Lightroom 2 default adjustments

[elias_roustom]

<p>I bring in Olympu Raw Files from my E-620 to Lightroom 2.<br>

When I go to "Develop" the images I see some settings have already been given values - like Blacks has a 5, Brightness has +50, Contrast has +25... etc. Where did those settings come from? Is that what I shot? I don't want the camera or the software to do any thinking for me, I want the RAW file just as the sensor got it so I can know if I'm metering properly.<br>

Once I set those sliders back to zero I get more of what I thought I was shooting... in some cases a lot less. <br>

I went through preferences, and I don't see anything checked that would be applying any adjustments. Would my E-620 be applying adjustments to RAW files?</p>

<p>Thanks to anyone who can help.</p>

[mark_sirota1]

<p>Those are Lightroom's defaults.</p>

<p>There's no such thing as raw conversion software that doesn't do any thinking for you. A raw file isn't an image until it is processed by something, and that processor needs to make some decisions.</p>

<p>Here's <a href="http://blogs.oreilly.com/lightroom/2009/01/what-does-an-unprocessed-image-look-like.html">a blog post</a> I wrote about it a while back.</p>

[douglas_coon1]

<p>You have a couple of options, one is to create a profile for your camera and apply that to your images, read this: http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/DNG_Profiles:Editor. The other option is to set Lightroom's adjustment sliders to your liking and save those settings as a preset. You have the option of applying presets when you import images into Lightroom</p>

[elias_roustom]

<p>Thanks a lot. Very helpful references.</p>

[Robin Smith]

<p>I personally find that for 5D MkII the LR defaults are right 75% of the time. In fact I find LR makes a lot of very intelligent choices - one of the (many) good things about the program.</p>

[elias_roustom]

<p>Interesting stuff to delve into. This like testing for your film's true speed - maybe more work, except much of it is done sitting down. I worked on a couple of shots after "Zeroing" the settings, and what I got was leaps and bounds better than the default, more detail, especially in the highlights, better color, realistic contrast.</p>