*For more information visit AdoramaTV YT page, and of course you can keep up with David on Instagram and Twitter @DavidBergman. LATEST UPDATE: David opened up new IGTV episodes where you can ask him questions live! find out more at http://www.AskDavidBergman.com

What is the purpose of those in-camera picture styles? Are they absolutely useless? Photographer David Bergman explores a few ways where this feature might make your photography life easier and more productive.

Mr. Bergman shares: “In addition to setting your exposure, using aperture shutter speed and ISO you can usually change the  look of your images by processing the  files inside of your camera. Canon for  example, has a Picture Styles Menu, and it  gives you the ability to change things,  like contrast saturation, and sharpening.  Those looks are actually baked into your  files if you’re shooting JPEG’s.”

“However  if you’re shooting raw, which I highly  recommend, then those settings aren’t applied to  the files, and you can make those changes  in the computer after the fact. So why  would you even bother using picture  styles in the camera at all? Well, there  are two reasons. The first is that it  might save you just a little bit of time  when you process your RAW files on the  computer using the camera  manufacturers software.  Canons digital photo professional  for example will read the  picture style settings that you’ve  selected in the camera, and apply that to  your images by default when you first start editing your photos.”

“If you have a  lot of images to work on, you might be  able to spend just a little less time  sitting in front of your computer, and  more time out shooting, but the other  reason is actually more important to me. Those picture style settings are applied  to the small embedded JPEG that you  can see on the back of your screen when  you’re shooting, and you can use that to  your advantage. So for example if I know  an image is going to be black and white.  I’ll switch to the monochrome picture  style. That’ll help me to visualize how  the photo will look in the end, even  though the raw file captures everything  in color.”

“A little trick I do when I’m  photographing someone, is to set my  picture style to bump up the saturation,  contrast and sharpness, to really make  the photos pop off that display. It  usually gets an oooh or an aaah, and might  help make my subject just a little more  comfortable in front of my lens. But when  I get back to the computer, I’m never  gonna see those oversaturated, over  sharpened photos, and can start from  scratch using the raw file.”

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