Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Digital Image Processing => Topic started by: Jonathan Wienke on October 10, 2007, 12:43:24 pm
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Having just acquired PK Sharpener, I'm undertaking the project of comparing it to my current workflow (Focus Magic + my midtone sharpening action). Since PKS has a plethora of options and I've only had it a short time, take the results with a small grain of salt, since I'm not nearly as intimately familiar with it as I am with my current workflow. If anyone more familiar with PKS notices any glaring errors in the settings, feel free to point them out.
The test image is crop from a 1Ds capture of downtown Trier, taken on an overcast day. DR is just barely within the limits of the sensor, and there is a lot of fine detail and a bit of noise to make getting the detail without too much noise a bit of a challenge. No noise reduction or sharpening was applied in ACR or afterward. I'll post a link to the original 16-bit crop as soon as I can get it uploaded somewhere over my crappy connection, but in the meantime, feel free to play with the attached JPEG and post your results.
[attachment=3536:attachment]
This post's comparison is limited to capture sharpening; PKS vs Focus Magic. PKS settings were as follows: Expert High Resolution Digital Capture, Medium Width. Focus Magic's settings were: 1 pass 2 pixel radius, 25%, then 1 pass 1 pixel radius, 25% source set to Digital Camera for both passes.
Some points of interest:
In the bottom left area, the Merkur Spielothek sign is brought into clearer focus by FM than PKS, without the noise in the wall above the sign being accentuated as it is with PKS. In general, PKS accentuates noise much more than FM, but focuses sharp edges less well. When the PKS smoothing layer is turned on, the noise accentuation goes away, but edge sharpening becomes even less effective. PKS appears to be USM-based, whereas FM actually attempts to mathematically unravel the effects of blur. FM appears to me to do a significantly better job overall of undoing the effect of an AA filter than PKS and USM-based sharpening in general, which is why I don't even use my own action for capture sharpening.
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[attachment=3521:attachment]
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=145116\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Uh huh. . .we, I'll have to take your word since the attachment ain't visible...
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Uh huh. . .we, I'll have to take your word since the attachment ain't visible...
Sorry, technical difficulties, fixed now.
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Uh huh. . .we, I'll have to take your word since the attachment ain't visible...
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=145124\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I can see it ok on EI. Wayne
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Damm you just beat me too it. Wayne
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Jon, I also use FM for capture sharpening - do you do any automation for output sharpening?
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Jonathan - OK I found you here. I'll likely have further comment after I receive from you the raw file and do some work on it.
Mark
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Here's the link to a 16-bit ProPhoto TIFF file of the image crop; my crappy slow connection won't let me upload anything larger. At least you all can play with the exact same pixels I am.
http://www.visual-vacations.com/images/200...17_0078crop.tif (http://www.visual-vacations.com/images/2007/2006-11-17_0078crop.tif)
And to recap some of the discussion from the Dan Margulis action thread that started this thread:
That raises what may be the key issue in this comparison: the distinction between real image texture and noise.
It seems to me as if there is some cleaning-up associated with the FM workflow that hasn't happened - yet - with the PKS workflow, so could it be that the PKS workflow is sharpening some noise while the FM workflow is suppressing the noise and sharpening the edges?
Based on my memory of the scene, I'd be inclined to say that in the areas where PKS appears to be finding more detail (roadway and rooftops), the detail isn't really there; it's definitely noise in the sidewalk/roadway and the front of the building, and the texture of the slate tile rooftop is definitely exaggerated compared to real life. The standard-issue German slate roof tiles are only about .5cm thick, and are the same color on the edges as the side, and under the flat lighting of the overcast day, the edges of the tiles shouldn't be nearly that blatant. It's an effect really more appropriate for creative or output sharpening, as it goes quite a bit past the mandate of simply undoing the softening effect of the AA filter during capture. Overall, Focus Magic's treatment is much more true to the subject.
Focus Magic has a noise reduction option in the dialog, which is set to Auto and disabled so that you can't change it. It doesn't do anything aggressive, but if you look at the FM vs original sidewalk area under the yellow striped awning, you'll see that there are a few noise specks in the sidewalk that are subtly de-emphasized after FM. It's very subtle and unobtrusive effect, but is there.
Does your FM workflow in this image include your actions after FM, or only FM?
The capture sharpening comparison I did involved FM vs PKS with the specified settings, no other tweaking.
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Here's the link to a 16-bit ProPhoto TIFF file of the image crop; my crappy slow connection won't let me upload anything larger. At least you all can play with the exact same pixels I am.
http://www.visual-vacations.com/images/200...17_0078crop.tif (http://www.visual-vacations.com/images/2007/2006-11-17_0078crop.tif)
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=145143\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Jonathan, that link doesn't download anything. I get an Apple Quicktime logo in feint blue with a question mark in front of it. Haven't a clue what's going on.
Mark
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Jonathan, that link doesn't download anything. I get an Apple Quicktime logo in feint blue with a question mark in front of it. Haven't a clue what's going on.
Try right-clicking, Save Target As... or your browser's equivalent. A 16-bit TIFF isn't going to display properly in IE or any other browser I know of. Save the file and then open it in PS.
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That image was processed through Camera Raw 3.7...and while I know you don't have CS3 yet (right?), I suspect you could get a lot better processed file out of CR 4.2. Also, I note you didn't have History tracking on, so it's impossible to really know what was done to the file although the CR settings are still in File Info.
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Jonathan, I use PK sharpener for capture sharpening on very high res (low noise) files all the time but I find Scan back sharpen setting to be the most precise and I adjust the opacity to what looks good on each particular file at 100 persent. Sometimes I mask out certain smooth areas I don't want sharpened). I'm not using a scan back so using this setting on high res (digital back) files is maybe a no no, but I find this works best for me and my files. you might give the scan back setting a try. eleanor
Having just acquired PK Sharpener, I'm undertaking the project of comparing it to my current workflow (Focus Magic + my midtone sharpening action). Since PKS has a plethora of options and I've only had it a short time, take the results with a small grain of salt, since I'm not nearly as intimately familiar with it as I am with my current workflow. If anyone more familiar with PKS notices any glaring errors in the settings, feel free to point them out.
The test image is crop from a 1Ds capture of downtown Trier, taken on an overcast day. DR is just barely within the limits of the sensor, and there is a lot of fine detail and a bit of noise to make getting the detail without too much noise a bit of a challenge. No noise reduction or sharpening was applied in ACR or afterward. I'll post a link to the original 16-bit crop as soon as I can get it uploaded somewhere over my crappy connection, but in the meantime, feel free to play with the attached JPEG and post your results.
[attachment=3536:attachment]
This post's comparison is limited to capture sharpening; PKS vs Focus Magic. PKS settings were as follows: Expert High Resolution Digital Capture, Medium Width. Focus Magic's settings were: 1 pass 2 pixel radius, 25%, then 1 pass 1 pixel radius, 25% source set to Digital Camera for both passes.
Some points of interest:
In the bottom left area, the Merkur Spielothek sign is brought into clearer focus by FM than PKS, without the noise in the wall above the sign being accentuated as it is with PKS. In general, PKS accentuates noise much more than FM, but focuses sharp edges less well. When the PKS smoothing layer is turned on, the noise accentuation goes away, but edge sharpening becomes even less effective. PKS appears to be USM-based, whereas FM actually attempts to mathematically unravel the effects of blur. FM appears to me to do a significantly better job overall of undoing the effect of an AA filter than PKS and USM-based sharpening in general, which is why I don't even use my own action for capture sharpening.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=145116\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
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It's also been my experience that the sharpening in PKS is not strong enough for 1DsII files. I use superfine and fine most of the time, but when I need more sharpening, I resort to Photoshop smart sharpen. PKS, if I understand Fraser's writing, is mostly USM-based, while smart sharpen could be closer to what FM does.
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Have you tried fixerlabs focusfixer? Also a deconvolution type sharpener. I would be curious how it compairs I have had good luck with it. I run it 2 times at small amounts.
Marc
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That image was processed through Camera Raw 3.7...and while I know you don't have CS3 yet (right?), I suspect you could get a lot better processed file out of CR 4.2. Also, I note you didn't have History tracking on, so it's impossible to really know what was done to the file although the CR settings are still in File Info.
I'm posting the 16-bit converted TIFF crop and the settings I used for the comparison so far, so that anyone who wishes to verify my results can do so, and try alternative and possibly better approaches. If all the sharpening comparisons here start from the same image, even if the image could be improved by being run through a different RAW converter, at least we're comparing apples to apples by starting with the same set of converted pixels. And if someone wants to post a different image as a guinea pig for an additional round of sharpening comparisons, I'm not opposed to that, either.
If we are going to compare RAW converters, I'm game; but lets do that in a different thread so that we're not trying to compare too many variables at once. Fair 'nuff?
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Have you tried fixerlabs focusfixer?
Nope, but you're welcome to download the 16-bit TIFF of the crop and try it yourself and post the results here. Since you're more familiar with the program than I, you might get better results.
http://www.visual-vacations.com/images/200...17_0078crop.tif (http://www.visual-vacations.com/images/2007/2006-11-17_0078crop.tif)
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This post's comparison is limited to capture sharpening; PKS vs Focus Magic. PKS settings were as follows: Expert High Resolution Digital Capture, Medium Width. Focus Magic's settings were: 1 pass 2 pixel radius, 25%, then 1 pass 1 pixel radius, 25% source set to Digital Camera for both passes.
Some points of interest:
In the bottom left area, the Merkur Spielothek sign is brought into clearer focus by FM than PKS, without the noise in the wall above the sign being accentuated as it is with PKS. In general, PKS accentuates noise much more than FM, but focuses sharp edges less well. When the PKS smoothing layer is turned on, the noise accentuation goes away, but edge sharpening becomes even less effective. PKS appears to be USM-based, whereas FM actually attempts to mathematically unravel the effects of blur. FM appears to me to do a significantly better job overall of undoing the effect of an AA filter than PKS and USM-based sharpening in general, which is why I don't even use my own action for capture sharpening.
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a] (http://index.php?act=findpost&pid=145116\")
I find the application of a deconvolution technique to remove the effects of the anti-aliasing filter to be most interesting. The trouble with deconvolution techniques is in obtaining a point spread function (PSF) that describes the mechanism that produced the blur so that the deconvolution can undo it. I presume that the FM assumes a Gaussian function with a variable radius. The PSF required for removing the effects of an anti-aliasing filter might be different.
There are interactive deconvolution filters that allow the PSF and deconvolution to be observed in real time. An example is [a href=\"http://www.reindeergraphics.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=212&Itemid=158]Fovea Pro[/url] from Reindeer Graphics.
Focus Fixer is another deconvolution method. They promise a White Paper (http://www.fixerlabs.com/EN/reference/papers.htm) that will describe the limitations of USM, "Has USM had it's day". They think that it has. If PK wants to remain competitive, I think that they also might have to move beyond a USM based approach. I have asked Jeff if they are working with these methods, but thus far I have no response.
Bill
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It's not true that deconvolution cannot produce completely out of focus detail.
Have a look at http://www.bialith.com/Research/BARclockblur.htm (http://www.bialith.com/Research/BARclockblur.htm)
It seems from comments from Dr Tadrous and others that commercial photo programs are useing mainly the Van Cittert algorithm which is not much better than USM. Bill, I'm playing with the Lucy -Richardson algorithms which are available. I've yet to get onto Landweber, which has impressive results in Tadrous's work. . Perhaps someone could help. I'm geting email bounces from astrophysicists.
Adobe's Smart Sharpen is onto something, but it's a bit crude at the moment. It does combine USM with some sort of deconvolution. You need to excange the Gaussian Blur option for Lens Blur and check Advanced. I think the two approaches to sharpening should be available seperately as they do completely different things. To really make use of deconvolution you need a lot of iterations, which would be disasterous with USM. USM is a perceptual edit , and does not reconstruct wavefronts.
Cheers
Brian
www.pharoseditions.com.au
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I ran the tiff through focusfixer once and then twice using the settings that work well for my 5D ((no AA filter)(deplurr.9,threshold0)) saved as quality 9 jpegs.
Probably not optimum for Jpeg compression but a place to start.
Marc
[attachment=3537:attachment][attachment=3538:attachment][attachment=3539:attachm
ent]
first is no sharpening, second a single pass (deblurr .9) and the third is 2 passes each deblurr .9
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Marc, what are the differences of treatment between the three shots?
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Try right-clicking, Save Target As... or your browser's equivalent. A 16-bit TIFF isn't going to display properly in IE or any other browser I know of. Save the file and then open it in PS.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=145147\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Thanks Jonathan. That worked - should have thought of it myself!
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It's not true that deconvolution cannot produce completely out of focus detail.
Have a look at http://www.bialith.com/Research/BARclockblur.htm (http://www.bialith.com/Research/BARclockblur.htm)
It seems from comments from Dr Tadrous and others that commercial photo programs are useing mainly the Van Cittert algorithm which is not much better than USM. Bill, I'm playing with the Lucy -Richardson algorithms which are available. I've yet to get onto Landweber, which has impressive results in Tadrous's work. . Perhaps someone could help. I'm geting email bounces from astrophysicists.
Adobe's Smart Sharpen is onto something, but it's a bit crude at the moment. It does combine USM with some sort of deconvolution. You need to excange the Gaussian Blur option for Lens Blur and check Advanced. I think the two approaches to sharpening should be available seperately as they do completely different things. To really make use of deconvolution you need a lot of iterations, which would be disasterous with USM. USM is a perceptual edit , and does not reconstruct wavefronts.
Cheers
Brian
www.pharoseditions.com.au
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Brian,
Thanks for the link. The degree of defocus in those examples is greater than is normally encountered in reasonable careful general photography, but the results are impressive. I note that a PSF was derived from a test shot, but in most routine photography, no such shot is available.
[a href=\"http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedetail/image-restoration1/index.html]Roger Clark[/url] is an astrophysicist and photographer who demonstrated some good results with an Adaptive Richardson-Lucy Iteration on his web site. He used an astronomical program, ImagesPlus. It costs US $200 and might be worth the price to a general photographer just for the sophisticated image processing options.
Bill
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I just downloaded the demo and just for capture sharpening that is the only thing I've done til now, the results are very good. I used the recommended settings of blur 2. After I just ran my regular PKS edge1, backed it off to 80% and results are great.
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Marc, what are the differences of treatment between the three shots?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=145219\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
first one is no sharpening (the original file) the second 1 pass the third 2 passes
Marc
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The last time I ran a comparison of different capture sharpening methodologies (I have Focus Magic, PK Sharpener, and CS3), my sense was that FM generated unwanted artifacts to a greater degree than the other two, while Smart Sharpen (lens blur, advanced mode with appropriate rolloff of highlight and shadows) beat PK Sharpen for more precise fine detail and less noise. The one method I've not yet explored fully among these is the use of the sharpening tab in ACR 4.2, however I shy away from this possibility since the sharpening is applied globally and there is insufficient control of masking (though I haven't explored the possiblities of using different ACR sharpenings as smart layers and masking that in CS3).
IMO the place where PK Sharpener really shines is the output sharpening for print (Smart Sharpen wins once again for sharpening for web presentation).
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I just use ACR 4.2's sharpening. Works great. Taxes few brain cells.
Prior to that I used the canon recommended 0.3 0 200%. That taxed virtually no brain cells but was okay at best. (Although it seemed to work pretty good on the sample image here.)
I've always thought the real work in sharpening was in the output sharpening. That be voodoo. (Perhaps if I was willing to blow $99 on PK it wouldn't be but I have to draw the line somewhere.)
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Brian,
Thanks for the link. The degree of defocus in those examples is greater than is normally encountered in reasonable careful general photography, but the results are impressive.
No problem. I have seen Roger Clark's foxy work.
ImagesPlus is very sophisticated. Infinitely more so than Focus Magic or Focus Fixer. Interestingly they give Van Cittert a good rap. There needs to be a lot of work done to dovetail this stuff into photographers workflow. If Roger's analysis is correct a 22 MP 1Ds III would turn into 88MP just by restoring lens information.
Jonathan's workflow seems correct. Use iterative convolution algorithms on capture and USM before exporting sized file. This is basically what I do , but using RAW Developer for capture sharpening and large radius USM or edge filters in the creative middle. This works OK on Mac. Most of the astro stuff is Win,including ImagesPlus and I'm not sure if it wouldn't slow too much on simulation. Parallels could be OK.
Cheers,
Brian
www.pharoseditions.com.au
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If PK wants to remain competitive, I think that they also might have to move beyond a USM based approach. I have asked Jeff if they are working with these methods, but thus far I have no response.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=145196\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Bruce and I both worked with Jeff Chien from Adobe who was primary engineer (along with a few others) when they developed Smart Sharpen. Bruce's problem was that while deconvolution algorithms may have a lot of promise when the optical defects can be known and an algorithm specifically designed to remove a known defect, it's not clear that "general" deconvolution algorithms can be derived without knowing the exact aberration it will be used against.
That was Jeff's problem with Smart Sharpen...he actually showed us a 50 pass iteration that could effectively remove an applied gaussian blur, but he first needed to know the EXACT PSF that could attack the specific blur. Once known, multiple passes could essentially rebuild a soft image into a sharp image with little or only small defects...
Using deconvolution algorithms for removing specific camera shake is another area of interest because you can actually measure the shake involved and the line of bias and then go about removing that camera shake from the image. But, again, this is neither easy nor quick.
Smart Sharpen has both a Lens Blur as well as a Motion Blur mode...but there are no parameters to adjust the Lens Blur mode and you can't combine modes without separate runs...
Bruce had determined, after Smart Sharpen shipped, that there was no compelling reason to adapt PKS to incorporate it...he actually was more interested in DxO and used that earlier last year and was pleased because it offered a method of fixing a lot of lens defects all in one fell swoop. But I'm not sure if he thought of fixing lens defects in the same light as doing capture sharpening. He would run images through DxO and output a linear DNG and then run through Camera Raw for tone & color and finally used PKS for capture sharpening through to output sharpening.
But his time with DxO was rather short and came after finishing his first edition of RW Image Sharpening.
I also note that one of the reasons (excuses) that Hassleblad gave for taking DNG out of the camera output was that there wasn't an easy way to transfer the lens data to enable lens defect correction. Nikon also makes that claim for NEF and Nikon Capture. Canon, at PPE next week is due to release a new version of DPP which will now also supposedly read lens data and attempt to correct for some lens defects. I don't know to what extent Canon is going down that hole however.
All of this research is all very interesting, but to put something in a shipping product that can have a useful impact given the wide range of shooting conditions and lenses that photographers use is another thing. And correcting for very specific lens defects is very complicated as the potential matrix of defects is large–particularly zoom lenses whose defects vary along the focal length make something like DxO seem like a more logical solution. But, again, that still doesn't mean it's a "capture sharpener" per se...
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I wonder. with all the processes some photographers apply to their photos to get the perfect product, do they have any time to take photographs?
I bought CS3 so that I could use PKS because it simplifies the sharpening process for me. I don't need to think about or understand the process so much, and the printed/web photos are more than good enough for my needs. (now if only I could script the resizing/cropping steps...)
on the other hand, if a shipping product could reverse the camera shake in my 1DM3 images and could be incorporated into my (Aperture) workflow, I'd take a serious look at it.
regards,
Gregory
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He would run images through DxO and output a linear DNG and then run through Camera Raw for tone & color and finally used PKS for capture sharpening through to output sharpening.
That's exactly my standard workflow, except that I save the master file without sharpening. I then use PKS most of the time, with mostly two exceptions: if I need stronger sharpening, or if I need to upres considerably.
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It is interesting that focusfixer reads the exif data to determine camera type and aperature ?
Marc
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I just use ACR 4.2's sharpening. Works great. Taxes few brain cells.
Prior to that I used the canon recommended 0.3 0 200%. That taxed virtually no brain cells but was okay at best. (Although it seemed to work pretty good on the sample image here.)
I've always thought the real work in sharpening was in the output sharpening. That be voodoo. (Perhaps if I was willing to blow $99 on PK it wouldn't be but I have to draw the line somewhere.)
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=145241\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Dark-Penguin,
My issue with using sharpening in the raw converter is one of control after the fact. If I sharpen there, then render the image, then say I do some other stuff including local contrast enhancement and find I don't like the resulting package, I may need to unscramble the omelet by reverting to the raw image and re-doing the sharpening, re-rendering and re-doing whatever else I had already done in Photoshop. Frankly, I'm not sure why it's worthwhile having a sharpener in a raw converter altogether, especially as PKS offers a layer-based solution at all stages. I can see it for Lightroom which aims to be a self-contained workflow for all the real basics, so it is needed there, but Camera Raw is a (increasingly powerful) prelude to Photoshop.
Turning to your "voodoo" on Output Sharpening, if you find this voodoo, then you are a good candidate for PKS. Believe me I have no commercial relationship with PixelGenius whatsover - you're just hearing this from an intensive user. It has that combination of quality and ease/flexibility of use that just makes it a compelling piece of software.
Because sharpening is such an absolutely critical part of the whole image creation process, it is the LAST place I personally would draw the line for spending on plug-ins. (There are many others far more expensive and less useful.) Whether one uses this or some other solution for output sharpening, the key thing is to get it right. One of the first things that always hits me when I examine photographs in galleries or craft shows is whether they have been under or over-sharpened. It is the first tell-tale of craftmanship in print processing, because it so obviously affects the overall photographic quality of the image. One will see this before noticing, for example, whether the hue of a colour is several degrees to the right or left of where it should be.
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Bruce and I both worked with Jeff Chien from Adobe who was primary engineer (along with a few others) when they developed Smart Sharpen. Bruce's problem was that while deconvolution algorithms may have a lot of promise when the optical defects can be known and an algorithm specifically designed to remove a known defect, it's not clear that "general" deconvolution algorithms can be derived without knowing the exact aberration it will be used against.
That was Jeff's problem with Smart Sharpen...he actually showed us a 50 pass iteration that could effectively remove an applied gaussian blur, but he first needed to know the EXACT PSF that could attack the specific blur. Once known, multiple passes could essentially rebuild a soft image into a sharp image with little or only small defects...
Using deconvolution algorithms for removing specific camera shake is another area of interest because you can actually measure the shake involved and the line of bias and then go about removing that camera shake from the image. But, again, this is neither easy nor quick.
Smart Sharpen has both a Lens Blur as well as a Motion Blur mode...but there are no parameters to adjust the Lens Blur mode and you can't combine modes without separate runs...
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=145259\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
This is interesting. How do you translate a PSF into an algorithm for a sequence of parameter inputs to iterative applications of smart sharpen?
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I find the application of a deconvolution technique to remove the effects of the anti-aliasing filter to be most interesting. The trouble with deconvolution techniques is in obtaining a point spread function (PSF) that describes the mechanism that produced the blur so that the deconvolution can undo it. I presume that the FM assumes a Gaussian function with a variable radius. The PSF required for removing the effects of an anti-aliasing filter might be different.
There are interactive deconvolution filters that allow the PSF and deconvolution to be observed in real time. An example is Fovea Pro (http://www.reindeergraphics.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=212&Itemid=158) from Reindeer Graphics.
Focus Fixer is another deconvolution method. They promise a White Paper (http://www.fixerlabs.com/EN/reference/papers.htm) that will describe the limitations of USM, "Has USM had it's day". They think that it has. If PK wants to remain competitive, I think that they also might have to move beyond a USM based approach. I have asked Jeff if they are working with these methods, but thus far I have no response.
Bill
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=145196\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I agree that there is a lot of room for improvement in sharpening, and deconvolution is an intriguing possibility. It works well in astrophotography, where in every image you have a lot of point sources available to determine the point spread function.
Wouldn't any deconvolution method be best applied before demosaicing the raw image? It seems to me that otherwise, any algorithm has two distortions of the signal to contend with -- the blur introduced by the lens, and the filtering of that signal through whatever interpolation algorithm is being applied. Furthermore, many interpolation algorithms are quite nonlinear in their attempts to preserve edges, reduce moire, etc.
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That's exactly my standard workflow, except that I save the master file without sharpening. I then use PKS most of the time, with mostly two exceptions: if I need stronger sharpening, or if I need to upres considerably.
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That was my workflow, but I found the DxO interface and output functions user unfriendly. Instead, I've created objective settings in LR for removing all vignetting (I used an opal diffuser and a specific methodlogy to come up with settings that limit subjectivity regardless of the lighting in the image.), and then run [a href=\"http://epaperpress.com/ptlens/]PTLens[/url] in an action to remove distortion. This workflow also means that the demosaicing gets done in LR instead of DxO, which I found to alter colors and WB in a manner I wasn't fond of. It also simplified my workflow.
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Wouldn't any deconvolution method be best applied before demosaicing the raw image? [a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=145325\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
That's DxO's argument because that's what they do...and it's hard to argue against...once a capture has gone through some sort of demosaicing, the Bayer array is gone and the interpolated result would add even more complexity to the deconvolution algorithm requirements...
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I wonder. with all the processes some photographers apply to their photos to get the perfect product, do they have any time to take photographs?
I've shot about 130,000 frames over the last 5 years. You?
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PKS appears to be USM-based
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=145116\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Isn't PKS, in essence, a series of finely-tuned actions that make use of the tools that already exist in Photoshop?
In that case, I would not expect it to use any technologies outside the range offered by that application.
Marco
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Isn't PKS, in essence, a series of finely-tuned actions that make use of the tools that already exist in Photoshop?
In that case, I would not expect it to use any technologies outside the range offered by that application.
Marco
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=145358\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Marco, that's correct, but referring back to his remark and as Jonathan has I'm sure by now observed, it uses more of those tools than USM alone, e.g. layer masks, blend modes and other filters.
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Jonathan,
I took some time out this afternoon to examine the image you offered and make some tests, which I actually printed, taking on board Jeff's advice that one does need to look at the printed outcome when it comes to sharpening.
I notice that the version you posted is at a resolution of 100ppi. That really is below the comfort level for such testing, but it works. The more usual situation would be higher resolution images, so what I came up with may be of limited general validity, but nonetheless here goes.
The first thing I did was a careful examination for noise. I do this with Noiseware Professional. I converted a copy ofthe image to Lab to insure I was getting a clear analytical separation between luminance and colour noise. At all four frequencies it measures, Noiseware found insignificant amounts of colour noise. Only at High frequency was there more than 10% noise and this is confined to the very darkest areas of the image (luminance below level 25, such as the sides of the roof dormers). At most levels the amount of luminance noise ranges from less than 10% to insignificant. The facades of the buildings, the road and the roofs have either insignificant or very low levels of noise - nothing that would bother in a print. So I decided that noise is a non-issue for this image.
Moving on from noise, I turned to PKS and found the optimal settings to be for Capture Sharpen - Hi-Res Digital Superfine Edge Sharpen with opacity of the master layer reduced to 70%, and for Output Sharpen, using Epson Enhanced Matte paper and dimensioning the image (without resampling) to 6*9 inches for printing on a letter-size sheet it comes to 133ppi, therefore the only feasible setting is Matte 180ppi. I reduced the opacity of the master layer for this set to 50%.
Between capture sharpen and output sharpen, I made a Curve Adjustment Layer with level 255 remapped to level 230and input level 24 remapped Output 25. This brightened, increased contrast and re-darkened a bit. Gives the scene more snap with no clipping.
Then I made two versions of this structure: one using John Paul Caponigro's High Pass mid-tone contrast enhancement technique (available on his website) with default opacity of 20% and one without it. This is done with a Stamp Layer and done before Output Sharpening. Comparing these two prints, I preferred the one without the mid-tone contrast enhancement. Combined with Output Sharpening, it's a bit too brittle for my taste.
Then I turned to Focus Magic. I have an evaluation copy of this program, so I had to convert your image to JPEG. That may introduce an impurity in the comparison, so I need to mention this here.
Anyhow, I made the same Curve adjustment layer first in hi-bit mode, did NOT do the local contrast enhancement, flattened, converted to 8-bit, converted to JPEG at highest available quality and Saved-As.
Then I opened this image in FM, and selected the "Focus" filter because for this image none of the others seemed to apply. I thought the resolultion filter would do as well, but it seemed quite ineffective - perhaps because this is an evaluation copy the advertised preview of the effect doesn't show. Since this image has no motion blur, Focus seemed the next most obvious option, based on what is described in their Help manual.
So I made two images with that - one at level 2 and the other at level 4. I printed those as well. The image at level 4 is a toss-away - very obvious halos. The image at level 2 is acceptable. When I put this image side-by-side with the PKS image excluding the mid-tone contrast enhancement, I find the PKS result generally preferable. It is "sharper" (but perhaps had I run FM at level 3 it would have been awash!), the detail of texture in the road and the roofs is better - and this is not sharpening noise, I'm talking about real edges. But more a propos, the FM result seemed uneven - it did a pretty good job on the left hand-side of the image, and as one moves to the right, the quality falls off relative to the PKS image - such that the blue and white sign for the M&S shop is very obviously more distinct in the PKS result than in the FM result.
That's as far as I've taken it.
Cheers,
Mark
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John Paul Caponigro's High Pass mid-tone contrast enhancement technique (available on his website)
Mark,
I cannot find this on his site. I have an old HP Saaaharpen action of his and would like to compare them. Can you relocate that? Thanks.
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Mark,
I cannot find this on his site. I have an old HP Saaaharpen action of his and would like to compare them. Can you relocate that? Thanks.
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Kirk - here it is: [a href=\"http://www.johnpaulcaponigro.com/lib/downloads/technique/HighPassContrast.pdf]JPC High Pass Contrast[/url]
It's a free download and a very good tool - easily adjustable to taste. I created an Action of the steps.
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In my case I'm using ACR as the RAW converter. So if I tell it to open the object as a smart object in photoshop I'm good as I can always go back. If I need to change sharpening I can do so. (As an aside I use the clarity slider to do my local contrast adjustments in ACR. So I can see how it will interact with the sharpening right away. ACR 4.2 is the greatest thing since nipples.)
As to the output sharpening I think I agree. Trial and error has given me a decent feel for output sharpening. But I still end up burning paper. Doesn't take that many bad prints to get to $99.
Dark-Penguin,
My issue with using sharpening in the raw converter is one of control after the fact. If I sharpen there, then render the image, then say I do some other stuff including local contrast enhancement and find I don't like the resulting package, I may need to unscramble the omelet by reverting to the raw image and re-doing the sharpening, re-rendering and re-doing whatever else I had already done in Photoshop. Frankly, I'm not sure why it's worthwhile having a sharpener in a raw converter altogether, especially as PKS offers a layer-based solution at all stages. I can see it for Lightroom which aims to be a self-contained workflow for all the real basics, so it is needed there, but Camera Raw is a (increasingly powerful) prelude to Photoshop.
Turning to your "voodoo" on Output Sharpening, if you find this voodoo, then you are a good candidate for PKS. Believe me I have no commercial relationship with PixelGenius whatsover - you're just hearing this from an intensive user. It has that combination of quality and ease/flexibility of use that just makes it a compelling piece of software.
Because sharpening is such an absolutely critical part of the whole image creation process, it is the LAST place I personally would draw the line for spending on plug-ins. (There are many others far more expensive and less useful.) Whether one uses this or some other solution for output sharpening, the key thing is to get it right. One of the first things that always hits me when I examine photographs in galleries or craft shows is whether they have been under or over-sharpened. It is the first tell-tale of craftmanship in print processing, because it so obviously affects the overall photographic quality of the image. One will see this before noticing, for example, whether the hue of a colour is several degrees to the right or left of where it should be.
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That was my workflow, but I found the DxO interface and output functions user unfriendly. Instead, I've created objective settings in LR for removing all vignetting (I used an opal diffuser and a specific methodlogy to come up with settings that limit subjectivity regardless of the lighting in the image.), and then run PTLens (http://epaperpress.com/ptlens/) in an action to remove distortion. This workflow also means that the demosaicing gets done in LR instead of DxO, which I found to alter colors and WB in a manner I wasn't fond of. It also simplified my workflow.
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The DxO user interface gets in the way only if you try to do adjustments, but if you just use it to correct optical defects and run it in batch, it's fairly efficient. If you save as DNG, the colors are not not altered. My reasons for using ACR/LR after DxO are precisely better controls and color more to my taste.
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So I made two images with that - one at level 2 and the other at level 4. I printed those as well. The image at level 4 is a toss-away - very obvious halos. The image at level 2 is acceptable. When I put this image side-by-side with the PKS image excluding the mid-tone contrast enhancement, I find the PKS result generally preferable. It is "sharper" (but perhaps had I run FM at level 3 it would have been awash!), the detail of texture in the road and the roofs is better - and this is not sharpening noise, I'm talking about real edges. But more a propos, the FM result seemed uneven - it did a pretty good job on the left hand-side of the image, and as one moves to the right, the quality falls off relative to the PKS image - such that the blue and white sign for the M&S shop is very obviously more distinct in the PKS result than in the FM result.
FM (like USM) works best when you don't try to do everything with a single radius value. A pass at radius 2, 25%, followed by a pass at radius 1, 25% will be better than one pass at radius 2, 50%. It's kind of like using the midrange knob to turn up the treble.
Regarding your noise analysis, I don't buy it. The texture that PKS is pulling out of the building facades and roofs is completely unrealistic. Yes there is texture, but what PKS is finding would be appropriate for a shot from 10 meters' distance, not 150+. Given the resolution of the camera and lens, the facade of the buildings should be rendered as a fairly smooth color without a lot of texture. And the same goes for the roof texture, for the PKS rendering to be plausible, the roof tiles would have to be 4-5cm thick. The tiles' actual thickness is less than 1/2 centimeter, and at 150 meters or more, the edge lines should be somewhat indistinct, especially given the flatness of the lighting. If you want to say PKS rendering is more visually appealing, I have no argument with that, but realistic, true to the original subject? I say no.
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Without trying to hijack this thread to digress into a DxO discussion, I'll just clarify my previous post with the following responses:
... if you just use it to correct optical defects and run it in batch, it's fairly efficient.
Efficient in a batch, agreed.
If you save as DNG, the colors are not not altered.
This was not what I found in my tests. It also tended to block shadows. What's more, I don't like the way it modifies the file name and/or saves in subdirectories.
My reasons for using ACR/LR after DxO are precisely better controls and color more to my taste.
Yep, the controls in DxO are, IMHO, annoyingly clumbsy and slow. In the end it made no sense to pay $300 for lens distortion correction that PTlens also does in a batch for $15. The down side is that I have to manually set vignetting correction controls in LR, and have had to create noise reduction profiles in Noise Ninja.
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FM (like USM) works best when you don't try to do everything with a single radius value. A pass at radius 2, 25%, followed by a pass at radius 1, 25% will be better than one pass at radius 2, 50%. It's kind of like using the midrange knob to turn up the treble.
Regarding your noise analysis, I don't buy it. The texture that PKS is pulling out of the building facades and roofs is completely unrealistic. Yes there is texture, but what PKS is finding would be appropriate for a shot from 10 meters' distance, not 150+. Given the resolution of the camera and lens, the facade of the buildings should be rendered as a fairly smooth color without a lot of texture. And the same goes for the roof texture, for the PKS rendering to be plausible, the roof tiles would have to be 4-5cm thick. The tiles' actual thickness is less than 1/2 centimeter, and at 150 meters or more, the edge lines should be somewhat indistinct, especially given the flatness of the lighting. If you want to say PKS rendering is more visually appealing, I have no argument with that, but realistic, true to the original subject? I say no.
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Jonathan, I fully understand your argument on the noise analysis, however there are three considerations here: (1) I'm using what several big-name gurus in the trade say is now the best application on the market for analyzing and mitigating noise, and I spent a fair bit of time yesterday afternoon doing just that, not only globally, but locally on numerous patches of the image so I could understand where the noise is lodged and what type it is; I'm relying on data the application processes, not only my eyes. (2) The very detailed sharpening that PKS picked up better than FM in my test prints relates mainly to the edges of the roof tiles and the crack in the road; that is a visual observation. A Canon 1Ds with a good lens capturing an image as that one was captured (I've done many like it in cities all over the place) DOES pick-up fine detail like small road cracks, road dirt and roof tiles very easily. (3) The results from both applications do not show sharpening artifacts on the building facades, where Noiseware also shows there to be insignificant noise levels.
Your advice on better ways of using FM is well-taken as you know the application better than I do. I should do more testing with FM - I think my results are indicative as far as they've gone, however not conclusive - more variants are needed; but I am limited to JPEGs and a small number of trials unless I buy a license for it. I may yet do that because it has its place in the aresenal for those images where a deconvolution process would be the obvious tool of choice.
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I've shot about 130,000 frames over the last 5 years. You?
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The question wasn't directed at me, but I can't help being a bit teasing here. It implies that you've been making about 1 photograph every 7 minutes over every eight-hour day in the past five years. I guess operating in burst mode part of the time, you could still take a week-end off and maintain the average Serious though, that's a huge amount of photographing!
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I've shot about 130,000 frames over the last 5 years. You?
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that's incredible. I envy your passion and dedication.
my library has a paltry 18,000 images including many personal family/gathering images. of the 18,000 images, at least two thirds are almost certainly sub-standard and need to be revisited and deleted.
130,000... wow!
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The question wasn't directed at me, but I can't help being a bit teasing here. It implies that you've been making about 1 photograph every 7 minutes over every eight-hour day in the past five years. I guess operating in burst mode part of the time, you could still take a week-end off and maintain the average Serious though, that's a huge amount of photographing!
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But to crunch the numbers in a bit different context - shooting 1,000 frames every other weekend for five years gets you pretty close to 130k
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But to crunch the numbers in a bit different context - shooting 1,000 frames every other weekend for five years gets you pretty close to 130k
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You're right - still pretty intensive though - assuming 8 hour days on Saturday and Sunday it averages out to about one shot every minute for all of those 16 hours. Not impossible.
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You're right - still pretty intensive though - assuming 8 hour days on Saturday and Sunday it averages out to about one shot every minute for all of those 16 hours. Not impossible.
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Okay, then 3-4 bursts a minute for just one hour every other weekend--now he's starting to sound a little lazy.
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Okay, then 3-4 bursts a minute for just one hour every other weekend--now he's starting to sound a little lazy.
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Maybe somebody will steal his motor drive.
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But to crunch the numbers in a bit different context - shooting 1,000 frames every other weekend for five years gets you pretty close to 130k
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If you shoot sports its not a stretch to take 700-1,000 shots per event. It depends on the sport but 1,000 shots/week might be a slow week for some.
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He would run images through DxO and output a linear DNG and then run through Camera Raw for tone & color and finally used PKS for capture sharpening through to output sharpening.
I find this interesting and encouraging. This is my current basic workflow. I like the demosaicing of LR more than DxO, so I use the DxO plugin, converting a non-adjusted Raw image in LR for editing in DxO. Apply optical adjustments only (lens focus, lens softness, CA, vignetting, distortion) in DxO, then make exposure, tone, and color adjustments in LR. Creative sharpening and output sharpening I do with PKS in CS3.
What I've probably been missing is that I was considering the DxO stage as capture sharpening, mostly due to the obvious image quality improvement. I was afraid to oversharpen at the beginning.
1. So is the recommendation to apply standard capture sharpening after DxO?
2. Has anyone experienced a detriment to DxO by demosaicing in LR.
I've been happy so far, but I will have to see what capture sharpening with PKS after DxO does.
Thanks for the info, Jeff.
~Kalin
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Bruce and I both worked with Jeff Chien from Adobe who was primary engineer (along with a few others) when they developed Smart Sharpen. Bruce's problem was that while deconvolution algorithms may have a lot of promise when the optical defects can be known and an algorithm specifically designed to remove a known defect, it's not clear that "general" deconvolution algorithms can be derived without knowing the exact aberration it will be used against.
That was Jeff's problem with Smart Sharpen...he actually showed us a 50 pass iteration that could effectively remove an applied gaussian blur, but he first needed to know the EXACT PSF that could attack the specific blur. Once known, multiple passes could essentially rebuild a soft image into a sharp image with little or only small defects...
Using deconvolution algorithms for removing specific camera shake is another area of interest because you can actually measure the shake involved and the line of bias and then go about removing that camera shake from the image. But, again, this is neither easy nor quick.
Smart Sharpen has both a Lens Blur as well as a Motion Blur mode...but there are no parameters to adjust the Lens Blur mode and you can't combine modes without separate runs...
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Jeff, you have summed up the situation with deconvolution algorithms quite well. When the PSF is unknown, blind deconvolution methods, which are being developed, can produce an approximate PSF. The ImagesPlus astronomical program that Roger Clark uses offers the adaptive Richardson-Lucy algorithm with noise amplification control. Its Point spread functions include: Choose box, Gauss, binomial, or custom function. Having a MIT PhD is astrophysics helps in choosing an approximate PSF, bit the process is a bit difficult for most of us.
Focus Magic uses a PSF for defocus, where a point source is spread out into a disk. One can identify point sources in the image and choose an appropriate pixel value for the deconvolution as shown in their tutorial. Motion blur and defocus can be handled simultaneously.
Bruce had determined, after Smart Sharpen shipped, that there was no compelling reason to adapt PKS to incorporate it...he actually was more interested in DxO and used that earlier last year and was pleased because it offered a method of fixing a lot of lens defects all in one fell swoop. But I'm not sure if he thought of fixing lens defects in the same light as doing capture sharpening. He would run images through DxO and output a linear DNG and then run through Camera Raw for tone & color and finally used PKS for capture sharpening through to output sharpening.
But his time with DxO was rather short and came after finishing his first edition of RW Image Sharpening.
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Bruce did sum up his impression of smart sharpening in his sharpening book and he found few advantages for it. He stated that the Gaussian PSF gave about the same results as USM, and recommended the lens blur PSF for general use and the motion blur PSF for removal of that defect. However, smart sharpening was in its first iteration and may have improved with CS3. Also, did Bruce have enough time with the algorithm to learn how to use it to best advantage?. After all, he had been using USM for years and had worked out how to use it with edge masks and layers modulated by opacity and the blend if sliders and what radius and amount would give the intended results.
About half of the book is dedicated to capture sharpening, which uses USM. For smart sharpen, we have about one page of documentation in the PSCS3 manual. I doubt that many of us know how to optimally use smart sharpen. Should it be used with a mask or blend if options? When should one use the more accurate function? Should it be used in conjunction with USM?
All of this research is all very interesting, but to put something in a shipping product that can have a useful impact given the wide range of shooting conditions and lenses that photographers use is another thing. And correcting for very specific lens defects is very complicated as the potential matrix of defects is large–particularly zoom lenses whose defects vary along the focal length make something like DxO seem like a more logical solution. But, again, that still doesn't mean it's a "capture sharpener" per se...
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That is true for a shipping product when PK was introduced, but as this and other threads show, some people are interested in deconvolution algorithms and are beginning to use them for capture sharpening. Your own work with Adobe in incorporating capture sharpening in to ACR has diminished the role of PK in capture sharpening, and the other algorithms discussed may diminish its use further. However, its role in output sharpening remains. Would you agree?
I'm not familiar with DxO. I know that it offers correction for various lens defects, but does it use deconvolution? Certainly, correction for light fall off and chromatic aberration do not use deconvolution, but deconvolution could be used to correct for spherical aberration and astigmatism.
Bill