Compact digital cameras always have an auto-everything point-and-shoot mode, with autofocus, auto-exposure, auto white balance, auto flash and auto ISO. You might imagine that these would take care of every conceivable picture-taking opportunity, but manufacturers also include ‘scene’ modes customised for specific types of photo.

Many beginner-orientated DSLRs include scene modes too, though semi-pro and pro cameras don’t have them. The makers and the users probably feel that they’re now beyond such simple hand-holding and that they’re perfectly capable of working out the best settings for themselves.

However, even high-end cameras offer ways of fine-tuning the colour and tonal response of the camera. These settings aren’t called ‘scene modes’, but they nevertheless work in a similar way. Canon DSLRs, for example, have ‘Picture Styles’ customised for portraits, landscapes and other types of image. Fujifilm’s FinePix S5 Pro has a variety of ‘film simulation’ modes for mimicking the high contrast and saturation of colour transparency film, for example, or the softer gradations of colour negative stock. Nikon DSLRs, meanwhile, have a range of ‘Optimization’ modes for portraits, landscapes, ‘vivid’, ‘softer’ and other kinds of image rendition.

DSLRs and most compacts also offer manual adjustment of image contrast, saturation and sharpness. To a degree you can customise the ‘look’ of your photos, although each DSLR model does tend to have its own ‘look’ which is subtly different to any other, and which persists despite any adjustments you might make to the in-camera settings or later on in your image editor.

We will take a look at compact camera scene modes first. The scene modes in compact digital cameras often have a much wider scope – they don’t just adjust the image processing but take over some important camera functions too. This is highly relevant if you use a point-and-shoot compact as a portable alternative to a DSLR camera and want to get the best out of it.

The most obvious function of a scene mode is to improve the rendition of specific types of subject. The assumption is, of course, that the camera settings will be carefully ‘tuned’ to the scene you’re photographing. Actually, though, there are two secondary advantages to scene modes. No automated system is truly ‘intelligent’, and you can cut down the camera’s room for error by being more specific about what you’re photographing. For example, in Landscape mode the camera may set the focus to infinity – this cuts shutter lag and eliminates the risk of focusing mistakes.

Second, scene modes can save you a lot of time. If you’re taking photographs in a gallery or a museum you’ll need to switch off the flash and increase the ISO. But many cameras have a Museum mode, which does this for you.

It’s worth spending some time with your compact camera and its manual to find out what the scene modes do and how they work. You might well conclude that the majority are gimmicks, but it’s likely you’ll find at least a couple that are genuinely useful.

The camera’s scene modes usually make adjustments to the image contrast, saturation and sharpness. Some may also adjust the white balance. These adjustments are applied as the raw sensor data is processed and converted into a JPEG image file.

The camera carries out the same processing steps in normal program AE mode, except that in the scene modes the settings will be ‘tuned’ for that particular subject instead of applied in a generic way.

These processing changes can usually be applied manually using the contrast, saturation and sharpness adjustments in the camera’s menus, so do you really need these scene modes at all? Maybe. Some of the scene modes work more subtly. A Landscape mode, for example, might increase the saturation of blues and greens, and this kind of selective colour adjustment isn’t something you can do manually. Scene modes may also include specific white balance settings, such as in Candlelight or Sunset modes.

More interestingly, though, scene modes may also alter the camera’s shooting settings. This could prove especially significant with basic cameras that offer few manual controls. These can include focusing options, flash mode, ISO and aperture/shutter speed combinations.

At one time, most compacts had an infinity focus mode, which was useful for subjects more than a couple of metres away from the camera, not least because it eliminated shutter lag. Many cameras no longer have this infinity option, but it may still be available as part of a Landscape scene mode.

Sports modes may also alter the behaviour of the focusing system, offering AF modes that can’t be selected manually or, if they can, are just too much trouble to get to. Nikon’s COOLPIX 5900, for example, switches to continuous autofocus with the focus point locked in the centre of the frame.

Scene modes may also change the behaviour of the flash. Again, at one time most compact cameras had a slow flash mode for balancing flash against the ambient light, but these days many cameras don’t. This option may still be available, though, as part of the Night Portrait mode. The flash is fired to illuminate a nearby subject (it doesn’t have to be a person) and the exposure is continued to record the ambient light in the background.

There are times, of course, when you don’t want the flash to fire at all, either because it’ll be a nuisance (theatres and galleries), it’ll spoil the natural lighting (dusk and night shots) or it simply won’t work (distant action in indoor stadiums). Here, you need the camera’s Museum or Theatre mode. The flash will be switched off, forcing the camera to adjust the exposure to match the available light.

The Natural Light modes on Fujifilm’s high-ISO compacts are designed specifically for low-light conditions, switching off the flash and adjusting the ISO automatically to cope.

Lastly, scene modes may offer a degree of control over the shutter speed/aperture relationship which you don’t get with ordinary program AE mode. Portrait and Action modes will usually favour wider apertures and shorter shutter speeds so that backgrounds are thrown out of focus and fast action is frozen more effectively.

The difference between the scene modes featured on amateur compact cameras and the ‘picture styles’ on professional DSLRs is largely down to the terms used and the type of adjustments. (Canon cameras use Picture Styles, but we’re borrowing the term to use it in generic sense since it describes these modes so well.)

Some amateur-orientated DSLRs do have scene modes that adjust both the image processing and the camera settings. In the Nikon D50’s Sports mode, the flash and AF assist lamp are turned off, the AF system switches to continuous mode locked on to the centre focus point, the AF beep is disabled and the AE program favours higher shutter speeds.

It’s easy to be disdainful of these ‘amateur’ scene modes, but sometimes they apply a whole bunch of settings that would take you at least half a minute
to apply manually, and which you’ll probably need to do anyway.

But the same camera also includes a set of Optimize options for landscapes, portraits and other styles of picture rendition. This illustrates the sometimes confusing crossovers in camera controls. For example, when should you use the D50’s Landscape setting on the mode dial, and when should you use the Landscape optimisation setting in the menus instead? The manual indicates that in the Landscape scene mode the camera selects closest-subject focusing, the flash is turned off and, at the same time, outlines, colours and contrast are enhanced. The Landscape optimisation mode, however, "enhances saturation and sharpness to produce landscapes with vibrant greens and blues." This example clarifies an important distinction between scene modes and picture styles. Scene modes adjust both the image processing and the camera settings, while picture styles adjust only the image processing.

We’re still no clearer about whether the Landscape image-processing options are the same in the scene mode and the optimisation mode. Nikon is not the only manufacturer at fault. Most DSLR makers are ambiguous about what these picture styles do and discuss their merits in pictorial terms rather than relating them to specific contrast, saturation and sharpness settings. Many photographers may prefer these manual adjustments to pre-packaged picture styles simply because it’s immediately obvious what they do. What’s more, you can tune the image rendition to match both the subject and the need for any further image editing later.

For example, increasing the contrast can add punch to shots taken in flat lighting or on overcast days. At the same time, though, a low contrast setting can provide a bit of a safety net. It’s easy to add contrast in an image editor, but you can’t take it away, especially if the highlights and/or the shadows have been clipped.

Saturation is another matter. You can add saturation in an image editor, but this often introduces colour artefacts, clipping and ‘blotchiness’. But if you apply a high saturation value in the camera, this saturation increase will be applied to the RAW data during the image processing, producing potentially superior results.

Sharpening, however, is best done on a computer rather than within the camera. In-camera sharpening is generally crude, producing visible halos around high-contrast edges, ruining the picture. As long as you’re prepared to sharpen each image later, the lowest sharpening setting will produce potentially the best results.

These combinations of contrast, saturation and sharpness can generally be saved as custom user settings and reused in the future. Just make sure you understand how the adjustments you make here relate to any other picture styles in use. Even here, there’s potential for confusion. The Canon EOS 400D, for example, offers manual contrast, saturation and sharpness adjustments, but it appears that these are not applied as an alternative to any of its Picture Styles; instead, they are superimposed on the base settings of whichever Picture Style is in use. Please, camera makers, get this sorted out! There are too many image-adjustment parameters and not enough explanation about how they work and interrelate, no matter how hard we may try to decipher the settings.

All the way through this article we’ve been assuming that photographers shoot JPEG files, which are, of course, processed within the camera. But surely all these complications become academic if you shoot RAW files?

Whatever the merits of RAW files – and there are many – they do have a couple of significant disadvantages. First, you’re simply postponing the image-processing decision rather than eliminating it. Second, scene modes and picture styles do act as shortcuts to settings and processing options that  would take some time to set up manually.

RAW conversions
Today there’s no shortage of RAW file converters. Canon cameras ship with Canon’s own Digital Photo Pro, but Nikon and Fujifilm users must pay separately for Nikon Capture NX and HyperUtility respectively. Given this, it’s tempting to use a third-party converter instead. Photoshop Elements, Photoshop, Aperture and Lightroom all do a good job, and in particular may prove better at recovering highlight detail in RAW files. But there is a good case to be made for using the maker’s own converter. This is that the software will duplicate the colour and tone settings provided with the camera. What this means is that you can experiment with the ‘camera’ settings on your computer. Generic third-party RAW converters don’t offer this precise matching between the software and camera settings.

Picture styles
Standard mode
This series of shots was taken with a Canon EOS 400D. The Standard mode, shown here, is designed for general-purpose use, with "vivid, sharp and crisp reproduction". The contrast is high, which can cause filled-in shadows or blown highlights.

Landscape mode
This mode is designed for "vivid blues and greens, and very sharp and crisp images". The increase in saturation in the greens is especially noticeable. Interestingly, the 400D’s Portrait mode produces very similar saturation and contrast levels.

Neutral mode
Neutral mode is intended "for users who prefer to process images with their personal computer… for natural colours and subdued images". In short, the pictures look distinctly flat and undersaturated, and will almost certainly need tweaking later.

Faithful mode
This is similar to the Neutral mode, except that "when the subject is photographed under a colour temperature of 5200K, the colour is adjusted colorimetrically to match the subject’s colour". Again, these images need tweaking.

Watching the workflow
Why waste time fiddling with picture styles and colour, contrast and sharpness settings in the camera when you can simply shoot RAW files and worry about it later? RAW files offer much more flexibility and potentially superior image quality, so it seems a bit of a no-brainer. However, two things are frequently overlooked. Quite apart from the larger size and longer write times of RAW files, there can be little doubt that processing RAW files on a computer takes more time and concentration than shooting JPEGs in the camera. Each image demands your attention and takes time that might be better spent taking more photos, preparing exhibitions, wooing clients and so on. The second point is that fiddling with RAW files can be dangerously addictive. You may waste hours trying to squeeze better conversions or testing new conversion tools on the same old images, and never quite be sure you’ve done the best job possible. Shooting JPEGs gives you a cut-off point. You’ve got the picture, it’s as good as it’s ever going to be, so you can move on. If it hasn’t worked well, then at least you’ll know how to change things next time.