that not everyone shoots RAW (for good reason) and I can't see them being overly happy with these results.

 

[Huff]

VIVID on all my Olympus cameras,
however the OP might just have bumped into the way these high-DR modern sensors haven't been set up at factory defaults to give us pictures with pop ...
unlike the lower-DR sensors in the first generation m4/3rds : their OOC Jpegs are more pleasing to my eyes.

If you are prepared to do some tweaking and testing the E-M1 seems actually to be the very best camera for the huge range of Jpeg tweaks it offers.
I would set to Vivid first, then tweak the highlight and shadow curves which are probably preset to be too gentle at default.
This feature came in with the e-pL1, but the E-M1 also has funky colour adjustment stuff ...

I think you might be on to something here. while I do have the Fuji X100, this is my first real jump into m4/3. And you nailed that untangible thing I feel I'm missing; the POP.

I'm confident the ability is there to get what I would expect. I just need to find the path. .

 

[gobeatty]

If sooc is needed, I'm with Ken Rockwell on this. One setting for people and another for things. Vivid is great for things but can give overdone/burnt skin tones so it's not good for pix of the family. Even worse when ISO increases. I'm using the neutral default settings for a flatter jpeg and then add vibrancy as needed in post. I tried neutral with contrast and saturation bumped up one but get ugly skin tones when ISO goes up, so back to default for me. Oly white balance seems rather good to my eyes so that is a plus.

 

[Ulfric M Douglas]

Gobeatty I disagree that Vivid isn't for people & faces : on my older olympus bodies it is excellent on skin, so I use it for everything.
Actually the difference between natural, standard, vivid etc is very small on Olympus cameras and pretty huge in Canon/Panasonic/sony etc, so in that way Mr.rockwell may be right in his non-olympus experience.

Easy to test : our newer Olympus cameras have art-filter bracketing, i.e. one frame makes as many different Jpeg styles as required.

 

[OzRay]

If Olympus has been praised for anything, it's generally always been the quality of the OOC JPGs, so I do wonder what the camera is set to, for the results not to be very good. There was a post not long ago with similar complaints and it ended up being some very poor non-standard settings having been set.

 

[gobeatty]

Gobeatty I disagree that Vivid isn't for people & faces : on my older olympus bodies it is excellent on skin, so I use it for everything.
Actually the difference between natural, standard, vivid etc is very small on Olympus cameras and pretty huge in Canon/Panasonic/sony etc, so in that way Mr.rockwell may be right in his non-olympus experience.

Easy to test : our newer Olympus cameras have art-filter bracketing, i.e. one frame makes as many different Jpeg styles as required.

I'm using an EM10 if it makes a difference. I get unacceptable (to me) skin tones from vivid sometimes. Not all of the time, but I shoot jpeg only and over done tones do not correct especially well in post although I can usually save them for snapshot proposes. My wife also has reddish skin tone on her face and only accepts photos that don't show let alone emphasize this. That said and accept for the NR, which I leave off on my EM10, I am very satisfied with JPEGs to the point of shooting jpeg only.

Oh, almost forgot to mention I have Vivid set to plus 1 on contrast and saturation. This is how I get Vivid to look Vivid on my EM10 (agree it is toned down otherwise) and then get blown skin tones. Stock Vivid does better but still goes bad for people pix at higher 9760 ISO where contrast and saturation go up.

 

[Huff]

Thanks again for the feedback. I appreciate all of the suggestions. I will add that one of my previous replies could have been taken as a bit defensive. I apologize for that...that is not my intent. I am truly open to finding ways to improve this situation.

Bottom line for me is this; I clearly need to do some more testing and experimentation. I was hoping to avoid a lot of that, but it is what it is I suppose.

My camera settings for the grabs yesterday were as follows. A couple of images I probably did a little bit of +/- EV. None of these are great images. They were meant to be very quick snapshots to show my wife where we will be having a service.

S-normal + Raw
Picture mode: Natural
AWB
Auto ISO
Auto IBIS

I've added a few images to my work-in-progress website on a publicly hidden, but link accessible page. You can view them here: http://www.huffstatler.com/?p=860
EDIT: link above was not right. Fixed and it should work now.


Here are a couple good examples of images I consider bad. I don't have the shots from my Samsung phone handy to post, but they were much better. That in and of itself is very disappointing to me.

Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)

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Then a before/after in LR 4.4. (I need to upgrade)

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I hope this helps with some perspective.

 

[50orsohours]

What are the "other" Settings in the camera? Like when you pull up the SCP?

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Z-olympus-em1-scp by savingspaces33, on Flickr

 

[Huff]

They are as shown in your pic except as I've already called out and;

Face detect is on
Flash is auto

everything else looks like same

 

[OzRay]

Would you be able to explain what you find bad about those shots?