Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Adobe Camera Raw Q&A => Topic started by: ACH DIGITAL on March 03, 2012, 09:16:30 pm
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What would you consider to be a good sharpening technique and at what stage would you apply it? Being in Photoshop or in Camera Raw. Considering too detail, luminosity and noise sliders.
So far I have try many combinations and the results vary, so I've never been very convince.
Right now I'm using(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10120389/Screen%20Shot%202012-03-03%20at%209.44.26%20PM.png)
Thanks ACH
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What camera and ISO? These things matter.
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My camera is the Canon 5D MKII. Always iso 100..
Hopefully a 36 mix. Nikon D800E.
ACH
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What would you consider to be a good sharpening technique and at what stage would you apply it? Being in Photoshop or in Camera Raw.
Uh...well, there's no way we could comment on your sharpening settings without seeing the image. Each image may need individual setting in order to be optimal. You do want to get the best sharpening and noise reduction (even at ISO 100 you may need noise reduction) in Camera Raw–otherwise you'll be leaving image quality on the table if you wait till Photoshop to do your capture sharpening. You do understand the concept of a sharpening workflow, right?
And a 0.5 radius would on;y work for really high frequency images...there's a reason why the default is 1.0. Yes, with some images, lowering the radius might be called for...but it varies image by image.
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I highly recommend purchasing and reading "Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop" by Bruce Fraser and Jeff Schewe. It is better to learn the how and why of sharpening first, only then, can you know the best way to sharpen an image.
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Well, I was gonna suggest that but thought it might be a bit self-serving...
:~)
If nothing else, it would be useful to read Bruce's words on the subject: Out of Gamut: Thoughts on a Sharpening Workflow (http://www.creativepro.com/article/out-of-gamut-thoughts-on-a-sharpening-workflow).
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You do want to get the best sharpening and noise reduction (even at ISO 100 you may need noise reduction) in Camera Raw–otherwise you'll be leaving image quality on the table if you wait till Photoshop to do your capture sharpening.
Schewe, have a question for you:
1) raw -> ACR (no sharpening, no NR) -> 16bit .TIFF -> ACR (just sharpening & NR) -> 16bit .TIFF
2) raw -> ACR (sharpening and NR) -> 16bit .TIFF
so do we have a really better sharpening and NR in case #2 vs case #1 and if so - why ?
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Hi,
Me not Schewe, but anyway...
You would really do capture sharpening and denoise in connection with demosaic. Add to that that ACR has built in contour masks and probably much better noise reduction than the one built in into PhotoShop.
Best regards
Erik
Schewe, have a question for you:
1) raw -> ACR (no sharpening, no NR) -> 16bit .TIFF -> ACR (just sharpening & NR) -> 16bit .TIFF
2) raw -> ACR (sharpening and NR) -> 16bit .TIFF
so do we have a really better sharpening and NR in case #2 vs case #1 and if so - why ?
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Hi,
For landscape I would use low radius but try to increase "detail" to 100%. That would switch sharpening to use deconvolution. I'd keep down amount to avoid crispness and add some noise reduction. Not saying it's optimal technique, but you could try.
Best regards
Erik
What would you consider to be a good sharpening technique and at what stage would you apply it? Being in Photoshop or in Camera Raw. Considering too detail, luminosity and noise sliders.
So far I have try many combinations and the results vary, so I've never been very convince.
Right now I'm using(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10120389/Screen%20Shot%202012-03-03%20at%209.44.26%20PM.png)
Thanks ACH
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Well, I was gonna suggest that but thought it might be a bit self-serving...
:~)
If nothing else, it would be useful to read Bruce's words on the subject: Out of Gamut: Thoughts on a Sharpening Workflow (http://www.creativepro.com/article/out-of-gamut-thoughts-on-a-sharpening-workflow).
Jeff, this book is image quality changing (life changing to a photographer) IMHO. So, I do not hesitate to recommend this book, or any of the Real World Camera Raw books. I wish that I could have had your privilege of knowing Bruce, but being able to read, and learn, from him through you (along with your ideas of course) is the next best thing. So, thank you.
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First of all, thank you all for your comments.
I might add that I need to work fast in many cases. Just when I'm doing personal work, can I have time to go particularly on each image. SO I need to work it out as part of a workflow.
After reading the suggested page and comments I came up to this combination, still pending on your comments you might add.
I try this with a 22 mpx image and a 39 mpx. Looks better..
(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10120389/Screen%20Shot%202012-03-04%20at%2010.24.49%20AM.png)
ACH
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BTW I'm getting the book "Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop" by Bruce Fraser and Jeff Schewe.
We have some very respectable audience in Luminous Landscape. This is marvelous.
ACH
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Yes, and let's keep it that way!
Best regards
Erik
We have some very respectable audience in Luminous Landscape. This is marvelous.
ACH
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Honestly (and Jeff Schewe is not paying me for that) - since reading
"The bible of sharpening" "Real world image sharpening" and changing to PKS am not thinking a lot about sharpening anymore ...
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You would really do capture sharpening and denoise in connection with demosaic.
ACR/LR do not do "sharpening and denoise in connection with demosaic"... everything is done on already demosaicked data in prophoto w/ gamma = 1... so this argument is not relevant for Adobe's raw conversion.
Add to that that ACR has built in contour masks and probably much better noise reduction than the one built in into PhotoShop.
OK, so it is really a question of having a proper NR plugin and being able to built proper contour masks... that's it.
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I might add that I need to work fast in many cases.
You can save a New Camera Raw Default setting with a basic sharpening/noise reduction setting. That speed things up a bit, and you can tweak any individual image as needed, or as you have time. You can have defaults set by ISO and even by individual camera serial number. So, for example, I have defaults for each camera at each ISO setting, with reasonable defaults for noise reduction, capture sharpening, and auto lens correction.
For ISO 100 with a 5D Mark II, my default Details panel is 30/0.7/100/80, and 5/50/0/5/50. That provides a reasonable starting point for capture sharpening and noise reduction in my experience. As noted above, however, the final settings also depend on the subject matter, so you'll want to tweak as needed.
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You can save a New Camera Raw Default setting with a basic sharpening/noise reduction setting.
I usually do.
For ISO 100 with a 5D Mark II, my default Details panel is 30/0.7/100/80, and 5/50/0/5/50. That provides a reasonable starting point for capture sharpening and noise reduction in my experience. As noted above, however, the final settings also depend on the subject matter, so you'll want to tweak as needed.
Why so much masking? can you explain. I'm confuse with the use of this..
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Just trying to keep most of the sharpening effect to the edges. This is probably more important at higher ISO values.
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Honestly (and Jeff Schewe is not paying me for that) - since reading "The bible of sharpening" "Real world image sharpening" and changing to PKS am not thinking a lot about sharpening anymore ...
Same here. Time was I used USM in PS but now (I'm embarrassed to admit) I have lost the feel for it, I just choose the type of sharpening required in "PK Sharpener 2" and adjust to taste.
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Thank you Bennett, Thank you guys. Very interesting topic.
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And, despite Mr. Schwe's modesty in not mentioning it, just the sharpening workflow episode of the 'Camera to Print and Screen - 2011' tutorial series from this very site is worth the cost of the whole series - it made me radically update the way I approach the subject.
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And, despite Mr. Schwe's modesty in not mentioning it, just the sharpening workflow episode of the 'Camera to Print and Screen - 2011' tutorial series from this very site is worth the cost of the whole series - it made me radically update the way I approach the subject.
+1
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+2
I bought the series, a great investment..... :)
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Often I use ACR to open a a large raw file (say, from D700 or D800) which will be used only for a small web image. Is it still worthwhile to do capture sharpening on the file, before moving it to Photoshop for additional tweaks, down-sizing, and sharpening at final size?
I'm curious about this, because there is a theoretical argument for low-pass filtering (Gaussian blurring) an image before a down-sampled size reduction. This reduces the possibility of spatial aliasing artifacts from the resampling. So, why should I sharpen the image in ACR, if I'm going to blur it in PS?
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Often I use ACR to open a a large raw file (say, from D700 or D800) which will be used only for a small web image. Is it still worthwhile to do capture sharpening on the file, before moving it to Photoshop for additional tweaks, down-sizing, and sharpening at final size?
Depending on the image content and the down-sampling percentage, it's more likely to hurt than be of any visible influence. With a proper down-sampling method, the risk can be reduced, so then it wouldn't matter much (if anything).
I'm curious about this, because there is a theoretical argument for low-pass filtering (Gaussian blurring) an image before a down-sampled size reduction. This reduces the possibility of spatial aliasing artifacts from the resampling. So, why should I sharpen the image in ACR, if I'm going to blur it in PS?
Capture sharpening won't have much if any beneficial effect on the downsampled result. Targeted sharpening might help a bit if it improves the MTF curve where there is still detail at the final image size, but the best amount and radius would be much easier to judge on the final output size.
I usually make a PS luminosity blend if sharpening layer at 100% which I can switch off or delete for downsampling, and then add a new luminosity blend if sharpening layer at the final output size. Such a layer allows me also to choose whether I want to change the sharpening regime for enlarged output. Unfortunately the Photoshop algorithms for downsampling are not very good (LR is reasonably good), so I do that with ImageMagick anyway if I want the best result.
Cheers,
Bart
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These may be of interest too...
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/high-pass-sharpening.shtml
http://layersmagazine.com/sharpening-high-pass.html
D.