Tip: Zero Postprocessing for Christmas

First off, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone.

Fotogenetic's goodbye message ( http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1034&message=11499905 ) made me look at his recent postings and I was surprised to find out about his new Point and Shoot v4.0 curve, and thought I'd give it a try. This curve is weird in the sense that it remaps the 255 point to 228, and in one his posts, he says that this was done to obtain 1/2 of a stop more Dynamic Range ( http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1021&message=11239667 ). Posts by other happy users of this curve also motivated me to give it a try.

Well, I have to say that I personally find this curve to be the best for snapshots - my favourites in the past used to be the White Weddings and Komin curves, but this new one beats them all - again, I have to stress, for snapshot purposes, where people are the main subjects. Actually, I find that it also works pretty well for the majority of the type of shots I take, and it looks like this is the curve that will stay in my camera.

The 3 pictures below were taken during a just-concluded Christmas dinner at my parents' house with this curve and other settings noted in the EXIF info. An SB-800 flash mounted on the camera was used with the Diffusion Dome on and bounced off the white ceiling. I put the SB-800 in AA mode. Other light sources are the multiple cool-white fluorescent lamps which I would characterize as very bright. If the ambient light had been tungsten or some other warm whites, I would have used a different setting such as Auto +3. Images were reduced in size in Photoshop CS, USM 500, 0.2, 0 and faded to Luminosity. Saved at JPEG 9. Comments and questions are welcome.

Hope this helps.

Focal Length: 28mm
Optimize Image: Custom
Color Mode: Mode IIIa (sRGB)
Noise Reduction: OFF
2004/12/24 22:41:56
Exposure Mode: Manual
White Balance: Auto -1
Tone Comp: User-Defined Custom Curve
Bounce
JPEG (8-bit) Fine
Metering Mode: Multi-Pattern
AF Mode: AF-S
Hue Adjustment: 0°
Image Size: Large (3008 x 2000)
1/15 sec - F/5.6
Flash Sync Mode: Front Curtain
Saturation: Normal
Exposure Comp.: 0 EV
Auto Flash Mode: Auto Aperture
Sharpening: Normal
Lens: 28-200mm F/3.5-5.6 G
Sensitivity: ISO 400
Auto Flash Comp: 0 EV

Focal Length: 28mm
Optimize Image: Custom
Color Mode: Mode IIIa (sRGB)
Noise Reduction: OFF
2004/12/24 23:32:44.8
Exposure Mode: Manual
White Balance: Auto -1
Tone Comp: User-Defined Custom Curve
Bounce
JPEG (8-bit) Fine
Metering Mode: Multi-Pattern
AF Mode: AF-S
Hue Adjustment: 0°
Image Size: Large (2000 x 3008)
1/13 sec - F/5.6
Flash Sync Mode: Front Curtain
Saturation: Normal
Exposure Comp.: 0 EV
Auto Flash Mode: Auto Aperture
Sharpening: Normal
Lens: Nikkor 28-200mm F/3.5-5.6 G IF-ED
Sensitivity: ISO 400
Auto Flash Comp: 0 EV

Focal Length: 34mm
Optimize Image: Custom
Color Mode: Mode IIIa (sRGB)
Noise Reduction: OFF
2004/12/24 23:02:58.7
Exposure Mode: Manual
White Balance: Auto -1
Tone Comp: User-Defined Custom Curve
JPEG (8-bit) Fine
Metering Mode: Multi-Pattern
AF Mode: AF-C
Hue Adjustment: 0°
Image Size: Large (2000 x 3008)
1/15 sec - F/5.6
Flash Sync Mode: Not Attached
Saturation: Normal
Exposure Comp.: +0.3 EV
Sharpening: Normal
Lens: Nikkor 28-200mm F/3.5-5.6 G IF-ED
Sensitivity: ISO 800