Spring, sprang, sprung. Flat, flatter, flattest.

Out of the box, HDSLRs like the Canon 5D MKII and Canon 7D engage a crunched, contrasty image style. This looks nice right out of the camera, but it’s a color-grading nightmare for those who like to push their image around. This issue has been addressed before with Luka’s entertaining video tutorial, and Stu’s “Flatten Your 5D” and “Color Correcting Canon 7D Footage” posts. And on various user forums, users have posted their unique recipes for a custom image preset. A popular choice is the SuperFlat style, available in this zip’d package. Not to leave out the Nikon D90, there are forum threads on optimizing it’s image as well, and even an attempt to port Stu’s settings directly to the D90.

Over at Eugenia’s Rants and Thoughts, she’s posted an article she’s calling Flatting the flat look. In it she offers her own hand-rolled custom image preset for Canon DSLRs, an even flatter, zero-contrast variation on the SuperFlat style that she suggests offers maximum range when color grading footage. It’s worth noting at this point that there are some circles that debate over whether this increase in image information adversely affects the performance of the codec…in a highly compressed-format like what the Canon DSLRs record in, throwing more information at the codec may not always be a good thing.

Anyway, do like you should always do in debates like this…download a copy, and you be the judge. And if it works well for you, leave a thank you comment for Stu or Eugenia. But don’t go overboard….that would be flattery.