Example ~ Sony "High Key" Creative Style recipe

Certain Sony model's Creative Style list is rather short.  I have a NEX-5T and A5000.  Neither come with "Deep" nor "Light" Sony Creative Styles.  I rather like "Deep" and "Light" as I feel the "Deep" Style matches Hasselblad "Natural Colors" and that "Light", when desaturated after export, does an outstanding job of creating a BW Print Quality image.

OK.  So two of my devices don't offer my current favorite in-camera styles.  Does this mean I'm dead in the water for "film simulations" on very early Sony cameras?  What are my in-camera color grading options?

Here's something I tried with an old Sony NEX-5T.

 

Sony "High Key" Creative Style recipe ~

Creative Style ~ 

    Standard

        +1 Contrast

        -3 Saturation

        0 Sharpness

    White Balance ~ 

    C Temp./Filter ~ 6200k

        A-B: B3

        G-M: G1

    Exposure Value ~

    variable +0.3EV to +1.7EV <- to get the "high key" effect

 

-------------------- Additional Recipes ----------------------

The above recipe is just one example of a wide variety of possible recipes.  Here's a list of in-camera jpg engine tools and a short description of what they might do to stretch and alter the color space. 

Creative Style -

Under each Creative Style we have...

Contrast - Some possibly interesting recipes involve the lack of contrast.  It's worth trying this setting -3.

Saturation - Softer tones seem to be all the rage these days, hence the "-" setting.  Furthering this idea it could be a good exercise to develop a recipe based on the "Neutral" Creative Style.

Sharpness - Looking at many of the Fuji "film emulation" recipes there is the thought that to look more like film it's a good idea to drop the sharpness.  I don't buy into that, but it's here as a selection to help give a softer image expression.

White Balance ~

High Kelvin temperatures bring warm tones, while low brings cold.  In the above recipe I set to the WB to 6200K and shot that regardless of the scene.  Full sun, shade, and building interiors were all shot at this WB value.  This approach can add further variability to images.

There is a potentially interesting WB, and that is one of the Florescent selections.  One of these gives nearly daylight WB, but stretches the color range.  It might be worth exploring.

White Balance editor ~

On any WB selection, there is an additional tool that can be brought into play.  While in the WB selector, tap the right side of the control wheel or the "options" button (depending on the Sony camera model) to bring up a color palette.  Using "up" and "down" arrows, we can move the tones in any direction.  So, for instance, if you are using a very warm tone WB and you want to add blues and/or greens, we can move the center point of the palatte in those directions.  This opens the door to a wide variety of in-camera colors.

 

-------------------- Additional Information ----------------------

Sony Creative Style ~ basic knowledge