If you're like me and thought that
the picture profiles on Sony cameras
had no effect on raw image capture,
then you're about to be surprised.
Let's get Undone.
[offbeat music]
♪ Gerald Undone ♪
♪ He's crazy ♪
What's happening, everybody? I'm Gerald Undone
and where am I going and why am I in this handcart?
So, today I was working on my review for the Sony a6400
and I was comparing some images really closely
and I noticed they looked different
despite everything else being exactly the same
and I finally narrowed it down that it was the picture profile
causing this problem and I feel bad
because I've told other people in the past
that picture profiles don't really have an impact
on raw image capture because they don't really
on almost any other camera
and I guess I just came to assume that.
I figured out exactly what's happening
and it turns out, they do have an impact,
but only one element and that's the gamma.
So, I have a whole bunch of images here to show you
to prove this point, but I think that this is important
because when I tried to search for this thing myself
and I googled, "Do picture profiles effect raw images?"
I would say that there is an overwhelming amount of answers
that say, "No, they don't. No, they don't. No, they don't."
But, they do. They definitely do
and this is even backed up a little bit
by the Sony help guide. So, first thing,
let me just jump right into Lightroom here
and before we get into it, I'll also show you Capture One.
I have the Capture One for Sony and it's exactly the same.
It's also the same on Luminar. Any program is going to do this.
So, let's jump into Lightroom right here.
So, I want to import directly off the card
and I have a list here of every shot that I took
and what I changed on them.
Now, first up, right away, if we just look at this collage here,
we can see what's happening and we can see
why I think it's the consensus that picture profiles
don't have an impact, but let's break this down first.
So, the first three were all taken
with picture profiles set to "Off",
and when you do this when it's in photo mode,
you can change the creative style.
So, that's all that this is,
is three different creative styles.
Then, I switched, for the rest of them,
to Picture Profile Two, which is the Still gamma
and that matches Picture Profile off,
which I'm gonna show you. And it doesn't really matter
which picture profile you use, as long as the picture profile
is completely reset
and the gamma is set to Still. Then, they'll all match
and they'll match Picture Profile being off
when you're in photo mode.
I realize that might have been a little bit confusing,
but I'm gonna explain it as we go.
So, if you look at these ones here,
we can see this one's black and white,
we can see this one's got the saturation bumped up
and then there's some differences
throughout the other ones. But when we actually
import these into Lightroom,
that's when it's gonna develop the raws
because up until that point, we're just seeing sort of like
a JPEG preview, which these settings do affect
and all these settings do have an impact on JPEGs,
but not on raw except for one category: the gamma.
So, once we're loaded in here and we look at them,
they all look exactly the same.
And this is why it's common for people to say,
"Nope, picture profiles don't have an effect. Look."
Every single one of these pictures looks exactly the same.
But, it's not true for the last three
and those are the only three that we've adjusted the gamma.
So, I'll just go through these real quick so that you can see
what the heck's going on. I'm not cheating you here.
Every time I read a new one, I'm going to press to the right.
You can even see here on the carousel on the bottom
that I'm changing. So, this first one, Picture Profile off.
Creative style set to Standard.
Picture profile off, creative style set to Clear.
Picture profile off, creative style set to Black and White.
So, we can now determine that the creative styles
have no impact on raw. Once they're developed,
they all look exactly the same. Now, we're going to switch
to Picture Profile Two, which is the Still gamma
with everything else reset. Looks exactly the same.
So, it doesn't matter what picture profile you're on,
as long as you're on Still gamma,
it'll match Picture Profile off.
Black level +15.
No difference. Go back and forth.
No difference if you set the level up.
Then, we'll go to the next one,
which has a black gamma set to wide
and the value set to zero
and we have black gamma set to wide +7.
Still no differences. Let's go back three or four.
Exactly the same.
Now, we're going to set the knee to manual
with the point at 80% and the slope +3.
No changes. Notice, though,
there's a shift in the frame there,
but the image looks exactly the same.
Next one, saturation +32.
Now, you saw in the thumbnail for this one, it was...
crazy orange and everything,
but it looks exactly the same.
And now, we've got colour phase +7,
and now we have-- colour depth has the red +7
and the green -7, which obviously should show up
here on a red and green Rubik's Cube,
but they look exactly the same again.
And now, detail +7. Again, no change
and for the detail one, we can zoom right in
and even if we look at this crispy edge of the sticker,
once it renders out,
we can see that they look exactly the same.
Now, we're into colour modes. So, we've gone through
all of the settings inside of Picture Profiles.
There's only two remaining: Color Mode and Gamma.
So, what happens if you change the colour mode?
Well, if you change the colour mode to black and white...
doesn't matter. It looks exactly the same.
You can even change it to a really wide one
like S-Gamut3. Looks exactly the same.
So, when you choose an S-Log picture profile,
it's not the colour mode that's making the impact,
it's only the gamma because the colour mode still looks
exactly the same, and then I also did the Movie colour mode
because it's really, really rich
and I thought it would stand out,
but they look exactly the same. And now, for the last three,
it's only the gamma that's changing.
So, we're still on Picture Profile 2,
still using a Still gamma
up until this point and everything else is on zero.
Now, all we're changing is the gamma,
but we're leaving the colour mode
back on Still for these three.
So, this one is Cine 1.
It's brighter all of a sudden. We can clearly see a difference.
And if we look at the histogram in the top left,
that was on Still gamma, Cine 1 gamma.
It's definitely changed.
Now, this one's HLG.
Looks completely different Still.
Completely different histogram. Let's go back two.
Cine 1. Still.
And the last one, I just chose Movie as a gamma
and again, it's different, and they're all different.
S-Log's different, the different Cine ones. There's the ITU.
They're all different. If you change the gamma,
you will change the raw and this can be backed up
a little bit by going into the help guide here from Sony.
If you look here,
they're talking about the Picture Profiles.
This is the whole help guides for Picture Profiles, basically.
But at the bottom, it says,
"If you print raw images with shooting settings,
the following settings are not reflected.
Black level, black gamma, knee and colour depth."
But we went further and checked.
The saturation also doesn't change,
the colour phase doesn't change in the detail,
those aren't listed there, but as far as I can tell,
they also don't have an impact. But then it says,
"If you change Gamma,
the available ISO value range changes."
I know what you might be thinking.
When I change the gammas, I was required to change
my ISO around. But in order to prove that wrong,
I made all these shots at the exact same settings
and started at a higher ISO of 2000.
So, if we go back into Lightroom and we look up here
at the exposure settings, we've got ISO 2000 at f/2
at 1/100 of a second. If we look at the different gammas,
it's still ISO 2000 all the way across
because that was a common thing listed on the forums.
That they reason why it's changing is because
you're not realizing it, but you were at ISO 400,
then you went to S-Log and it bumped you up to ISO 800.
No. These were all shot at ISO 2000
and they didn't shift when I changed the gamma,
but the actual curve of the image changed.
Let's go back to the help guide.
It says, "There may be more noise in dark parts
depending on the gamma settings.
When using S-Log2 gamma,
the noise becomes more noticeable."
Basically, what this lets us know
is that there is a difference based on the gamma
and what I think is going on here is that
when the analog to digital conversion
or when the data is being recorded from the sensor
based on the charges that it gathered,
there's a different gain, there's a different conversion
being applied based on the gamma that's being set
in the picture profile. So, the actual signal data
that's being recorded in the raw file is different
depending on the gamma, but all the other stuff isn't.
When you increase the saturation,
it's not changing how much light is converted into electricity
and then how that data is boosted and recorded.
That's not changing it,
but these gammas are actually changing it,
or at least the values are being,
a new layer is being put on the values
that when these images are being developed
from their raws, they're looking different.
And from a practical standpoint,
even if there was an argument to suggest
that the raw photos are all the same,
regardless of the gamma setting,
it doesn't matter because practically, they are different,
no matter how you treat them and I'll prove this
by loading up Capture One as well
just to give an alternate source in case you think
its Lightroom's fault and I will get rid of these ones
so you don't think I did any funny business.
And I'll do a fresh import right from the card,
and again, we can see all the thumbnails
have all of the different aspects to them,
but if we import all 18 images,
now it's going to do that thing where it normalizes
all of the images again as it develops the raws,
the previews disappear
and they all start to look the same.
You can see the saturation; one here is going to turn into
a normal looking raw. And all the way down
and this again is why people think picture profiles
don't have an effect. In fact, like I said,
I'm to blame for this as well.
I also thought they didn't have an effect as well.
I even replied to a couple of people's comments saying,
"Don't worry about your picture profile
when shooting in raw," and I apologize to those people
that I mislead because the gamma will have an impact.
Even if it's small sometimes, it will have an impact.
So, let's just start somewhere in the middle here
and the first batch all look exactly the same, which they do.
And then, we get to the last three,
which have the different gammas.
We can see that they're different.
So, it doesn't matter what software you use,
changing the gamma changes the way the raw is developed
and really, that's what matters when people say,
"Do the picture profiles have an impact?"
Yes. Your raw will be developed differently,
regardless of the software you use if you change the gamma,
but you can change any other setting you want,
just don't change the gamma
if you want to keep them consistent all the way through.
But that's going to be it for me. I hope you found this video
helpful or at least entertaining and if you did,
make sure to leave it the old thumbs up
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feel free to hit the dislike button twice.
Alright... I'm done.