Cameras today are very versatile when allowing you to have creative control over your images. Regardless of make or model, as the photographer you can choose from hundreds of preferences to enhance you photograph if you choose. One of the easiest ways to override the camera making decisions for you is to use picture control.

You can access and choose them through the camera’s menu system. Seen here is the menu selection from the Nikon Z9. It is under the shooting menu. All cameras have them. I believe Canon calls them picture styles and I am sure the every other major camera brand has something compatible. Picture profiles are essentially color profiles that affect how images are processed in-camera.These profiles are not located on a hard disk like ICC profiles but are embedded in the cameras firmware. 

In order to leverage the picture controls, you would want to shoot in RAW rather than JPEG. The picture controls will be recognized in digital asset management software like Adobe’s Lightroom. You will have to tell Lightroom to do this as the default is to just use Adobe’s presets.

The two that I most commonly use are Flat and Neutral. I have never ventured into the Creative picture control as it is not for my style of photography. However, there is no right or wrong here, it is based on your creative decision making. I prefer the two profiles above simply because I know, shooting in RAW. and if I get everything else right in camera at time of capture, my post processing will go much faster and easier simply by having Lightroom recognize my choice for profile during the import.

Picture profiles are a starting point, not the end goal but they do make it easier for me to get to my end goal when culling through a lot of images. Give picture profiles a try and see if this is something that helps you get to you end goal.