In this lesson we’ll take a detailed look at how to tweak picture profiles. But first, a PSA that might save you hours.
I’m not a fan of tweaking picture profiles for the following reasons:
- Sony engineers have put in a lot of hours and thought into the color science, and very rarely do they fail. They made these profiles.
- To really tweak picture profiles, you need to be in a calibrated environment, with a professional calibrated display with a wide gamut. You need the display to show colors beyond Rec. 709 because the color spaces in the camera are beyond it. Also, you’ll need to create display LUTs for each profile, and this is almost impossible to do because Sony hasn’t published any official color transformation LUT for any of the profiles (The S-Log2 and S-Log3 LUTs do not apply to the a7R II and a7S II).
- Colors don’t remain constant when you overexpose the camera, so you’ll need to keep tweaking profiles for every exposure change.
- You need a good color source like daylight or tungsten/halogen. The problem with the former is your location and position will influence your estimate of color, and because it will take time to tweak profiles, the lighting will change. The problem with the latter is your monitor and eyesight will be influenced by the light.
- There is nothing you can achieve here that you can’t do better with more control later in post production. The advantage of the latter is, WYSIWYG.
- Finally, no matter how good the colors look in one scene, there will always be situations or projects that demand a different aesthetic. You cannot tweak picture profiles continuously because the camera makes it difficult.
So, you might be asking, why have the options then?
I can only guess, but these profiles are from Sony’s professional cameras that you can use with Rec. 709. The standardized color space has many aids (like the SMPTE Color Bar, specifications for Luma and chroma, etc.) that make it easy to calibrate in the field. The Sony a7R II and a7S II are not cameras that qualify, unless you’re shooting pure Rec. 709.
Maybe it’s like that dialogue in Kung fu Panda: What is the secret secret ingredient? The secret ingredient is you.
So, my suggestion is, watch the video to get a general idea of picture profiles, and what the settings are. But don’t waste your time tweaking them. At least not for professional jobs that need color matching. For general home, Internet stuff it’s okay. Bottom line, if you’re happy with the results, that’s all that matters.
How to tweak picture profiles
Here’s how you tweak picture profiles. In the end, I’ll walk you through how I ‘might’ set Cine1:
Note: I judge colors of Cine1 in the end under tungsten lighting, which is stupid and wrong at best. But it also shows how futile the process is.
Here’s the text version, in case you need to refer to it faster
These settings are buried inside the Picture Profile menu:
The right side is just one menu, scrolled down. Each picture profile can be tweaked to taste, and the camera remembers your choices. On more than one occasion, I’ve played with something and forgot to change it later!
Therefore, once you decide what picture profiles you want (you only have a choice of seven slots from PP1 to PP7), the first thing to do is Reset them:
From this point on, you can start tweaking settings.
Important: Always tweak picture profiles on a calibrated HDTV Rec. 709 monitor, otherwise you won’t get what you see. If you don’t have access to a monitor, leave everything at its defaults.
Note: Since we’ve covered Gamma and Color space (mode), we’ll skip it.
Black level
The Black level can go from -15 to +15. The default is 0.
What does it do, really? An example should help. Here’s what Cine 1 (Cinema color space/mode) looks like in its default state:
Now here’s Black level at -15:
Finally, here’s Black level at +15:
Black level lowers the overall black level, the effect is of crushing or flattening the blacks. -15 lowers it by 15 IRE and +15 raises it by 15 IRE. The main thing is you have no control over how the blacks are crushed or flattened – so you either like the look or you don’t.
Note: Black Level is disabled for S-Log2, S-Log3 and Rec. 709 800%
Black Gamma
Black gamma has two choices, Range and Level:
This works like the ‘Curves’ feature in color grading applications, and you can tweak which range you want to operate in – except in this case the range is limited to the shadow region, from which you select wide, middle or narrow.
Once you select that, you shift the level. It goes from -7 to +7, with Middle/Level 0 being the default. Here’s how it works. Default view:
Here’s +7:
Here’s -7:
So, rather than shift the black level, the level stays the same, but you’re shifting the gamma only in the shadow region.
Together with Black level and Black gamma, you can completely control the shadow region in your image in-camera. And this is preferable to doing it in post because I believe (I could be wrong!) the processing happens before compression.
Knee
If we can manipulate the shadows we should also be able to manipulate the highlights, right? That’s what Knee does:
Knee comes in two flavors – Auto and Manual. By default, everything’s in Auto, and unless you’re stuck in a situation you can’t fix, I highly recommend you let this remain as-is. Knee only works in Manual shooting mode.
Under Auto, you can select the Max Point (IRE) where the highlight will clip. The value ranges from 90%-100%, which is within the broadcast range. The scene I shot doesn’t have any clipping highlights, so the following doesn’t show much. Let’s start with Auto, High Sensitivity, 90%:
Next, Auto, High Sensitivity, 100%:
Next, Auto, Mid Sensitivity, 90%:
Next, Auto, Mid Sensitivity, 100%:
In Manual Mode, you have a greater range for Point, from 75% to 105%. It helps to go to 105% for a little more highlight detail. To go with this, you can also control the Slope (another word for ‘highlight gamma’) from -5 to +5.
This is 75% point, Slope 0:
This is 75% point, Slope +5:
This is 75% point, Slope -5:
Too bad my scene doesn’t even go above 75 IRE!
Either way, I recommend you leave Knee in Auto at all times, unless you have a strong and valid reason not to. If Knee is set to Auto at 100%, that’s pretty much as the profiles are designed to be.
Notes: Knee only works in Manual Mode, and there’s a weird quirk:
If you set [Slope] to +5 in [Manual Set], [Knee] is set to [Off].
Saturation
This one’s simple, it changes the saturation. You can go from-32 to +32:
Here are the results. First, Saturation at 0:
Saturation at +32:
Saturation at -32:
The camera doesn’t go all the way, either way. I suggest you leave this setting at its default value, which is 0, unless you have a strong reason to change it.
Color Phase
The Color Phase lets you go from -7 to +7:
What does it do? Here’s Color Phase at -7:
Here’s Color Phase at -7:
Wow, there’s an obvious shift in colors, but not the blacks and whites.
What has changed? The Hue has shifted. The best place to notice this is a Vectorscope:
The white and black points stay the same, while the hues pivot (rotate) around. Now think of the potential. If you want to tweak skin tones a bit (11 o’clock is the skin tone line) you can do that to make it look just right.
Of course, you can’t go haywire because it also shifts the other hues as well. For more control, we have the next option.
Color Depth
As shown above. Color depth allows you to change seven colors – R (Red), G (Green), B (Blue), C (Cyan), M (Magenta), and Y (Yellow) individually. You can go from -7 to +7 on each.
R +7
R -7
G +7
G -7
B +7
B -7
C +7
C -7
M +7
M -7
Y +7
Y -7
According to Sony:
This function is more effective for chromatic colors and less effective for achromatic colors. The color looks deeper as you increase the setting value towards the positive side, and lighter as you decrease the value towards the negative side. This function is effective even if you set [Color Mode] to [Black & White].
This is really powerful stuff. You can tweak the colors (hue) while not touching the ‘levels’. Achromatic means Black, Grey and White. Chromatic is everything else. So, if you shift the hue with Color Phase to get skin tones right, you can use Color Depth to tweak the rest of the colors to taste.
You can also use it for Green Screen or Blue Screen work. However, these need to be tweaked on a case-by-case, scene-by-scene basis. Otherwise they all stay at their defaults.
Detail
Detail changes the perception of sharpness, but doesn’t sharpen directly like an app does. The levels go from -7 to +7:
Within it, you also have a second complexity level called Adjust, which I won’t touch. However, Sony does try to explain what they are for:
Adjust: The following parameters can be selected manually.Mode: Selects auto/manual setting. (Auto (automatic optimization) / Manual (The details are set manually.))
V/H Balance: Sets the vertical (V) and horizontal (H) balance of DETAIL. (-2 (off to the vertical (V) side) to +2 (off to the horizontal (H) side))
B/W Balance: Selects the balance of the lower DETAIL (B) and the upper DETAIL (W). (Type1 (off to the lower DETAIL (B) side) to Type5 (off to the upper DETAIL (W) side))
Limit: Sets the limit level of [Detail]. (0 (Low limit level: likely to be limited) to 7 (High limit level: unlikely to be limited))
Crispning: Sets the crispening level. (0 (shallow crispening level) to 7 (deep crispening level))
Hi-Light Detail: Sets the [Detail] level in the high intensity areas. (0 to 4)
The only setting I change is Detail. By default, Detail is -7 in S-Log2, while in others it’s 0. I always use -7. It delivers the most pleasing image, and I can always sharpen in post if I want to.
I highly recommend -7 across the board.
Copy
The last thing is Copy. Once you save a particular setting, you can copy it to another profile so you don’t have to do everything from scratch:
That’s it!
To learn more about picture profiles, here’s Sony’s official page on the subject.
FAQs
These are important topics raised by subscribers that shed more light on this lesson.
Q. Can you mix and match color spaces? I’ve heard xxxx uses Pro space with the Cine profile.
A. Okay, this answer is going to be a bit long-winded, but please bear with me.
First of all, I want you to know that I have actually written an image processing algorithm (a rudimentary version of Photoshop, if you will) back when I was in college (2000). So, I understand the math and science behind this way more than the average blogger or user.
Knowing what I know, you need to follow Sony’s instructions on matching color spaces with their respective gammas. They are designed to go together, and if you change it (I don’t care what other bloggers or users say) you are asking for unpredictable results. It might look good in certain conditions, but it won’t hold in all conditions. All other picture profile settings are irrelevant if you neglect this basic marriage that Sony engineers have designed.
The ‘sweet-spot window’ for all profiles is very small (that’s how they have designed the camera so it won’t compete with the F5 or F55).
I know shooters with high-end broadcast cameras who get their footage rejected because they neglected to study their footage using the proper tools. Trust me when I say, it is in your best interest to shoot with the default settings and grade in post – especially with the A7s.
Q. If you were to tweak the picture profiles, how far would you push the settings? E.g., would you push saturation to +32?
A. I wouldn’t push the settings too far. Unless you have a broadcast monitor and scopes with you, it would be hard to know what you’re doing.
Secondly, broadcast monitors don’t display images in the Cinema, Hypergamma or S-Gamut color spaces.
Here are some notes:
- I would not change the Knee.
- I would also not increase the saturation beyond 3 or 4.
- I would not change the Color Phase or Depth at all without the use of a true broadcast monitor in the field.
Q. Which is the best picture profile?
A. There is no picture profile setting that works well in all scenarios…unless it’s S-Log2 or S-Log3 in its default settings.
