Anywhere to download picture style presets?

[machineman9]

I've got a Canon EOS 1000D and more and more I am starting to use the picture styles it offers to adjust my images just a little bit.

I'm just wondering if there is anywhere where I could download presets for these picture styles? I have had a little play around myself with the picture styles but then I am just wondering if anywhere has good quality preset ones which will do the job better.

It's the settings like Portrait, Landscape, Neutral, Monochrome and all that but I can set my saturation, colour tone, softness and other things myself.

Is there anywhere where I can download these set-ups or just be able to copy them over to my camera through manual entry?


Cheers.

[Hagar]

Check out the Canon Picture Style website. http://www.canon.co.jp/imaging/picturestyle/index.html

First time I've heard of this feature. Not convinced it would be much use for serious photography. I'd rather adjust those settings myself during post-processing. This can be done with any decent graphics editing software. Canon usually supplies suitable software with the camera.

[machineman9]

From whenever I have used it, I think it gives just that edge to the photo. I'm not amazing at post processing my photos so this just lets it style the photos a bit first.

And cheers, that should be it. I can download them and then import the settings. And from the visual demos it gives you, I think the difference is easily recognisable.



Just a shame that I can only have 3 of my own styles loaded up. Would be nice to have a larger list of them on the camera.

[Hagar]

From whenever I have used it, I think it gives just that edge to the photo. I'm not amazing at post processing my photos so this just lets it style the photos a bit first.

And cheers, that should be it. I can download them and then import the settings. And from the visual demos it gives you, I think the difference is easily recognisable.



Just a shame that I can only have 3 of my own styles loaded up. Would be nice to have a larger list of them on the camera.

I suppose it depends on the subject & what sort of photography you're interested in. Unless you shoot in RAW mode the effect is permanent & not easily changed if it doesn't work out.

If you add the same effect with graphics editing software during post-processing you can experiment & change the original image as you wish. There's plenty of filters available for download that will give you almost any effect you could wish for.

[machineman9]

I'm currently a Paint.net user but yeah the community for that is quite good. I will search around for photographer specific addons - They have a lot of good and free effects. Might start to get to grips with GIMP eventually.


Is it worth just shooting in RAW? A while back I had it set up to record JPG and RAW, however for some reason the JPG was the full 10.1MP image and the RAW came out more like 7 or 8MP in size so I don't know what happened there.

I know there's the benefit of being able to go back over my photos in things such as Canon Picture Style Editor or whatever and adjust my images and change effects and stuff, but then I could just do the same in Post processing with my image editor.

[Hagar]

Is it worth just shooting in RAW? A while back I had it set up to record JPG and RAW, however for some reason the JPG was the full 10.1MP image and the RAW came out more like 7 or 8MP in size so I don't know what happened there.

Again it depends on what you want to do. RAW format is fine for those who know what they're doing & I'm not the best person to answer this question. Like you, I'm not much good at editing & prefer not to do much messing around. I find the highest quality JPEG mode suits me.

I just tried the 'Filter Forge Freepack 2' posted here. http://www.filterforge.com/download/

It works fine in IrfanView & has some excellent preset effects.

[machineman9]

How do I get those effects into Irfanview?

Copy just the 8bf file from plugins, or the entire plugins folder?

[Hagar]

Run the installer & choose the Photoshop option. Install to the default location.
Then open any image in IrfanView & select Image/Effects/Adobe 8BF filters.
Click on 'Add 8BF filters' & find the extracted folder in this location C:\Program Files\Filter Forge Freepack 2 - Photo Effects.
Click on the folder named Plugin.
You should see the filter added to the box. Click on it to select it & then click Start Selected filter.

If you have problems you might need to install the IrfanView Plugin package.

[machineman9]

Ah I get it.

So when I load the image and apply effects, it just loads up the other program and does it through that first.

Very cool indeed!

[Hagar]

You can add the 3 files from the Plugin folder to the Irfanview\Plugins folder if you wish. If you use this method it might be best to create a subfolder with an appropriate name to add them to .

[Omag 2.0]

Picturestyles are good to experiment, but if you really want to have all the liberty you want to adjust your shots, work in raw and postprocess using the rawconverter you got from Canon and Irfanview. It's also worth checking out the Photoshop elements series. Lots of features at a low price. I often wonder how many people actually pay for the full PS lincenses they claim to have and how many people actually USE the sheer endless possibilities of the program.

The problem with picturestyles is that the adjustments are done in the camera on the file itself. With raw you can always go back to the original if the result of postprocessing isn't good...

[machineman9]

That's why I stick with Paint.net and things like it. It is free, has a good array of plugins if I need extra tools and doesn't have a ridiculous amount of tools which I will probably never need. Some people I know use Photoshop to do the simplest things such as creating 2 layers and changing the blend mode to overlay. So much power, wasted  :-/

I might look at Elements or something... if nothing more I could do with the better and more accurate selection tools it uses. Paint.net's selection tools are quite inferior and can make cutouts a bit harder.

Yeah with RAW I can adjust the style after it has been taken. However, because of my problem above (RAW seems to save a few megapixels smaller than what it should do, where JPG is fine) I generally stick with just JPG shooting, but gradually I am starting to use both.

[Hagar]

Picturestyles are good to experiment, but if you really want to have all the liberty you want to adjust your shots, work in raw and postprocess using the rawconverter you got from Canon and Irfanview.

That's fine if you know what you're doing Kris. I haven't got the faintest idea of how to use most of those features. I suspect I'm not alone.

It's also worth checking out the Photoshop elements series. Lots of features at a low price. I often wonder how many people actually pay for the full PS lincenses they claim to have

I often wonder that myself.

and how many people actually USE the sheer endless possibilities of the program.

Probably don't know how. I have enough problems with Elements.

The problem with picturestyles is that the adjustments are done in the camera on the file itself.

Glad we agree on that anyway.