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Author Topic: Sharpening Process Workflow - Does this make sense?  (Read 1802 times)

Steve48

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Sharpening Process Workflow - Does this make sense?
« on: August 07, 2020, 10:21:22 am »

Previously my sharpening process was
1. Set no sharpening
2. Do noise reduction
3. Using 3: 1, Increase sharpening amount slider until noise/artifacts just observed and back off.
4.  Using 1:1, Adust radius and detail
5. Adjust masking to only sharpen edges

It occurred to me that it would make sense to do the masking first (after noise reduction, but before amount slider)
Then adjust amount slider until desired sharpness was obtained.
Since masking is in  place, do not have to worry about introducing noise.
Does this make sense?
« Last Edit: August 07, 2020, 10:30:28 am by Steve48 »
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fdisilvestro

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Re: Sharpening Process Workflow - Does this make sense?
« Reply #1 on: August 07, 2020, 10:52:17 am »

In LR the order of operations does not make any difference. Do it in the way that you like most.

digitaldog

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Re: Sharpening Process Workflow - Does this make sense?
« Reply #2 on: August 07, 2020, 11:09:34 am »

The order makes no difference in processing of the data; LR and ACR apply all parametric edits in 'best' processing order, not user order. But the order may (repeat may) visually affect the decisions made by the user. YMMV.
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Steve48

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Re: Sharpening Process Workflow - Does this make sense?
« Reply #3 on: August 07, 2020, 11:45:59 am »

My question really has to do with whether the order that I observe things affects the final result.
In other words when I do the masking first, and then adjust the amount slider for sharpening will I arrive at a different final setting (parameters) than if I had done the masking last.
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digitaldog

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Re: Sharpening Process Workflow - Does this make sense?
« Reply #4 on: August 07, 2020, 11:47:36 am »

My question really has to do with whether the order that I observe things affects the final result.
In other words when I do the masking first, and then adjust the amount slider for sharpening will I arrive at a different final setting (parameters) than if I had done the masking last.
Again, user order makes on difference IF the settings applied are identical. Settings might differ based on the order used due to visual interpretations of the settings. 
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JeanMichel

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Re: Sharpening Process Workflow - Does this make sense?
« Reply #5 on: August 07, 2020, 03:56:59 pm »

Remember that the Option key is your friend when adjusting the sharpening parameters.
I do not know if Andrew has a tutorial on this on his site; there is a short segment on this in one of the Lula tutorials on LR with Schewe and Michael Reichmann.
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jrp

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Re: Sharpening Process Workflow - Does this make sense?
« Reply #6 on: August 08, 2020, 03:39:32 pm »

Is there a repeatable formula for setting up the capture sharpening settings for a particular camera?
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FabienP

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Re: Sharpening Process Workflow - Does this make sense?
« Reply #7 on: August 08, 2020, 06:50:45 pm »

Is there a repeatable formula for setting up the capture sharpening settings for a particular camera?

It would have to be set for a camera and lens aperture combo. There are calculators that can be of help to determine the optimal sharpening radius (see this thread by Bart van der Wolf). The rest will have to be seasoned to taste with additional creative sharpening (the latter being made with localised adjustments).

For capture sharpening, I tend to prefer DxO PhotoLab which has profiles for each supported camera and lens combo. It seems to be able to apply different sharpening point spread functions between centre and borders of the image, which is especially useful for zooms.

Cheers,
Fabien
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Sharpening Process Workflow - Does this make sense?
« Reply #8 on: August 09, 2020, 07:14:56 am »

For capture sharpening, I tend to prefer DxO PhotoLab which has profiles for each supported camera and lens combo. It seems to be able to apply different sharpening point spread functions between centre and borders of the image, which is especially useful for zooms.

Yes, that's a benefit. It would take a lot of work to do it ourselves, with sharpening layers. The only downside, besides the cost, is that it uses a generic model for the lens. Individual lenses vary somewhat.

Another approach is taken by e.g. TopazLabs Sharpen AI, which uses machine learning models that have been trained to recognize blurred features in all sorts of subjects in an image, and replace them with unblurred versions of it. It's also very effective in removing motion blur or camera shake, even in complex non-linear movement. It's not perfect in all images (and good quality input images still produce the best result), but it usually improves the image quality significantly.

It's interesting that, based on user feedback, most images seem to benefit from that (non-symmetrical) motion blur correction. In fact, that became the default AI model but there are user options that allow to change models on a per-image basis. They are now also improving the masking capabilities that allow deblurring to be confined to the most relevant parts of the image.
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fdisilvestro

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Re: Sharpening Process Workflow - Does this make sense?
« Reply #9 on: August 09, 2020, 05:32:23 pm »

Another approach is taken by e.g. TopazLabs Sharpen AI, which uses machine learning models that have been trained to recognize blurred features in all sorts of subjects in an image, and replace them with unblurred versions of it. It's also very effective in removing motion blur or camera shake, even in complex non-linear movement. It's not perfect in all images (and good quality input images still produce the best result), but it usually improves the image quality significantly.

It's interesting that, based on user feedback, most images seem to benefit from that (non-symmetrical) motion blur correction. In fact, that became the default AI model but there are user options that allow to change models on a per-image basis. They are now also improving the masking capabilities that allow deblurring to be confined to the most relevant parts of the image.

When you use Sharpen AI, do you apply any sharpening at all in the raw converter?

Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Sharpening Process Workflow - Does this make sense?
« Reply #10 on: August 09, 2020, 05:55:58 pm »

When you use Sharpen AI, do you apply any sharpening at all in the raw converter?

The actual Raw conversion is done without any sharpening. But I use Capture One for Raw conversion, which makes it easy to separate viewing/editing the file with sharpening, while using an output recipe without sharpening. Sharpen AI then becomes a separate step in postprocessing, usually on a layered TIFF. This also allows to switch-off the sharpened layer, e.g. for downsampling.
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fdisilvestro

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Re: Sharpening Process Workflow - Does this make sense?
« Reply #11 on: August 09, 2020, 07:33:20 pm »

The actual Raw conversion is done without any sharpening. But I use Capture One for Raw conversion, which makes it easy to separate viewing/editing the file with sharpening, while using an output recipe without sharpening. Sharpen AI then becomes a separate step in postprocessing, usually on a layered TIFF. This also allows to switch-off the sharpened layer, e.g. for downsampling.

Great, Thanks!

JRSmit

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Re: Sharpening Process Workflow - Does this make sense?
« Reply #12 on: August 10, 2020, 03:40:17 am »

In addition, to reduce sharpening artefacts, uprezzing first without sharpening (inLR sharpening to 0), then sharpen the resulting image.
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David Good

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Re: Sharpening Process Workflow - Does this make sense?
« Reply #13 on: August 11, 2020, 04:16:54 pm »

Sharpen AI can be run on a separate layer where the blending mode can be changed. For instance, I use a combination of darken/lighten or luminosity.
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Alan Klein

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Re: Sharpening Process Workflow - Does this make sense?
« Reply #14 on: August 12, 2020, 04:50:35 pm »

Remember that the Option key is your friend when adjusting the sharpening parameters.
I do not know if Andrew has a tutorial on this on his site; there is a short segment on this in one of the Lula tutorials on LR with Schewe and Michael Reichmann.
How does options work?

JeanMichel

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Re: Sharpening Process Workflow - Does this make sense?
« Reply #15 on: August 12, 2020, 08:13:23 pm »

How does options work?

Hi,
For a quite comprehensive answer to this go to the main Lula site, videos and view the Jeff Schewe and Michael Reichmann's video tutorial on Lightroom (the first one); there is a segment on sharpening and noise reduction. When I 'went digital' and started using LR — and I already had a good understanding of Photoshop — I found Jeff and Michael's tutorial videos on LR invaluable. And, at that time they cost money to get, it was worth every penny. Those are now free to all members.

The Option key in combination with using one of the sliders brings in a greyscale view of the effect of amount of sharpening, radius of the edges sharpened, haloes and halo suppression, and the area you are masking.
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Alan Klein

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Re: Sharpening Process Workflow - Does this make sense?
« Reply #16 on: August 12, 2020, 11:26:24 pm »

Hi,
For a quite comprehensive answer to this go to the main Lula site, videos and view the Jeff Schewe and Michael Reichmann's video tutorial on Lightroom (the first one); there is a segment on sharpening and noise reduction. When I 'went digital' and started using LR — and I already had a good understanding of Photoshop — I found Jeff and Michael's tutorial videos on LR invaluable. And, at that time they cost money to get, it was worth every penny. Those are now free to all members.

The Option key in combination with using one of the sliders brings in a greyscale view of the effect of amount of sharpening, radius of the edges sharpened, haloes and halo suppression, and the area you are masking.
Is Option the same as ALT key function in Windows?

fdisilvestro

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Re: Sharpening Process Workflow - Does this make sense?
« Reply #17 on: August 12, 2020, 11:28:28 pm »

Is Option the same as ALT key function in Windows?

Yes
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