Picture Modes on Olympus cameras

introduction

Olympus digital cameras have a Picture Mode setting which allows you to have some control over how the jpeg image will be taken and also how it will be displayed in the viewfinder before it is taken
this is very handy for previsualisation
most picture modes allow adjustment of sharpness, contrast, saturation and gradation
the Picture Mode also has other ramifactions including:
- altering the way the camera meters the scene
  - selecting Monotone and a color channel as a filter will mean only that channel will be metered instead of the usual metering being an average of the 3 color channels - this is very handy for infrared photography using a R76 filter on the lens as normal metering will blow the highlights in the red channel, but selecting Monoton and Red filter resolves this metering problem.
- alters the speed of AF
  - the more contrasty the jpeg, the faster the AF will work - hence many use Picture mode of Vivid
- alters the captured dynamic range

all the color options allow modifications to:
- contrast
- sharpness
- saturation
- gradation parameter in Olympus Picture Modes (auto, normal, low key, high key)
i-Enhance
- this provides “optimal colors and contrast for the subject” - ie increased vibrance of colours and is the default Picture Mode used in iAuto
- it has an additional parameter of Effect (High, normal, low) which gives the extent of the enhanced mode
Vivid
Natural
Muted
Portrait
Monotone
- can select B&W filter as well as contrast, sharpness, picture tone (eg. sepia), and gradation
Custom - allows storing of a particular modification of one of the above presets
- for example you could set this for infrared work