Flat picture Control

[chuasam]

Some Nikon (and Canon) DSLR cameras have Flat picture control.
For reference here is the details Flat

Flat* provides minimal dramatization while preserving the material characteristics. Compared with Neutral, the finish shows less contrast and does not look lively as it is. When you add adjustment to the image after shooting, overblown highlights, blocked up shadows, or excessive color saturations rarely occur, thus enabling rich tonality of both brightness and color tones. With the wealth of information from highlight to shadow areas, this mode is recommended when you are shooting a scene with post-shoot adjusting in mind.

How many of you here have experimented with using flat or neutral?
Do you find that the added work is worth the benefits?
When shooting portraits, would it be simpler to just use the portrait picture control?
I have also calibrated my camera using a ColorChecker Passport and have an adjusted profile.

Which color profile do you use? Flat? Adobe's standard Color Profile? Calibrated? Standard?
How are your results?

 

[nerwin]

If you shoot raw, then it doesn't matter. You can apply the picture controls in post if you want. However the picture controls do affect the JPEG preview that you see on your camera's monitor. So I set my to neutral when taking pictures.

I only find the Flat picture control useful for video.

If you are just shooting Jpeg, then I'd say Flat is the better way to go because it will allow you some ability to edit, but no where near the dynamic range of a raw file.

 

[wfooshee]

Same here. Shooting raw, none of the camera's "adjustments" get applied.

They do get applied if you use Nikon's ViewNX software to bring the raw images onto the computer and convert to JPG there. Adobe Camera Raw does not read any of that info, though.

 

[nerwin]

Same here. Shooting raw, none of the camera's "adjustments" get applied.

They do get applied if you use Nikon's ViewNX software to bring the raw images onto the computer and convert to JPG there. Adobe Camera Raw does not read any of that info, though.

In Lightroom you can apply the Nikon picture profiles though.

 

[Overread]

I use neutral JPEG settings because whilst they are not applied to the RAW they are applied to the JPEG that is embedded into the RAW file. It is this JPEG that the camera shows on the LCD screen for review and bases its histogram off as well; thus its important to have it as neutral as possible so that I've got the best idea what the RAW file will give me.