Scene dynamic range

Dynamic range and dynamic range transfer is one of the often misunderstood concepts in video and film, maybe because it is a bit technical. Dynamic range is the ratio between the smallest and the biggest possible values in some signal. Here we are interested in the case when this signal is light. Scene dynamic range or scene contrast is the ratio between the luminance of the darkest blacks and the brightest whites in a scene. This ratio can get quite large in scenes with both bright sunlight and dark shadows.

Human vision has a curious characteristic. In order to accommodate large scene contrasts we don’t see light physically “correct”. We see exponential luminance increments as linear increments. We perceive the change from 10 cd/m² to 20 cd/m² as similar to the change from 200 to 400 cd/m². This means that the series of gray steps with luminances of 10, 20, 40, 80, 160,…cd/m² is perceived as uniformly changing. And the series of gray steps with luminances 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60,…cd/m² has the perceived differences between steps getting smaller. One important consequence of this logarithmic correlation of human vision to light is that the eye discerns small luminance differences in the darks better than in the highlights.

The logarithmic concept of light stops fits well with the workings of our vision and is widely adopted in photography. A surface is said to be one stop higher than another surface when the luminance of the first surface is twice the luminance of the second surface. So if a scene has a contrast ratio of 1000:1 it is said to have dynamic range of around 10 stops (2¹⁰ = 1024).

Film dynamic range

The dynamic range of film and digital sensors is usually smaller than high dynamic range scenes. And color reversal film has much smaller dynamic range than color negative film. For example, Kodak Ektachrome 5285, which is a reversal stock, has less than 9 stops of dynamic range. The captured dynamic range distribution varies a bit depending on the specific film negative stock but latest negative stocks like Kodak Vision3 5219 have dynamic range of over 14 stops. Color reversal film is usually much more saturated than negative film. Both high saturation and limited dynamic range make reversal film more of a specialty stock, appropriate for specific uses like ads or music videos. Movies are almost universally shot on negative film.

From the characteristic curve of film (Kodak 5219 in this example) we can note the following. There is a large linear part in the middle of the curve where equal exposure change results in equal density change. That’s where detail is captured uniformly and with the greatest tonal resolution. The slope of the curve in its straight part is called gamma. For most film negatives gamma is around 0.6. This means that one stop of light, or 0.3 log exposure, is represented by 0.3*0.6 = 0.18 density. So, in a way, film does dynamic range compression: as you can see from the chart, a spread of more than 14 stops (4.2 log exposure) is captured in a density range of less than 2.0 log D. Most of this is due to highlights and shadows compression as explained below. Note that film has different sensitivity to red, green and blue. This is taken care of during the printing process.

Dynamic range distribution of the Kodak Vision3 5219 film stock

I have also marked where 18% gray, 2% black and 90% white fall on the curve (for the green sensitivity curve). 18% gray or middle gray is what light meters use for light measurements. This is the shade of gray that falls perceptually in the middle of a black-to-white grayscale. 90% white is used as reference white in video and shows where diffuse white falls. Whites above this are generally specular highlights or in-frame lights. 2% black shows where the darkest detailed shadows fall. Below this, deep black with some tonal change is expected, but without real detail.

As we can see, there are around 3 stops below 2% where blacks are recorded, albeit compressed at the bottom and with less tonal resolution. And there are around 5 stops above 90% white for highlights. This is also the overexposure latitude. This latitude allows the cinematographer to overexpose in order to capture significant dark detail or to play with the look of the image during processing and printing. This allows for some contrast and grain modulation. Slight overexposure paired with pull processing (underdevelopment) and/or print down is common. The highest part of the curve is also compressed a bit, which means less tonal precision in this part. The point where shadows start to compress is called toe, and the point where highlights begin to roll is called shoulder.

It should be clear that the negative image is source material. If printed so that the curve is preserved, the image would appear very low contrast: washed and unappealing. That’s why release printing is done on high contrast positive stocks with gamma in the range of 2.5 to 3.0. This results in a print-through gamma of around 1.5 to 1.8. The print stock also does some further highlight compression through its toe. Blacks, on the other hand, are mostly unaffected due to the high maximum density over base of positive stocks.

The existence of a toe and a shoulder is the cause of one the defining characteristics of film, and consequently, of the cinematic look. The relatively large dynamic range paired with the compression of the extremes is the reason of the pleasant look of material shot on film in terms of range distribution: highlights seemingly roll off forever without clipping and there is a notion of tonality in the deep shadows.

Film preserves detail and tonality in highlights and shadows, with a pleasant roll-off in specular highlights

An interlude: gamma encoding and end-to-end gamma

Gamma is another often misunderstood area. The fact that the word is used for at least three different concepts in the image-making realm doesn’t help either. In the case of film gamma is the slope (or the tangent) of the linear part of the characteristic curve. In digital, gamma is used both as a synonym of transfer function or transfer curve, and as the value used for the exponent in the special case of power-law gamma encoding/decoding.

The dynamic range of the human eye is around 10 to 15 stops in a given moment of time, depending on lighting conditions. Displays and projection have smaller reproduction capabilities. Projection usually has intraframe contrast ratio of 150:1 or smaller. Good monitors may have intraframe contrast of around 1000:1. So the highlights and blacks compression above shoulder and below toe allows for squeezing a higher dynamic range into the smaller dynamic range of the reproduction system. It is, in essence, a case of tone mapping.

System gamma, end-to-end gamma or print-through gamma (in the film case) all describe the gamma of the whole process: from scene to the final deliverable. Replicating scene light would suggest system gamma of 1. But this is only true if the viewing conditions were equivalent to scene conditions in terms of light. This is rarely the case. Projection flare, low absolute projection luminance (less than 50 cd/m²) and the relatively dark viewing conditions lower display contrast significantly and make blacks appear brighter to the eye. The higher system gamma adds some contrast and combats these limitations. For example, film negative gamma of 0.6, intermediate film gamma of 1 and print film gamma of 3.0 lead to a composite gamma of 0.6 * 1.0 * 3.0 = 1.8. For the brighter viewing conditions in offices and homes an end-to-end gamma of around 1.2 is considered sufficient.

Linear light transfer (above) and power law gamma encoded transfer (below). Mid-gray background for reference. Note the limited tonal resolution in the blacks with linear encoding.

Gamma encoding in digital images serves a different purpose. Consumer grade images are universally 8-bit. If light is encoded linearly the dark stops have very limited precision: 2 is a stop higher than 1, 4 is a stop higher than 2, 8 is a stop higher than 4, etc. There are almost no values to encode intermediate shades. On the other hand, there is an excessive amount of values in the upper end: in the top stop between 128 and 255, for example. So linear encoding is both inefficient and losing important information in the shadows. Power-law gamma encoding addresses this by applying a transform (usually a simple power function) to the input signal. The eye still needs linear light in order to see the correct image so the display applies the reverse curve and linearizes the output. Decoding (reverse) gamma values between 2.2 (sRGB) and 2.6 (digital cinema) are used, depending on the expected viewing conditions.

Dynamic range of digital video

Digital sensors are more straightforward than film in terms of captured light representation. The quantized signal from the sensor’s analog to digital converter is linear. If a photosite (pixel) is capturing twice the light than another photosite, then its quantized value will be twice larger. Most DSLR cameras capture RAW images quantized to 14 bits. For a typical DSLR camera with slightly above 11 stops of dynamic range, 14 bits allow for some decent tonal resolution even with linear encoding. But things start to get complicated when the raw data have to be stuffed into less bits for recording.

Canon DSLR Standard picture style: dynamic range over light stops (log exposure)

All DSLR cameras and consumer video cameras output 8-bit video. Stuffing 11+ stops of dynamic range into 8 bits can’t be done linearly simply because the coding space lacks resolution. The typical compromise results into a gamma encoded S-shaped (over stops/log exposure) transfer curve. The top 8 to 9 stops of the RAW dynamic range are selected for transfer because they are cleanest. Some sort of a knee is usually implemented with the highest 1 to 1.5 stops getting compressed. The knee is very similar to the shoulder of film. It simulates a roll-off in the highlights, slightly increases the overall dynamic range and also allows for a bit more tonal precision in the mids where the most important tones are. The resulting image is sufficiently contrasty and ready for the consumer display. But it is not really supposed to be post-processed.

Again, I have marked 2% black, 18% gray and 90% white on the dynamic range chart for the Canon DSLR Standard picture style. Note that there is around one stop over 90% white available for highlights. Compare this to the excessive overexposure latitude of film. Shadows are better represented although the low stops are lacking in tonal resolution. An attempt to contain the highlights on exposure will often result in crushed blacks in high contrast scenes.

This type of consumer-ready transfer function plus the limited dynamic range of early digital cameras have led to the notion that digital video is too contrasty, highlights are hard clipped and the blacks are crushed and lacking detail. This is exactly what many people mean when they say that an image looks “video-ish”.

Blown highlights due to limited dynamic range. The front girl actually wears a chequered shirt. Also note the blown pink shirt in the middle. Like Crazy was shot on the Canon 7D. Compare to the shot from A Serious Man above.

A rare case of hard clip actually complementing the graphic presentation of a film. Sin City was shot on the Sony CineAlta HDC-F950.

Dynamic range distribution of the Arri Log C transfer curve

Recent high-end digital cameras have much better dynamic range capabilities and rival the best film stocks. Access to the full dynamic range is enabled through either linear RAW video (12 bit or more) or some (near) logarithmic transfer function. Both linear RAW video and log video are production formats and require post-processing for presentation. The idea of log space video is to provide a near flat distribution of coding values over exposure. Such a distribution provides both the full camera dynamic range and better tonal precision in blacks and highlights. Thus log curves are close to film characteristic curves, allowing for easier intercutting of digital video and scanned film footage. For example, the Arri Log C transfer function encodes around 14 stops of dynamic range from the Arri Alexa camera. Similar transfer curves have been constructed for many cameras, including DSLRs. It is worth noting that accommodating a large dynamic range into a limited coding space (such as 8 bits) results in limited tonal precision. This makes the practicality of true 8-bit log curves somewhat dubious. A 10-bit film scan allocates around 90 coding values per stop in the flat part of the characteristic curve, 10-bit Arri Log C allocates around 75 values. Whereas an 8-bit transfer curve like Technicolor’s CineStyle for Canon DSLR cameras allocates around 27 values per stop. That’s why low precision flat curves should be used with care and with understanding of the tonal precision trade-off. You can read more on 8-bit flat transfer curves here.

The previous parts of the Cinematic Look series can be found here: Part 1 on Aspect Ratio, Depth of Field and Sensor Size, and Part 2 on Frame Rate and Shutter Speed. And the next part is on Film Grain.

Cinematic Look, Part 3: Dynamic Range

Dynamic range

Scene dynamic range specifies the ratio between the luminance of the brightest whites and the darkest blacks in a scene. Similarly, camera dynamic range specifies the ratio between the luminance of the brightest whites and the darkest blacks that the camera can capture. In photography this range is usually measured in f-stops (or exposure values, EV) which is a logarithmic measure (with base 2). Each successive stop is double the light. So a dynamic range of 10 stops means a contrast ratio of 2¹⁰:1 or 1024:1.

Current digital sensors have some pretty good dynamic range capabilities. The ARRI Alexa and Red MX sensors capture dynamic range well in excess of 13 stops. The dynamic range of the APS-C sized Canon 550D/t2i sensor is about 11.5 stops and the dynamic range of the full frame Canon 5D mark II is around 12 stops.

The RAW data of a Canon DSLR camera is 14-bit. This means that the analog-to-digital conversion on the sensor yields 14-bit values (between 0 and 16383). This is enough to represent accurately dynamic range spanning 12 stops when encoding it linearly. This is all nice and good, but unfortunately for videographers that’s not the signal we get out of the camera.

See, Canon DSLRs (and all DSLRs, for that matter) capture consumer grade video. By design, video from DSLRs is not meant to be tinkered with but displayed directly on consumer displays. Consumer displays are almost universally 8-bit displays, with some of them actually having 6-bit panels and dithering colors up to 8-bit. Unsurprisingly, consumer level video is 8-bit too. Blu-ray discs, for example, have 8-bit video. Canon DSLR video is also 8-bit. And that’s where picture styles come into play.

The picture style tells the camera how to put all that RAW dynamic range into 8 bits (with gamma encoding on top of it). Back in the 90′s Kodak made the Cineon system for scanning and digital intermediate of film. The digitized data was 10-bit and the guys at Kodak actually came to the conclusion that 8-bit was good for representing around 6 2/3 stops, or less than 7 stops of dynamic range. Encode more range, and you start getting banding issues in the grading process. Digital cameras now routinely output between 8 and 9 stops of dynamic range in 8-bit video and jpegs. This is mostly achieved by rolling off the highlights and pressing down the shadows. Most of the coding space is reserved for midtones. This is the well-known S-curve. So in this encoded dynamic range of 8-9 stops there is good detail in, say, 5-6 stops in the mids.

The camera sensor has lower signal-to-noise ratio in the blacks and higher signal-to-noise ratio in the whites. This is because noise is more or less evenly distributed on the sensor but there are less photons hitting the sensor in the darker pixels. For this reason, the 8-9 stops of dynamic range baked in the encoded video (or still picture) are taken from the upper end of the RAW dynamic range. This ensures cleaner image. Incidentally, that’s also the reason RAW images usually have more exposure latitude for pushing shadows up than for pulling highlights down.

The case of flat picture styles

The Kodak Vision3 5219 motion picture stock has a flat characteristic curve over a huge exposure range

Flat picture styles try to emulate how film negative captures the scene. Modern negative stocks can capture full detail in some 11-12 stops of dynamic range. Compare that to the 6 detailed stops in 8-bit video meant for display. On top of that, there is even more exposure latitude in the rolled off highlights above the shoulder and in the dark tones below the toe. Because equal negative density is allocated to each stop, the film is said to work in Log space (from logarithmic). This may be somewhat confusing at first, but bear in mind that the f-stop axis is already logarithmic: each successive stop is double the light of the previous stop. Having that much dynamic range captured in full detail allows the cinematographer a lot of latitude in the way the scene is shot. Exposure errors can be fixed and decisions about the overall tone of the shoot can be deferred to post-production. The film is then printed on a contrasty release stock which returns contrast back for presentation. (You can read a more detailed introduction on film dynamic range here.)

The ideal log space encoding is represented by a straight line over exposure in stops

Flat picture styles aim to allow for similar exposure latitude and post-production flexibility. To increase the recorded dynamic range in general, and to have good detail throughout this recorded dynamic range. Flat picture styles do this by distributing the coding space equally over the exposure range: each stop of light is being encoded by the same number of values. So, an ideal Log distribution is a straight line. For example, if we want to encode 10 stops in 8 bits, we will have around 25 values to encode shades in each stop. In practice, the curve is rarely totally flat because there is too much noise in the low end of the range. Lifting the blacks also lifts the noise. So allotting a full bucket of values for them would be a waste of coding space. That’s why the extreme darks get compressed a bit even in flat picture styles.

One clarification, before we go further. Flat picture styles should not be seen as a way to increase dynamic range. In fact, they may not increase DR at all and still be useful. Usually there is some dynamic range increase over the factory picture styles. These additional stops (or a fraction of a stop) are almost always in the shadows, and they are noisy, compressed and lacking color fidelity. There is no real detail in there; just some notion of tonal change, at best. The real gain is in the stops which are already there at the bottom of the curve in the factory picture styles. The flat picture style just expands them and makes the detail in these stops available in post. In that sense, flat picture styles increase the usable dynamic range.

As you may have guessed, it is not only dances and songs in the case of flat picture styles. They have a serious weakness. The 8-bit coding space simply sucks for representing extended dynamic range. The more dynamic range you encode, the less precision there is in tonality distribution in the usable dynamic range. That means that video shot with flat picture styles breaks faster when pushed in post; posterization (banding) happens sooner when stretching the range around. In a sense, what we get in exposure latitude, we lose in tonal precision and gradation. So, flat picture styles offer a trade-off, and not the solution to all problems.

The flat picture style is in essence a production format. The same way as Super 35 negative film or RAW video are production formats. Flat picture styles are meant for post and not for presentation. Usually, the image needs to get some contrast treatment to make it presentable.

Technicolor CineStyle

The Technicolor CineStyle picture style was developed by Technicolor in order to assist their digital intermediate process. Cinematographers often utilize different cameras on a shoot, including Canon DSLR cameras. And Canon DSLR video doesn’t mesh well during DI with scanned film negative footage and footage from high-end digital cameras that shoot Log space video. That’s why they developed CineStyle to have the output of the Canon DSLR in Log space. It came as a surprise to Technicolor that so many people actually donwloaded CineStyle. The recommended settings for Technicolor CineStyle are -4 Contrast and -2 Saturation. And it also comes with an optional LUT which can be used in most NLEs or compositors and applies a S-curve to the image to make it presentable.

I’ve measured the dynamic range and values distribution of CineStyle through multiple exposures of a Danes-Picta BST13 reflective grayscale chart with steps of 1/3 stop (a copy of Kodak Q-13). This test does not pretend for scientific accuracy but nevertheless gives a pretty good idea of what’s happening with the image. The test was done with a Canon 550D/t2i but the results should apply to any Canon DSLR camera.

Technicolor CineStyle dynamic range distribution plotted against the Standard and Faithful Canon picture styles

There are a couple of peculiarities about Technicolor CineStyle. Both can be seen in the chart.
First, somewhat controversially, CineStyle sets the black point at 16. The values [0..15] are practically unused. Second, and not as obvious, the whites are brought down significantly. There are still values recorded all the way up to 255, but a whole lot of the value range is dedicated to the highest 1/2 stop. This is quite the opposite of the typical knee and knee slope approach to handling extreme highlights. It is worth noting that there is no official info from Technicolor setting things straight about this. There is a notice on their site, saying “a detailed white paper and case study will be developed in the near future”. But it’s been there for ages with no white paper on the horizon (at the time of writing this).

Various explanations exist for this range distribution. Mike Seymour advocates the idea that lifting the black point is reducing noise by allowing negative values (with respect to black at 16) and having the smoothed average exactly at black (read his post for details). This makes sense but there are problems with the idea. For one, even at high ISO settings with lots of sensor noise there are only rarely any pixels with values below 16 (and none below 14 in my tests). Another popular explanation says that the h.264 codec doesn’t like small values. That’s why lifting the blacks to 16 preserves them from being butchered by the codec. Finally, there is the idea that lifting the blacks and limiting the whites is simply done in order to put all the important info in the broadcast legal range of 16-235. Even though there are values all the way up to 255, important whites are pulled down below the 235 limit.

My take on this matter is different. I am convinced that the lifted black point is entirely connected to film and digital cinema Log workflows. For example, in 10-bit film scan formats like Cineon/DPX the black point (D-min) is placed at 95 for reasons that I won’t delve into here (it is concerned with the uneven grain structure of unexposed/underexposed film). Converted to 8 bits this would be around 24. Incidentally, D-min is around 4 2/3 stops down of mid-gray (18% gray). In my measurements of CineStyle’s distribution 4 2/3 stops below mid-gray came at around value 25. This theory also explains the limited precision (due to the relatively small inclination) in the straight portion of the curve resulting in apparently badly used precision in the extreme whites. Both the lifted black and the low gamma of the curve are needed for seamless intercutting of footage from Canon DSLRs with film scans and digital cinema Log footage without any significant import pain. Which is the reason for the creation of CineStyle in the first place.

And there is, of course, the possibility that Technicolor did the blacks lifting for very specific reasons connected to their DI workflow. Hopefully, the white paper will materialize some day to clear this point. But whatever the reason, limiting the useful value range doesn’t look like a good idea when recording video in 8 bits. This decreases the already precious space allotted to each stop even more and invites banding artifacts in post. Still, many videographers use Technicolor CineStyle because, well, it’s Technicolor. But there are better alternatives in the Canon DSLR world. At least in the likely case that you are not doing your DI at Technicolor.

One side effect of the lifted black point is an increase in perceived noise. Pushing black up to 16 also lifts the noise always present in the shadows and makes it brighter and thus more visible. This is not noise created by CineStyle, the noise exists in other flat picture styles too. But being darker makes it harder to notice.

Other flat Canon picture styles

Even before Technicolor CineStyle there were flat picture styles attempting to increase the useful dynamic range. The easiest option is to use one of the lower contrast factory Canon picture styles – Neutral or Faithful – and decrease the Contrast setting down from the default 0 to -4. You can see Faithful at -4 Contrast in the chart above. The curve of Faithful becomes flat later than CineStyle but keeps being flat all the way to the limit of 255. This means more range for each stop in the mids and the highlights, compared to CineStyle. CineStyle has more detail in the shadows and the extreme highlights though. Neutral looks identical to Faithful in terms of dynamic range. The difference is in the color treatment. Neutral is closer to Standard, and Faithful is closer to Portrait. Canon claims that Faithful offers colors closest to the original scene colors. Note that the difference in contrast between Standard, Portrait and Landscape on one side, and Neutral and Faithful on the other, is small. In fact, Canon says it is mostly due to color tone balancing.

When the basic styles at -4 Contrast are not enough for the job, other custom picture styles may come in handy. Marvels Cine is one of the oldest attempts for a flat picture style. It is currently at version 3.4. This version is based on the Neutral Canon picture style. And it is created to allow for correct exposure evaluation through the Canon DSLR LCD screen. This is a common disadvantage of flat picture styles: by lifting the range they brighten the LCD screen of the camera. This makes exposure judgement through the screen difficult. Some people actually compose and setup exposure in another style (Standard, for example) and switch to the flat style for recording.

Histogram for a low contrast scene. Portrait (top), Flaat_12 (middle), Flaat_12 after auto levels (bottom). Adding contrast stretches the values and breaks the histogram.

The Flaat family of picture styles is more recent. It includes 4 picture styles – Flaat_09, Flaat_10, Flaat_11, Flaat_12 – claiming 9, 10, 11 and 12 stops of dynamic range respectively. But remember what we said above. Dynamic range and usable dynamic range are two different things. Digging too deep in the darks is not recommended due to both noise extraction and loss of tonal precision in the mids. These styles have the flattest curve from the shadows to the highlights compared to both Technicolor CineStyle and Marvels Cine. Flaat_10 and Flaat_9 are the styles most will be interested in, as they offer good flat tonal distribution without excessive noise in the shadows. The Flaat picture style family comes in two variations: one based on Neutral and one based on Portrait. This is handy, considering how color handling is the main (but sometimes forgotten) reason for selecting a specific picture style in the first place.

Skin colors are one area which can be affected negatively by flat picture styles. Having the right skin hues won’t help much if tonality is lost due to insufficient tonal precision in this range. Lacking gradation in the range of the skin tones is a highway to plasticky skin. This is the reason Marvels Cine v3.4 supposedly keeps the linearity of the values (does not flatten them) in the most common range for skin.

Not shooting flat: getting the desired look in camera

The position of this section in the article may seem illogical. Why haven’t we started with not shooting flat in the first place? I believe that only by getting acquainted with the shortcomings of flat shooting one can truly appreciate the alternative.

Getting the desired look in the camera has been a popular mantra amongst cinematographers for decades and also a reason for pride, considering how this is a significant demonstration of skill and knowledge. Utilizing specific film stocks to achieve a specific look was a main part of the process. In the digital realm picture styles can be thought of as the analog of film stocks. By selecting a specific picture style and playing with the style’s parameters one can create various looks. While the factory Canon picture styles offer some decent variety and will work for lots of people, there are tons of custom picture styles online, each targeting a specific look, including simulations of popular film stocks like Kodachrome, Velvia, Ektachrome.

Neutral (above) has more magenta in the blues and brighter greens, Faithful has more pinkish skin tones (the building to the right posing as skin double)

The point is, getting as close as possible to the final look during the shoot will limit the need for adjustments in post. And post hurts the image. The heavily compressed 8-bit video simply is not meant to be abused in post.

DO’s and DON’Ts

• Getting the look you want in-camera is the best solution. This means less tinkering in post, with less possibilities for breaking the image. It just so happens that this is not always possible. Nevertheless, when shooting in controlled conditions and for simple projects that should be the default option.
• Shooting flat is a trade-off between usable dynamic range and tonal precision throughout that range. Try to use the most contrasty picture style that does not clip or limit important highlights and does not excessively compress blacks. This ensures the best possible tonal precision.
• Don’t bother with CineStyle unless you intercut with film or digital cinema footage. For better tonal precision stick to Neutral/Faithful (and contrast set depending on the scene) or Flaat_10.
• Flat picture styles are mostly useful in scenes with lots of contrast and lots of details. Having large gradients in the frame may pose problems with banding in post when you try to add some contrast back to the image. Don’t be afraid to shoot flat, just be ready for the consequences. Shooting flat when the scene is low contrast makes no sense as you will compress an already limited range even further. Avoid that.
• Flat picture styles can be thought of as a production format. But it may still be acceptable to shoot flat if your goal is low contrast look. Even then, it is easier to take contrast out in post than the opposite.
• Don’t be afraid to play with the Color Tone parameter of your picture style. This tweaks skin tones from Magenta/Pink to Yellow and can help when skin does not look right.
• Mixing picture styles for a project can work, but may also introduce matching problems in post. Stylistic differences between sequences is a good reason to use a different picture style. Difference in scene contrast is a good reason for that only if the two picture styles match in color.
• Picture style color is at least as important as dynamic range, if not more. There are so many videos with crappy grading out there that it is not even funny (hello, Magic Bullet Looks). Test picture styles before committing to them. Canon’s Digital Photo Professional can apply any picture style to a RAW image, so it is easy to see for yourself. Don’t just use a style because it is popular, or because you’ve seen a nice video shot with it. Test. Know your image before you’ve even taken it out of the memory card.

Canon Picture Styles: Shooting Flat or Not?