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Author Topic: images dont look sharp in acr  (Read 5066 times)

gene41Ta

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images dont look sharp in acr
« on: October 31, 2013, 11:27:43 pm »

Hi, when i open my raw images from bridge into acr they do not look sharp, but when i click once on them with the zoom tool then they look fine, i have CS5 and shoot with the Canon 5DII. am i doing something wrong here, is there a setting that i am overlooking? thanks
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: images dont look sharp in acr
« Reply #1 on: November 01, 2013, 04:11:54 am »

Hi, when i open my raw images from bridge into acr they do not look sharp, but when i click once on them with the zoom tool then they look fine, i have CS5 and shoot with the Canon 5DII. am i doing something wrong here, is there a setting that i am overlooking? thanks

Hi,

You can only judge image sharpness at 100% zoom (1 pixel in the file equals one pixel on the display). Is that when you see the unsharp version, or does the click with the zoom tool change the zoom size?

Cheers,
Bart
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PhotoEcosse

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Re: images dont look sharp in acr
« Reply #2 on: November 01, 2013, 06:10:44 am »

Hi,

You can only judge image sharpness at 100% zoom (1 pixel in the file equals one pixel on the display). Is that when you see the unsharp version, or does the click with the zoom tool change the zoom size?

Cheers,
Bart

I think that, objectively, that is correct.

However, as any art form is essentially subjective, I prefer to judge parameters such as sharpness (and many others) once I have printed the photograph at whatever size I intend to use it.

So my advice to Gene would be: "Don't worry about it unless the quality of your prints is compromised".

But, just as a matter of interest, when you say "but when i click once on them with the zoom tool then they look fine", do you mean that after zooming, when you return to the normal display, they still look fine? If so, that is normal. A Raw file in ACR will always look a wee bit unsharp until it has been fully rendered. (At least I assume that applies in ACR - it most certainly does in Lightroom.)
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fike

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Re: images dont look sharp in acr
« Reply #3 on: November 01, 2013, 09:08:48 am »

I would extend that to say the arbitrary zoom levels produce questionable sharpness in ACR and Bridge previews (actually Bridge always sucks).  Zooming into 100% is generally considered the only failsafe way to assess image sharpness, BUT I find that 50% zoom works better for me.  At 100% the ability to see actual pixels distracts me from the assessment.  I have seen others confirm that they like to work at 50% for sharpening workflows.
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: images dont look sharp in acr
« Reply #4 on: November 01, 2013, 09:27:59 am »

I would extend that to say the arbitrary zoom levels produce questionable sharpness in ACR and Bridge previews (actually Bridge always sucks).  Zooming into 100% is generally considered the only failsafe way to assess image sharpness, BUT I find that 50% zoom works better for me.  At 100% the ability to see actual pixels distracts me from the assessment.  I have seen others confirm that they like to work at 50% for sharpening workflows.

Hi Marc,

Output sharpening is a whole other can of worms ..., but for the OP there is another issue at play.

Capture sharpening, if that were the OP's issue, is something that requires special care because the ACR sharpening dialog is not that useful. It leans on subjective judgment calls, at which most humans are very poor, where more objective feedback is possible (and much better defaults are required). Correct Capture sharpening will raise the MTF response of the entire file, without introducing artifacts. Output sharpening depends on output size, and is best done at the final output size.

Cheers,
Bart
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gene41Ta

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Re: images dont look sharp in acr
« Reply #5 on: November 01, 2013, 11:51:14 am »

what i mean is when i open any image in acr it looks out of focus, when i click on it with the zoom tool it very slightly enlarges it and then it looks fine, they way a raw image should look like. i am using CS5, i didn't have this issue with previous versions of CS.
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: images dont look sharp in acr
« Reply #6 on: November 01, 2013, 12:34:52 pm »

what i mean is when i open any image in acr it looks out of focus, when i click on it with the zoom tool it very slightly enlarges it and then it looks fine, they way a raw image should look like. i am using CS5, i didn't have this issue with previous versions of CS.

Hi,

The zoom levels below 100% are quick-and-dirty approximations of the full resolution display. Some of the lower zoom levels (e.g. 50%) seemingly look sharp, because they are aliased. Other zoom levels show as either sharp or blurry, depending on the detail in the image, all bets are off as far as reliable presentation is concerned.

Why your previous versions didn't show that, may have to do with your display size or file size, that may have changed between then and now. Hard to say exactly what caused that.

Cheers,
Bart
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Shutterbug2006

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Re: images dont look sharp in acr
« Reply #7 on: November 01, 2013, 09:51:10 pm »

When I first click on an image, it too looks fuzzy .... but after 5-10 seconds everything resolves fine and the focus is fine. In my case, I don't have a lot of RAM (3.5GB) on Win XP 32-bit - so it's probably just busy using the hard drive for scratch space while it's figuring things out.


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Rory

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Re: images dont look sharp in acr
« Reply #8 on: November 01, 2013, 11:03:34 pm »

You may be seeing a known bug in lightroom (and perhaps ACR) where the preview regeneration gets out of sync.  The preview, even when you zoom to 100% still appears to be out of focus.  Regenerating 1:1 previews does not work.  Sometimes making a small edit in develop can trigger a preview regeneration and sometimes you have to exit lightroom and reload the program.  I see this once in a while and is very frustrating and a serious bug as it could lead to the accidental deletion of a good photo because you think it is out of focus.

As a result I simply to not trust lightroom for focus evaluation and use photomechanic.  IMO lightroom previews need a lot of developer TLC.
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