Tony if you have access to DPP then you're welcome to do your best with the CR2 of this image and make the comparison yourself, as long as you promise not to share it PM me if you're interested.
Hi Damon,
First thanks for your kind offer and the indications that you would be prepared to trust and share your original raw file with me to see what I would do with it. I am certainly happy to give this a try but wonder if it would be of any real benefit for several reasons.
I am not afraid to give the raw image a go in LR to see what I come up with but I recognise a few names on this forum that I would consider real pp gurus with knowledge and experience far in excess of my own.
What you have certainly demonstrated here is a sharper image via DPP and a particular filter of that I am in no doubt. What I question is the methodology leading to the conclusion that one is actually much better than the other without fully applying the tools available in both applications to achieve specific results.
If the final image destination is print then until you actually make a print it is impossible to judge final quality due to your monitor not having enough resolution at actual print size. As it stands now viewing the crops on a monitor with a resolution of 100 ppi at 100% zoom you are looking at an image enlarged 3x that of the print assuming print resolution will be 300 ppi. To get actual print size on screen you would need to reduce the screen view to 33% and this tells you nothing about how the print will appear as far as sharpness goes – at least that is the case for me.
If the final image destination is monitor only and you size the full original shot appropriately and sharpened for screen output then I wonder if the difference in sharpness could be percieved by most or at least those using monitors with resolution not exceeding 100 ppi?
As I mentioned earlier there is a shift in colour also mentioned in more detail by Tim that I am not too keen on, but then this is not my image and may be the look you are after or maybe something that you would deal with seperately.
Anyway I did shoot my mouth off and stated I felt that sharpening in LR correctly using the tools available should level the playing field when working with the raw data. As the only data available at this time are the crops I just had a little play with your images and brought the JPEG into ACR and used just the sharpening and noise reduction tools to see what they may bring. Obviously not ideal as it would be better to work on the original raw data, but maybe it shows something. And to me at least confirmed my view that much better to be had working with the tools to hand with raw data.