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Author Topic: Capture sharpening in ACR?  (Read 21593 times)

jljonathan

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Capture sharpening in ACR?
« on: March 14, 2009, 01:41:21 pm »

I am going to try using ACR for capture sharpening with a 1dsMkIII after regularly using PS. Does anyone have a any recommendations for initial settings to start with for this camera? And, possibly for several shooting situations ie. landscape, fine detail, portrait.
Thanks for any suggestions
Jonathan
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Chris_Brown

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Capture sharpening in ACR?
« Reply #1 on: March 14, 2009, 02:13:28 pm »

First thing I've done is to make my own DNG camera profiles using the Adobe DNG Profile Editor. It's the best path toward better, more accurate color from your camera when using ACR.
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Andy M

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Capture sharpening in ACR?
« Reply #2 on: March 14, 2009, 06:23:11 pm »

Quote from: Chris_Brown
First thing I've done is to make my own DNG camera profiles using the Adobe DNG Profile Editor. It's the best path toward better, more accurate color from your camera when using ACR.

Are you able to provide examples Chris?
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jljonathan

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Capture sharpening in ACR?
« Reply #3 on: March 14, 2009, 06:36:19 pm »

I appreciate that you are demonstrating the possible use of the profile editor, but my question does involve the suggestions for the use of the detail panel in CR for input sharpening using the 1dsMkIII. At the moment I am not trying to correct color etc.  Please try to limit replies to that issue right now.
Thanks
Jonathan
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Mark D Segal

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Capture sharpening in ACR?
« Reply #4 on: March 14, 2009, 08:11:07 pm »

Quote from: jljonathan
I am going to try using ACR for capture sharpening with a 1dsMkIII after regularly using PS. Does anyone have a any recommendations for initial settings to start with for this camera? And, possibly for several shooting situations ie. landscape, fine detail, portrait.
Thanks for any suggestions
Jonathan

It depends on the image. There is no "one-size-fits-all" recommendation.

However, as a starging point you may wish to be guided by the presets provided with Lightroom. Lightroom provides "Landscapes" and  "Portrait" presets. The former is for higher-frequency images and the latter for lower frequency images. In the former, the default settings are Amount 40, Radius 0.8, Detail 50 and Masking 0. In the latter the default settings are Amount 35, Radius 1.2, Detail 20 and Masking 70.

The underlying approach is as follows: Amount determines the extent to which Radius and Detail are applied. Higher Amount applies them more strongly. For Radius, lower values provide more narrow edge detail. A general recommendation is to use below 1.0 for high frequency images and more than 1.0 for lower frequency images. Detail distinguishes edges from halos. Lower values suppress halos and allow higher Amount for more edge sharpening; higher values accentuate halos and shows more of the sharpening effect. Increasing Masking increasingly protects areas from sharpening which you don't want to be sharpened - such as skin in a portrait.

You can only see sharpening effects with the image magnified to 100%. It may also be helpful to view the effect in B&W by depressing Alt when clicking on the Sharpening control of interest.

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Chris_Brown

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Capture sharpening in ACR?
« Reply #5 on: March 14, 2009, 09:56:02 pm »

Quote from: Andy M
Are you able to provide examples Chris?
You can see for yourself. Follow these instructions and when you're done simply compare the results with the existing camera profiles. The difference is huge. In every color sample, there was a significant shift in hue, saturation and/or lightness. (I used a new ColorChecker and dual illuminants).
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Ben Rubinstein

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Capture sharpening in ACR?
« Reply #6 on: March 15, 2009, 12:22:02 pm »

http://www.photoshopforphotographers.com/p...uresharpen.html

First time I ever tried ACR's capture sharpening was after watching this, couldn't get my head round it beforehand.

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Ben Rubinstein

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Capture sharpening in ACR?
« Reply #7 on: March 15, 2009, 01:12:55 pm »

Just tried this with a 'real' image, a paltry 55 megapixel architectural stitch. Sorry guys but the mixture of ACR capture and output creams PK IMO, far less mush in the fine details on problem subjects, I also found the output sharpening (normal) more to my taste than PK's. Faster to apply as well. Of course it's harder to use, no masks to work with, resizing for print, etc.

What I did was take my 2.2Gb file, flatten it, load it into ACR and apply Capture, open to PS for resizing (easier than trying with the clunky ACR method of resizing), save, reopen in ACR and apply Output based on the print size, open and print! Of course if you want masks for the capture all you do is open an unsharpened version then layer the sharpened on top. Bit of a pain but I'm so happy with the results I don't particularly care. What would be very very nice would be a proper size window in ACR where I can specify the size in inches and the relevant DPI. That would cut a whole stage out of the workflow but I know it's high on the wishlist for many with ACR...
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Mark D Segal

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Capture sharpening in ACR?
« Reply #8 on: March 15, 2009, 01:54:05 pm »

Quote from: pom
Just tried this with a 'real' image, a paltry 55 megapixel architectural stitch. Sorry guys but the mixture of ACR capture and output creams PK IMO, far less mush in the fine details on problem subjects, I also found the output sharpening (normal) more to my taste than PK's. Faster to apply as well. Of course it's harder to use, no masks to work with, resizing for print, etc.

What I did was take my 2.2Gb file, flatten it, load it into ACR and apply Capture, open to PS for resizing (easier than trying with the clunky ACR method of resizing), save, reopen in ACR and apply Output based on the print size, open and print! Of course if you want masks for the capture all you do is open an unsharpened version then layer the sharpened on top. Bit of a pain but I'm so happy with the results I don't particularly care. What would be very very nice would be a proper size window in ACR where I can specify the size in inches and the relevant DPI. That would cut a whole stage out of the workflow but I know it's high on the wishlist for many with ACR...

For as far as the sharpening controls in ACR/LR can take you, you can get the same results sharpening in ACR or sharpening with PK in Photoshop. Perhaps the adjustment responds faster in ACR because it's working on a raw, un-rendered image, or for any image - applying meta-data (parametric editing), with the processing time being shifted to the Export function.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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Ben Rubinstein

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Capture sharpening in ACR?
« Reply #9 on: March 15, 2009, 02:29:06 pm »

Quote from: MarkDS
For as far as the sharpening controls in ACR/LR can take you, you can get the same results sharpening in ACR or sharpening with PK in Photoshop. Perhaps the adjustment responds faster in ACR because it's working on a raw, un-rendered image, or for any image - applying meta-data (parametric editing), with the processing time being shifted to the Export function.

I've been using PK for 3 years and I used the ACR sharpening as per the above video for the first time today. I've never been able to get PK to look as good as the ACR.
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jljonathan

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Capture sharpening in ACR?
« Reply #10 on: March 16, 2009, 01:45:23 am »

Quote from: pom
Just tried this with a 'real' image, a paltry 55 megapixel architectural stitch. Sorry guys but the mixture of ACR capture and output creams PK IMO, far less mush in the fine details on problem subjects, I also found the output sharpening (normal) more to my taste than PK's. Faster to apply as well. Of course it's harder to use, no masks to work with, resizing for print, etc.

What I did was take my 2.2Gb file, flatten it, load it into ACR and apply Capture, open to PS for resizing (easier than trying with the clunky ACR method of resizing), save, reopen in ACR and apply Output based on the print size, open and print! Of course if you want masks for the capture all you do is open an unsharpened version then layer the sharpened on top. Bit of a pain but I'm so happy with the results I don't particularly care. What would be very very nice would be a proper size window in ACR where I can specify the size in inches and the relevant DPI. That would cut a whole stage out of the workflow but I know it's high on the wishlist for many with ACR...

I did look at Evening's CS4 video and it does give a very complete and understandable picture of the whole capture sharpening process. Can you please go into  more detail on the explanation you gave as to switching back and forth from ACR to PS to achieve your sharpening workflow, and inadditon, I don't think I understand the point: "Of course if you want masks for the capture all you do is open an unsharpened version then layer the sharpened on top." I thought you could use the Masking slider in ACR for capture sharpening?
Thanks to all for the helpful ideas.
Jonathan
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Mark D Segal

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Capture sharpening in ACR?
« Reply #11 on: March 16, 2009, 08:01:57 am »

Quote from: jljonathan
I did look at Evening's CS4 video and it does give a very complete and understandable picture of the whole capture sharpening process. Can you please go into  more detail on the explanation you gave as to switching back and forth from ACR to PS to achieve your sharpening workflow, and inadditon, I don't think I understand the point: "Of course if you want masks for the capture all you do is open an unsharpened version then layer the sharpened on top." I thought you could use the Masking slider in ACR for capture sharpening?
Thanks to all for the helpful ideas.
Jonathan

You know, this can be kept really simple - and you CAN get just as good results using EITHER PKS in PS OR the sharpening panel in ACR/LR. Starting with the latter, there are no layers in this workflow, so anything to do with layers doesn't apply. You use the Masking slider to hide area you don't want sharpened from being sharpened. That's all there is to it. Turning to Photoshop, ANY sharpening you do with PKS is automatically done on two layers covered with "pass-through" layer encompassing the Light Contour and Dark Contour Layers. If you wish to apply PKS selectively to Capture or Output sharpening all you need to do is add a Hide All layer mask to the pass through layer, grab your WHITE paint brush and paint in the sharpening where you want it to the extent you want it (with opacity adjustment on the brush). Another approach with PK is to let PK create a brush using the Creative sharpening algorythms. PKS is an infinitely flexible instrument.
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Ben Rubinstein

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Capture sharpening in ACR?
« Reply #12 on: March 16, 2009, 08:09:59 am »

Quote from: jljonathan
I did look at Evening's CS4 video and it does give a very complete and understandable picture of the whole capture sharpening process. Can you please go into  more detail on the explanation you gave as to switching back and forth from ACR to PS to achieve your sharpening workflow, and inadditon, I don't think I understand the point: "Of course if you want masks for the capture all you do is open an unsharpened version then layer the sharpened on top." I thought you could use the Masking slider in ACR for capture sharpening?
Thanks to all for the helpful ideas.
Jonathan



OK, if you get halo's with PK then you have a mask that you can paint to reduce the effect. You can deal with halo's within the capture sharpening in ACR but if it a few specific halo's but the rest is OK then you have to open one version with zero sharpening then open a 2nd version with the sharpening and layer it on top of the first one. Then you can mask the sharpened one and adjust opacity or paint out areas using the mask. If you open the sharpened layer as a smart object then you have even more control of course. A neat trick is using the snapshots tab in ACR to save your sharpening so that you can open with or without easily.

Once I've opened the file with capture sharpening I can then work on the file as usual in PS with all my mutiple layers, etc. Once I come to the stage of resizing and sharpening for print I will flatten the image, resize it and then save it as a new TIFF. I then open up that TIFF in ACR and apply output sharpening which will be applied relative to the final print size that I set the image to earlier. I can open the file again as a smart object so that I can choose between the output settings or even open a new layer with no output sharpening so as to again be able to adjust the opacity.

At least that's how I see it. The capture and Output in ACR don't seem to have been designed to do the above, they seem to be made for a ACR one stop processing solution. Doesn't help me much when I have files that are going to have multiple layers applied!
« Last Edit: March 16, 2009, 08:11:05 am by pom »
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jljonathan

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Capture sharpening in ACR?
« Reply #13 on: March 16, 2009, 02:25:50 pm »

Ben and Mark, thank you both for taking the time to point me in the right direction. I am going to try several of the suggested options in the next few days and I will post a follow up of  any applicable results.
Jonathan
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Mark D Segal

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Capture sharpening in ACR?
« Reply #14 on: March 17, 2009, 12:59:19 pm »

Quote from: pom
OK, if you get halo's with PK then you have a mask that you can paint to reduce the effect. You can deal with halo's within the capture sharpening in ACR but if it a few specific halo's but the rest is OK then you have to open one version with zero sharpening then open a 2nd version with the sharpening and layer it on top of the first one. Then you can mask the sharpened one and adjust opacity or paint out areas using the mask. If you open the sharpened layer as a smart object then you have even more control of course. A neat trick is using the snapshots tab in ACR to save your sharpening so that you can open with or without easily.

Once I've opened the file with capture sharpening I can then work on the file as usual in PS with all my mutiple layers, etc. Once I come to the stage of resizing and sharpening for print I will flatten the image, resize it and then save it as a new TIFF. I then open up that TIFF in ACR and apply output sharpening which will be applied relative to the final print size that I set the image to earlier. I can open the file again as a smart object so that I can choose between the output settings or even open a new layer with no output sharpening so as to again be able to adjust the opacity.

At least that's how I see it. The capture and Output in ACR don't seem to have been designed to do the above, they seem to be made for a ACR one stop processing solution. Doesn't help me much when I have files that are going to have multiple layers applied!

Ben, sorry, but I find much of this needlessly convoluted. The sharpening in ACR was designed to make one's sharpening life efficient and effective. You can even sharpen selectively using the adjustment brush. There is no output sharpening algorithm in ACR that I've seen - as much as I've seen so far, only the one in the Detail tab which is intended as a capture sharpener. The workflow is intended as a straight one-way pass through from ACR to PS. Lightroom is a different proposition because it has a print module with some layout features which may attract one to go back there for printing, so it has an Output sharpener.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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Schewe

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Capture sharpening in ACR?
« Reply #15 on: March 17, 2009, 01:16:20 pm »

Quote from: MarkDS
There is no output sharpening algorithm in ACR that I've seen - as much as I've seen so far, only the one in the Detail tab which is intended as a capture sharpener.


Actually Mark if you look in the Workflow OPtions you'll see that Output Sharpening has indeed been added in Camera Raw 5.2 and above...The Adobe/Pixel Genius deal was always intended to have capture and output sharpening in the Camera Raw pipeline (but not in Photoshop–yet) and with 5.2+ it's there. Of course, Camera Raw resize/resample usability sucks at this point (meaning it's tough to know what size your print will be) so I would only use output sharpening from Camera Raw ONLY if no further resize/resampling will be done on an image. That should improve in the future...
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Ben Rubinstein

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Capture sharpening in ACR?
« Reply #16 on: March 17, 2009, 03:01:59 pm »

That's what I've been using, I just resize in PS then reopen in ACR to apply the output sharpening as per the above.

I've never actually seen the adjustment brush in ACR do anything in sharpening mode, certainly not on the level of PK's creative brushes.
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Mark D Segal

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Capture sharpening in ACR?
« Reply #17 on: March 17, 2009, 04:45:40 pm »

Quote from: Schewe
Actually Mark if you look in the Workflow OPtions you'll see that Output Sharpening has indeed been added in Camera Raw 5.2 and above...The Adobe/Pixel Genius deal was always intended to have capture and output sharpening in the Camera Raw pipeline (but not in Photoshop–yet) and with 5.2+ it's there. Of course, Camera Raw resize/resample usability sucks at this point (meaning it's tough to know what size your print will be) so I would only use output sharpening from Camera Raw ONLY if no further resize/resampling will be done on an image. That should improve in the future...

Oh yes, indeed - I stand corrected - what a "discrete" place to put it!   I would have expected a more obvious placement like we have in LR.

Anyhow, regardless of it being there, I still would not be sending images back and forth between ACR and PS for reasons of sharpening. I don't think it's necessary or efficient.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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jljonathan

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Capture sharpening in ACR?
« Reply #18 on: March 18, 2009, 02:35:38 am »

You also have to wonder if opening in PS-resizing-correcting etc and then reopening a flattened tif in CR to sharpen might mess things up somehow. If so, and you're really sold on this technique, maybe it would be better to save it originally out of CR as a smart object that can just be reopened later in PS for the output sharpening. Just a thought.
Jonathan
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Ben Rubinstein

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Capture sharpening in ACR?
« Reply #19 on: March 18, 2009, 05:24:08 am »

Quote from: jljonathan
You also have to wonder if opening in PS-resizing-correcting etc and then reopening a flattened tif in CR to sharpen might mess things up somehow. If so, and you're really sold on this technique, maybe it would be better to save it originally out of CR as a smart object that can just be reopened later in PS for the output sharpening. Just a thought.
Jonathan

Hi, firstly you save a lossless TIFF so there will be no image degredation. It's not a jpg. Secondly, the smart object idea won't work, as far as I know,  yup, just confirmed it. Opened an image as a smart object, resized it, double clicked on the smart object and it brought up ACR showing the original size.

As far as why I'm bothering Mark? Firstly I vastly prefer the sharpening. Secondly I have to close down PS 64 and open 32 bit just to use PK so if I'm opening and closing anyway I might as well use the method I like which takes very little time anyway as I have Bridge and PS open at the same time anyway. Thirdly it's faster. I have paid for PK and had it for a long time, I just find the capture sharpening controls more to my taste in ACR and the output sharpening more natural. Everyone to their own....

BTW would there be any interest in ACR/LR offering types of Output Sharpening to match type of printing, i.e. Contone/inkjet/halftone as there is at present in PK?
« Last Edit: March 18, 2009, 06:59:20 am by pom »
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