Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: cybis on October 16, 2012, 02:01:28 am
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Mike Chaney just released a new version of Qimage which adds the option to sharpen using 'Deep Focus Sharpening DFS)' instead of USM. DFS is claimed to reduce artifacts.
Just printed a few images using the new feature and I could see a slight improvement (less haloes) but so far only when pushing the sharpening strength to the maximum and comparing results with a loupe.
Anyone knows anything about DFS vs USM?
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Anyone knows anything about DFS vs USM?
Hi Luc,
It's a new feature (http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage-u/tech-dfs.htm) (introduced yesterday), so I've not analysed it completely yet, but it looks very interesting. From what I've seen sofar, it does a pretty good job at avoiding (specular and shadow) clipping and halos. Interestingly "DFS" is not only used for editing, but also for Smart sharpening (variable radius depending on output size) of the output. That should produce even better output quality than Qimage already did.
Cheers,
Bart
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... (variable radius depending on output size)...
Cheers,
Bart
Interesting statement. I never noticed that this was done in smart sharpening, but I do it manually all the time with output sharpening using unsharp mask...frequently for web publication since I use Qimage output sharpening for print.
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Hi Luc,
It's a new feature (http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage-u/tech-dfs.htm) (introduced yesterday), so I've not analysed it completely yet, but it looks very interesting. From what I've seen sofar, it does a pretty good job at avoiding (specular and shadow) clipping and halos. Interestingly "DFS" is not only used for editing, but also for Smart sharpening (variable radius depending on output size) of the output. That should produce even better output quality than Qimage already did.
Cheers,
Bart
I'm still running the old "pro" version of Qimage, would the combination of the fusion extrapolation and the new DFS give visible better prints?
DFS seems something very nice to me.
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I'm still running the old "pro" version of Qimage, would the combination of the fusion extrapolation and the new DFS give visible better prints?
DFS seems something very nice to me.
Hi Alain,
I do think that they offer visible benefits over Hybrid interpolation and USM alone. Of course it also matters which kind of subject you are printing, but anything with lots of detail should benefit. Whether it justifies upgrading is something only you can decide, but also realise that there are other improvements as well such as a new version of the LCMS color management engine.
I'd say, download the trial version when you have a bit of time, and use the 14 days trial period to run some side by side examples. The trial version installs in a different subdirectory, but uses the common data directory from your current QI version (unless you instruct it otherwise). So you can run your current version parallel to the new one, and look for differences in output quality.
It's a bit hard to predict what exactly the DFS result will be without looking at the editor's preview, because the sharpening seems to be adaptive to edge detail which therefore also depends on the original file you want to print. Being adaptive helps to automatically avoid boosting noise, but also allows to use a large 'radius' setting which has a very different effect than USM, so you may want to also try larger radius settings than you are accustomed to. With DFS the radius determines the number of surrounding pixels that are considered for the sharpening, with USM the radius also changes the weighting of the surrounding pixels for the edge contrast boost (which can cause halo artifacts).
Cheers,
Bart
P.S. There is also a YouTube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=AiVoXcB1uzk&vq=hd1080) by Mike Chaney about the new DFS. He uses too large a radius for my taste, but it does demonstrate the difference with USM nicely.
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Hi Alain,
I do think that they offer visible benefits over Hybrid interpolation and USM alone. Of course it also matters which kind of subject you are printing, but anything with lots of detail should benefit. Whether it justifies upgrading is something only you can decide, but also realise that there are other improvements as well such as a new version of the LCMS color management engine.
I'd say, download the trial version when you have a bit of time, and use the 14 days trial period to run some side by side examples. The trial version installs in a different subdirectory, but uses the common data directory from your current QI version (unless you instruct it otherwise). So you can run your current version parallel to the new one, and look for differences in output quality.
It's a bit hard to predict what exactly the DFS result will be without looking at the editor's preview, because the sharpening seems to be adaptive to edge detail which therefore also depends on the original file you want to print. Being adaptive helps to automatically avoid boosting noise, but also allows to use a large 'radius' setting which has a very different effect than USM, so you may want to also try larger radius settings than you are accustomed to. With DFS the radius determines the number of surrounding pixels that are considered for the sharpening, with USM the radius also changes the weighting of the surrounding pixels for the edge contrast boost (which can cause halo artifacts).
Cheers,
Bart
P.S. There is also a YouTube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=AiVoXcB1uzk&vq=hd1080) by Mike Chaney about the new DFS. He uses too large a radius for my taste, but it does demonstrate the difference with USM nicely.
Hi Bart
Thanks for the long answer. I had forgetting the new lcms. I do know that it will use twe cores also, but that slight time saving isn't worth that much for me.
Alain
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Qimage has a December sale going. $69.99 for the ultimate plus 1yr of upgrades.
His intro video
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=njhv_Jwa5P4&vq=hd720 (http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=njhv_Jwa5P4&vq=hd720)
Website with 15 day free trail
http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage-u/index.html (http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage-u/index.html)