Picture Modes
Both the Canon 50D and the Olympus E-30 have settings which group image parameters for various kinds of photography or workflows. These apply particularly to JPEGs - their settings for saturation, contrast and so on are reversible in RAW converters. It's better to shoot in a neutral mode and apply such settings post-production. The settings are generic, and they are inferior to adjusting images individually, or with one's own presets created in a RAW converter. Both cameras allow the user to customize each preset mode and to set up at least one custom mode. 

Canon 50D Neutral Setting	Olympus E-30 Natural Setting
Canon 50D Standard Setting	Olympus E-30 Vivid Setting
Canon 50D Faithful Setting	Olympus E-30 Muted Setting
Canon 50D Monochrome Setting	Olympus E-30 Monotone Setting

The E-30 offers Vivid, Natural, Muted, Portrait and Monotone modes. Vivid punches up all colors, and Muted tones them down. Portrait brightens up warm tones, which may help minimize skin blemishes. Monotone should be “Monochrome,” since it produces black and white images. The E-30 can be set to emulate typical black and white filters – yellow, orange and red progressively darken blue skies, green brightens vegetation, and so on. We found that both Portrait and Vivid blocked up the red channels in our fruit and vegetable still life, indicating that it would be better shot in the Natural mode to retain image data, and tweak the files in post-production.

The 50D isn't very much different from the E-30. It offers Standard, Portrait, Landscape, Neutral, Monochrome and Faithful Picture Styles. Canon's “Standard” setting punches up color compared to Neutral and Faithful, but it's not as heavy-handed as Olympus's “Vivid.” Portrait and Landscape punch things up enough to block up red and green channels in our fruit and vegetables. Canon has long offered both Neutral and Faithful modes on DSLRs. Both are supposed to preserve data for post-processing, and they do. Faithful is supposed to shoot “colorimetrically” accurate shots under 5200 K lighting. Shots made in the two modes look an awful lot alike.

Canon 50D Landscape Setting

Canon 50D Portrait Setting