Is this sharpened too much?

[Keith]

I took this picture on the very first day I got my Nikon D90, I had a Nikon 18-200VR lens on the camera, I have cropped it quite a bit which may be obvious to the more experienced viewer, but I think it may be oversharpened.
Any comments would be gratefully recieved.
Also I have no idea how to show the photo in a larger view, help for that would also be appreciate


And I have just realised I have entered this into the wrong place, should have been post processing, sorry!

[Hansm]

Looking at this size it looks a little oversharpened.
Is it possible to place the phot in a bigger size?
That might be easier to give better comments.

[Keith]

I loaded it from my Flickr album, I am a bit new to all this, not sure if I can make it bigger.

[wallyir]

This may be a case of personal preference Crusty,It looks great to Me but I really try for sharp as I can in My own images, I like the contrast between the bird and the background it`s a nice effect. Wally

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Crusty,

Try this link to the post in the Wiki thread that covers flickr

If that fails, might I suggest sending a Personal Message to Chelseablue, I know he uses flickr and he's a very helpful chap.

I suspect you have used the url for the thumbnail, rather than for the bigger view, as shown in the Wiki post above, unfortunately I have no experience with how to do it in Flickr.

Hope that helps,

[Wirefox]

I resize my images in GIMP (or PS) usually by one third (12MP Image). Then simply up load to Flickr. Open the image from your album and click All Sizes icon in the tool bar at the top of the image. Scroll down then copy the address from the box titled "Grab the photos URL". Once back in the forum click the insert image icon and paste the URL into the dialog box. Hope this is clear I'm a bit on the dozy side this evening.

Nice shot by the way. Though it does appear a little over sharp. Maybe try playing with the settings in the unsharp mask utility in GIMP or PS if you have them.

[Keith]

Thanks, I have re-loaded it as an attachment, slightly larger now.

[The Blue Boy]

If you post us a link to your flickr page, I'll do the honours and talk you through it. This is what someone did for me as it was doing my head in!

[ajith.rajeswari]

You can try the "Insert Image" posting option giving the Pic location , you will get a bigger pic inline.

[crisscross]

I think it is a bit over-sharpened - if you can tell it has been, it is 'over'. Slight halo around edges and noisy background if sharpening is applied overall. On bird pics it is normal practice to only sharpen the bird and leave the background out of focus as you have it, maybe remove any distracting shapes.

There are other threads on the how (try my NX2 if you haven't already tried Nikon Capture as an alternative (the alternative) to PS/CS.)

Likewise a very long thread on posting. If your ISP gives you free webspace as mine does, I just post it there and copy URL to box you get pressing the 'insert image' icon at top of message window; you will also see directions for transposing from photobucket, imageshack, flickr etc

[taken]

as far as the image goes, this is a terrific pic of a bird in flight. very rare angle,and the spread of the wings is caught at a fantastic moment sharpness is a matter of choice.....and the effect one wants to convey composition could have been tweaked to get that conmfortable balance.......post processing is a secondary story

[Blazing fire]

To me, the black edges around the bird actually has a positive effect.

[Keith]

Thanks for all your comments, it seems 'own preference' might play the major part in the final result!

I only use the NX Capture and Picture Project that came with the camera as I am fairly new to the post processing thing.

Chelseablue (Mark?), my flickr addy is http://www.flickr.com/photos/34310386@N03/
,any help would be welcome, unfortunately I have an extremely short memory, so explain verrrryyy sloowwwwlyyy if you have time

Keith

[crisscross]

Thanks for all your comments, it seems 'own preference' might play the major part in the final result!

I only use the NX Capture and Picture Project that came with the camera as I am fairly new to the post processing thing.

Keith

Sure Keith, its your photo and as Taken says, a really fine flight shot.

You don't need to apologise for 'only' using Capture NX and lucky you if it came bundled. It seems to be the only serious alternative to PS/CS. If you are newish to it, do have a look at my intro http://www.pbase.com/crisscross/nx2 (which also includes URL for Jason O'Dell's manual). I deal mostly with what is less obvious. When selecting to sharpen, you can get different effects according to whether you go ever so slightly inside or just ovelap the outer edge of the birdie.

Also you do need a decent core2duo processor for it to work as intended, pentiums and G4/G5s give the impression it isn't working properly.

[Keith]

Thanks Chris, I will take a look.

[crisscross]

Thanks Chris, I will take a look.

Just ocurred to me Keith that I think I binned Picture project fairly rapidly in favour of organising my pics as I always have done, ie originals in blocks of 500 and edited jpg extracts in subject folders. However View NX is free and good as a 1st round browser and has other goodies as pointed out in my blurb

[Keith]

Sorry Chris, I think I misled you by saying I had NX Capture, it was View NX I had with the camera and a 60 day trial for NX Capture.
I have just had a play around with the NX Capture trial version and looked to see the price, I may look at purchasing that at a later date, thanks for your help.

[The Blue Boy]

Keith,

I'm a bit suprised that Colin hasn't put you in the direction of this; [COLOR="Red"]Real World Image Sharpening

It really has opened my eyes, as it will yours.

I think you've sharpened the original noise in the image, as well as the edges.

I've got a few images in my 'stream as concerns to this (Water drops) as experiments in PP in this regard. Honestly if you want the best advice on this PM Mr Southern!

[Colin Southern]

I'm a bit suprised that Colin hasn't put you in the direction of this; Real World Image Sharpening

Great book - pretty in-depth stuff though, so not for the faint-hearted (unless you're really keen!)

I think you've sharpened the original noise in the image, as well as the edges.

Honestly, the bottom line is it's really not possible to do much of an evaluation with low-res images. If one wants an image to look good at low resolution then one typically has to get pretty agressive - which is waaaay different to what one would do on a high-res version; you just can't display ultra fine detail in a low-res image - and dealing with that part is an important part of sharpening.

PS: Nice shot though!

[Keith]

Just reading the product info on Amazon indicates it may be a step too far for me,lol.

I think I need to learn more about photography techniques way ahead of post processing at the moment, but thanks for all of your input.
I can see myself that the overall sharpening of the image has probably 'spoilt' the photo with the background noise, I did not realise that some photo fixing software was able to isolate areas of a photo to process different aspects of it.
I think it is something I will get to learn more about in the future when I feel inclined