topic EOS 90D: Do you all tweak the Picture Style settings? in EOS DSLR & Mirrorless Cameras

EOS 90D: Do you all tweak the Picture Style settings?

Ramsden — Wed, 13 May 2026 17:56:03 GMT

Hello

EOS90D here across the pond.

I was recently advised to try turning off lens aberration in some situations. I have to admit to not knowing anything about this feature, so had a go, nervously digging into the inner workings of my camera. It's all part of my ongoing learning process, and getting to know my camera. Great results, and learned a lot.

No obvious connection, but I then started looking at Picture Style settings.

So my question is to the more experienced folk out there, and whether any of you tweak the settings, and secondly, do any of you use the User Def 1, 2 and 3. If so what innovations have you come up with and are you willing to share them?

Hands up, I wouldn't know where to start at the moment.

Regards

Ramsden

Re: Picture Style settings

kvbarkley — Wed, 13 May 2026 16:08:33 GMT

I doubt that many bother with these.

The only time I have changed them it was a set provided by Bob Atkins to enhance fall foliage.

If you are shooting in RAW it is a bit moot, though DPP should use them to generate its initial render.

Re: Picture Style settings

jrhoffman75 — Wed, 13 May 2026 16:50:36 GMT

Canon DPP4 reads the Picture Style set in the camera. Adobe Lightroom Classic can be configured to read the PS set in the camera and will apply the Camera Matching profile instead of the Adobe profile when images are imported

https://global.canon/en/imaging/picturestyle/index.html

You can click on the topics on the left and get additional information.

Re: Picture Style settings

Ramsden — Wed, 13 May 2026 17:57:23 GMT

Thanks guys

I'll try some different profiles and see what happens.

Ramsden

Re: EOS 90D: Do you all tweak the Picture Style settings?

LeeP — Wed, 13 May 2026 18:15:05 GMT

I prefer SOOC (straight out of camera) so no tinkering.

Re: EOS 90D: Do you all tweak the Picture Style settings?

kvbarkley — Wed, 13 May 2026 19:05:01 GMT

LeeP:

I am not sure what you mean. I also am a SOOC guy, but the picture style adjustments are made in camera. And are what Canon changes if you change to monochrome for example. From my T6S manual:

Re: EOS 90D: Do you all tweak the Picture Style settings?

Ramsden — Wed, 13 May 2026 20:03:59 GMT

Hi Lee

Just for clarification, are you able to turn off Picture Style?

Ramsden

Re: EOS 90D: Do you all tweak the Picture Style settings?

kvbarkley — Wed, 13 May 2026 20:09:24 GMT

No, it always applies *some* picture style. These are the basic parameters used when converting from sensor data to JPEG. I suppose the one that applies the least processing is "neutral".

Re: EOS 90D: Do you all tweak the Picture Style settings?

Ramsden — Wed, 13 May 2026 20:22:56 GMT

Its night time here, so can't test this out, but I just zeroed all User Def 1.

So that should test the inbuilt technology.

Watch this space.

Ramsden

Re: EOS 90D: Do you all tweak the Picture Style settings?

Ramsden — Wed, 13 May 2026 20:33:50 GMT

Just a quick shot of my dog who wasn't playing!

So I've not broken my camera.

Re: EOS 90D: Do you all tweak the Picture Style settings?

LeeP — Wed, 13 May 2026 21:51:13 GMT

There indeed is a tremendous amount of customization that is possible in camera and all of that is worth exploring.

Our definitions of SOOC are slightly different and that is perfectly OK. I appreciate you opening this line of discussion because I appreciate that diversity of perspectives and I always take them into consideration. And yes, I will enjoy tinkering with these options again because of you posing the "what if" angle. So I very much value what you brought up and I will re-examine those options because of this interaction.

I've played around with those options, but they do not offer outcomes that are leaps and bounds better to my eye. Other people will have other experiences for certain.

The option I've used most is monochrome, but shooting in color and flipping the image to monochrome is more advantageous to me because I can have color and black-and-white.

You've definitely given me something to chew on. I'm going to Ventura CA this weekend, so I may do some playing.

Thank you for stimulating conversation.

Re: EOS 90D: Do you all tweak the Picture Style settings?

Ramsden — Thu, 14 May 2026 06:12:09 GMT

Thanks for your feedback Lee

Its made me think as well, but as you say, its sometimes difficult to see the differences.

I'll look forward to seeing your photos from this weekend.

Enjoy

Ramsden

Re: EOS 90D: Do you all tweak the Picture Style settings?

Ramsden — Thu, 14 May 2026 07:23:54 GMT

I thought you might like this. I asked Google how to convert colour photos to monochrome, following your post, as it is something I haven't done before. Google took me to a stream on this canon community website back in 2013 to show me how to do it.

But it seems shooting in Raw-JPeg is a good starting point.

Do you agree?

Ramsden

Re: EOS 90D: Do you all tweak the Picture Style settings?

jrhoffman75 — Thu, 14 May 2026 10:04:12 GMT

@Ramsden wrote:

I thought you might like this. I asked Google how to convert colour photos to monochrome, following your post, as it is something I haven't done before. Google took me to a stream on this canon community website back in 2013 to show me how to do it.

But it seems shooting in Raw-JPeg is a good starting point.

Do you agree?

Ramsden

Pretty much any photo editing software will have a "button" to change the image from color to monochrome as long as you are shooting in RAW. If you edit via Canon DPP4 you can cycle through all of the, Picture Styles and see the subtle differences.

Re: EOS 90D: Do you all tweak the Picture Style settings?

johnrmoyer — Thu, 14 May 2026 12:19:28 GMT

I like Canon DPP for converting raw to black and white. I usually use "Standard" in camera because it is more consistent from one Canon camera model to another. With auto exposure, the picture style will sometimes change the exposure that the camera would choose. If editing in DPP, then style will be a shortcut for some settings including the color curve.

Re: EOS 90D: Do you all tweak the Picture Style settings?

LeeP — Thu, 14 May 2026 12:24:29 GMT

For me, it's literally a slider affair. I simply remove the color saturation which is 90% of the conversion. Converted color photos typically need a little added contrast and sometimes a bit more exposure so that the blue sky doesn't come out totally dingy gray.

Shooting in monochrome is better of course, but then I lose the color option. Two years ago I won 4 awards in the county fair, all of which were black and white. Two were by my R8 in monochrome mode and two were unsaturated color. A lovely blue sky in color can come out to a depressing grey in the desaturation process.

To be frank, I will sometimes look at a color image of mine with a slightly blown-out sky and instead of fabricating a fake blue sky with Pinterest-perfect clouds, I remove the saturation and see what it's like in monochrome. Sometimes a "miss" in color is a "hit" in black and white.

Nearly a year ago, one of my photographs was featured in the Fall (I think) portfolio here and it was an unsaturated color image.

And that's as far as I go in post i.e. if needed I do minor adjustments to exposure, contrast, saturation, shadow, and highlights. I don't stray from the ethic I was taught when I began my photography training which was to get the exposure and composition right in camera, and do minor adjustments in the darkroom. Thus, I don't erase things in the picture, or Frankenstein together several shots and be dishonest, purporting it to be an SOOC photograph that I took when it's a manufactured image with more work than an aging Hollywood actress.

I've played with the modes and haven't seen any real benefit that makes me go "Wow! I must always choose one" and I would argue that white balance more than anything is the key thing to remember to adjust in camera.

Re: EOS 90D: Do you all tweak the Picture Style settings?

LeeP — Thu, 14 May 2026 12:32:43 GMT

I leave it at "auto".

Another reason I don't mess with them is that I like doing street/urban photography and I could wind up changing the mode for this shot and then changing for that shot and in the process lose all spontaneity in the moment, or worse be in "this" mode when a spontaneous image would have been better in "that" mode.

I've always seen the mode as being "if all my shots will be X then I need to be in Y mode" but almost never is that true of what I am doing.

Re: EOS 90D: Do you all tweak the Picture Style settings?

Ramsden — Thu, 14 May 2026 13:43:23 GMT

Makes perfect sense. I've taken about 50 photos this morning, just walking my dog. There's just too many things to remember!

Re: EOS 90D: Do you all tweak the Picture Style settings?

LeeP — Thu, 14 May 2026 17:51:13 GMT

And the exposure accuracy and color rendering on my R100 and R8 have been decidedly pleasing to my eye in their default, unaltered modes. I haven't been displeased in the least.

Re: EOS 90D: Do you all tweak the Picture Style settings?

johnrmoyer — Thu, 14 May 2026 18:05:52 GMT

If it turns out you do want a different picture style, the https://cam.start.canon/en/S004/manual/html/index.html picture style editor has a lot more control than just changing a few things in the camera. It is a free to download program. It seems to me that it has a steep learning curve because the controls do not seem easy to me to map to doing the same thing in DPP. DPP is easier for me to understand because I can usually guess at what algorithms it is using.

The EOS Utility can load an edited picture style into the camera. The picture style editor can start with a photo from the camera to make a new style file.