this has been bugging me for a while. shooting in raw, dlog or whatever the flat profile is called on my mini, and when i pull it into lightroom it just looks kind of muddy and dull and i cant seem to get the colors to pop without it looking really fake and oversaturated. ive watched a bunch of tutorials but everyones workflow seems different and im getting confused about where to even start with the sliders

like is there a general starting point people use or do you just kind of feel it out every time depending on the shot. some of my jpegs straight out of the camera honestly look better than what im doing with the raws which cant be right

yeah dlog needs a lot of work to look good thats just how flat profiles are, the camera is capturing more dynamic range but youre responsible for making it look like something. try pulling the highlights way down and lifting the shadows first before you touch anything else, thats usually where people get stuck because they go straight for the saturation and it falls apart

honestly i gave up on dlog for stills, i just shoot normal color profile in raw and it gives me way less to deal with in post. the flat profile thing makes more sense for video where you need that headroom but for photos i never felt like it was worth the hassle. might just be personal preference tho