III. IMAGEQUALITY SETTINGS 25
In-Camera Sharpness,
Contrast, Saturation &
Color Tone Control
The Level10 setting for JPEG quality produces the highest image quality level for
in-camera JPEGs, while Level1 yields the highest compression ratio. The higher the
compression ratio, the greater the potentialfor image quality degradation, and vice
versa. Therefore, when preservation offine detail is important, we recommend shooting
RAWfiles or high-quality JPEGs. The camera’s default setting for JPEG quality is more
than adequate for mostapplications, but we suggest that you try some of the other
settingsto determine your “comfort level.”
Another aspectof selecting JPEG quality settings is their effect on the maximum number
ofshots that can be taken in a continuous burst. With the Mark II cameras in particular,
buffer performance improvessubstantially at lower JPEG quality settings due to smaller
file sizes.
EOS-1 classdigital SLRs have additional image quality settings including sharpness,
contrast, saturation and color tone, which can be applied to allimages. In the case of
RAWfiles, these settings can be overridden in post-processing. However, it is very
importantto understand that sharpness settings in particular can have a significant
effecton the appearance of in-camera JPEGs, i.e., images that are shot as JPEGs in the
camera asopposed to RAW files that have been converted to JPEGs in your computer.
Before getting into a detailed discussion ofsharpening in-camera or on a computer, it’s
important to realize thatpictures taken on overcast days or taken indoors with only
naturallight look sof ter than picturestaken on sunny days or indoors with direct flash.
Why? Because overcastday/indoor natural light pictures have less contrast than the
sunnyday/direct flash pictures, and pictures with less contrast look softer than
pictureswith more contrast. Knowing that, the contrast of a somewhat softer image can
be boosted in-camera or in an image-editing program, giving the appearance ofa
sharper picture.
Speaking ofsoft images, lens flare can cause even a picture taken on a sunny day to
looksoft. Another cause of an apparently soft image (or more commonly a soft area of a
picture in thiscase) is over-saturation. When an image or image area is over-saturated,
itloses detail and looks soft. This can often be corrected by reducing the saturation
in-camera or in an image-editing program.
Sharpness:To satisfy a wide range of photographers, EOS DigitalSLRs vary significantly
in termsof range and default settings for sharpness, which is more correctly referred to
asin-camera sharpening. Entry-level and advanced amateur models such as the EOS
DigitalRebel, 10D and 20D use a 5-step sharpness scale from -2 to +2, with default
settingstypically at 0 (mid-scale) or +1. This is a noticeably higher level of in-camera
sharpening than the defaultsettings for EOS-1 class Digital SLRs, and may cause some
concern for photographerswho use both cameras. On the other hand, the default
setting for sharpnesslevel on EOS-1 class Digital SLRs is 0 on a scale from 0 to 5. This
lackof in-camera sharpening was intentionally chosen by Canon to preserve asmuch