RTH and ouput sharpening

[Colin Southern]

Since a picture paints 1000 words, probably just easier if I show how I'd do it. Be sure to view at 100%

[Donald]

Since a picture paints 1000 words, probably just easier if I show how I'd do it.

You've got to admit, the man knows what the hell he's talking about!

[Brownbear]

Indeed gorgeous... Did you apply the unsharp mask to the entire photo? Or did you select just the bird and apply the unsharp mask to the bird only?


Thank you.

Since a picture paints 1000 words, probably just easier if I show how I'd do it. Be sure to view at 100%

[Colin Southern]

Indeed gorgeous... Did you apply the unsharp mask to the entire photo? Or did you select just the bird and apply the unsharp mask to the bird only?


Thank you.

Hi Christina,

I did two things;

1. (more importantly) I addressed some significant levels issues

2. The sharpening. The sharpening was a USM applied to the whole image (40% @ 0.3 output sharpening), but i used the history brush to partially roll it back from areas that didn't need it (head, perch, etc)

[Shadowman]

2 and 3 had similar outcomes for me. Both would be preferred choice.

[Brownbear]

Bobo, please pardon me for asking questions on your thread but I'm trying to improve my understanding of sharpening especially what Colin is doing. But in the process your gorgeous image is being appreciated!

Colin,

Thank you.

1. I don't see any levels issues. What do you see and how do you see this?

2. I understand that, and thank you for letting me know about the roll back.

If you had the original raw image, where would you do the following. (I copied your earlier answer)


1. CAPTURE SHARPENING is nearly always 300% @ 0.3px (threshold 0 at base ISO, but threshold increasing at higher ISOs) - but this is always applied to the full resolution image.

On the full jpeg file after you processed in raw with no sharpening?


2. Content/creative sharpening varies, but for me, is often in the 40% @ 4px area, also on the full resolution image.

Extra selective sharpening, on just the bird, and again on the jpeg after doing step 1?

3. Output sharpening is typically 50 to 100% @ 0.3px (the 0.3px is kinda just a co-incidence that it's the same value as capture sharpening).

This one I understand.

Thank you.

Hi Christina,

I did two things;

1. (more importantly) I addressed some significant levels issues

2. The sharpening. The sharpening was a USM applied to the whole image (40% @ 0.3 output sharpening), but i used the history brush to partially roll it back from areas that didn't need it (head, perch, etc)

[Colin Southern]

Hi Christina,

1. I don't see any levels issues. What do you see and how do you see this?

Just compare my edit with any of the originals - you should see considerably different contrast in mine, giving the bird more "pop" (on a correctly calibrated/profiled screen).

2. I understand that, and thank you for letting me know about the roll back.

If you had the original raw image, where would you do the following. (I copied your earlier answer)


1. CAPTURE SHARPENING is nearly always 300% @ 0.3px (threshold 0 at base ISO, but threshold increasing at higher ISOs) - but this is always applied to the full resolution image.

On the full jpeg file after you processed in raw with no sharpening?

Once I pass the image through to Photoshop from ACR it's pretty much the first thing I do. It's not a JPEG though; it's only a JPEG when I do a "save as" at the end of the workflow.

2. Content/creative sharpening varies, but for me, is often in the 40% @ 4px area, also on the full resolution image.

Extra selective sharpening, on just the bird, and again on the jpeg after doing step 1?

Capture sharpening doesn't make any difference to a finished and down-sampled image -- it just makes it easier on the eye when working on it at high magnifications. In contrast, content/creative sharpening is "big" enough to change the appearance of the entire (and full resolution) image that's displayed on the screen at the size you want to finally want to display it when it's finally down-sampled and displayed online at 100%.

That's probably confusing, so I'll expand on it a little:

If the image is going to be displayed online as a 1000px x 500px image - and it's currently a 4000px x 2000px image then if you DISPLAY it onscreen at the size it's going to end up, then you'll be displaying it at 25% - so you need sharpening at bigger radii for it to be seen (since it's being reduced for display). Then it's down-sampled to it's final size (which attempts to lock-in the same appearance as the full resolution image that was being reduced in size to make it fit) - and then finally output sharpening just cleans up the slight softening introduced by the down-sampling.

So to answer the question, often I apply content/creative and output sharpening to the entire image, but it's not "cast in stone"; different image frequencies will respond to sharpening differently, but "who cares" because it's a trivial matter to customise in Photoshop; you can either duplicate the layer - sharpen - then erase what's not wanted (fast and flexible) or roll it back with the history brush (fast but not as flexible) or select an area first (slower and not as flexible). Many ways

[Brownbear]

Thank you Colin. Truly appreciated. A great explanation, albeit more complicated than I thought so I will have to read these threads of yours a few more times before it sinks in.

[Colin Southern]

Thank you Colin. Truly appreciated. A great explanation, albeit more complicated than I thought so I will have to read these threads of yours a few more times before it sinks in.

No worries.

Sorry about the "complicated" bit; I'm not particularly great at explaining many things

[Brownbear]

Your explanation is wonderfully simple, it just takes me a while to digest anything technical, ie; image frequencies...

No worries.

Sorry about the "complicated" bit; I'm not particularly great at explaining many things

[Colin Southern]

Your explanation is wonderfully simple, it just takes me a while to digest anything technical, ie; image frequencies...

Ah - sorry - it's just a technical thing for areas that are smooth (low frequency) -v- areas with lots of detail (high-frequency) (eg feathers).

[Colin Southern]

OK - having got my sticky paws on the original, here's how I would do it (well, how I DID do it anyway!)

[jamn4ex]

Bobo it is 1 for me,then 4.

[Bobobird]

Thanks James. Appreciate the feedback.

[Bobobird]

Oh wow Colin that guy just pops out.

I am amazed that almost all your adjustments were made in Camera RAW and in PS all that was done was just capture sharpening, creative sharpening and a background blur.

Hopefully one day can learn to keep things as simple as you have done.

Thanks so much for lighting up that path to a better post procedure.

[Colin Southern]

Oh wow Colin that guy just pops out.

I am amazed that almost all your adjustments were made in Camera RAW and in PS all that was done was just capture sharpening, creative sharpening and a background blur.

Hopefully one day can learn to keep things as simple as you have done.

Thanks so much for lighting up that path to a better post procedure.

No worries Bobo,

Generally I'll do the global stuff in ACR (inc GNDs) and only do pixel editing / selects etc in PS. The background blur was just to lower the noise caused by slightly more aggressive capture sharpening on a higher-ISO image than normal, shot with a teleconverter (not a good combination),

Birds in particular are hard for me due to the mix of high frequency and lower frequency areas; I'm better with human models

[Bobobird]

The TC is the one built into the 200-400. He was some distance off and lighting was not all that great as you could see from the raw image.

Regarding capture sharpening - that is one reason why I use the ACR sharpening 25/0.8/25/70 and then use the masking slider to cut out the areas that do not need any sharpening ie the background in this case. I experimented with those numbers for quite a while before settling on these as being the most reasonable setting to use and then the masking feature to increase or decrease the amount of detail to sharpen.

[Colin Southern]

The TC is the one built into the 200-400. He was some distance off and lighting was not all that great as you could see from the raw image.

Yes. It's not "bad" or anything like that, but it's just one of those things where it makes it a teeny bit worse - as does the ISO. You get exactly the same thing from conventional teleconverters.

Regarding capture sharpening - that is one reason why I use the ACR sharpening 25/0.8/25/70 and then use the masking slider to cut out the areas that do not need any sharpening ie the background in this case. I experimented with those numbers for quite a while before settling on these as being the most reasonable setting to use and then the masking feature to increase or decrease the amount of detail to sharpen.

Yep - I'm sure there are equivalents to Canon's 0.3px @ 300; since it doesn't make any difference to me, I've never bothered with them. Capture sharpening just makes the image nicer to work on; it's the content/creative sharpening that makes all the difference.

[Bobobird]

Thanks Colin especially and everyone else for the lessons.

Please watch next installment coming up shortly to see if I did in fact learn anything.

[Julia Avenell]

I also like number one best. I like sharp images, but not over-sharp, generally speaking (there's always an exception the rule).

Also I would like to say this is beautifully captured. What an amazing bird and a lovely photo.