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01/26/2007 01:18:02 PM · #1 |
I'd like to take the opportunity to solicit input, discussion, etc. regarding sharpening images for challenge submissions. Specifically, I'm interested in what determines whether a voter feels a shot is undersharpened, properly sharpened, or oversharpened. What drove me to ask this question is my "best of 2006" entry:
I received three comments mentioning oversharpening. I do recognize that the bare branches do create a rather busy area along the shore.
So, does this appear oversharpened, and if so, can yoiu pinpoint why you feel that way? Feel free to post other examples. Let's kick the topic of sharpening around a bit. |
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01/26/2007 01:21:49 PM · #2 |
I still haven't figured out the right balance, although often when I think i go to far it scores better. I always have problems with branches without leaves like what you hae posted.
how much did you use (settings in USM) |
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01/26/2007 01:26:36 PM · #3 |
I don't think it looks oversharpened. Maybe a little busy as you say in certain spots but that's about it.
Also to go along with this sharpening thread, who sharpens in RAW before conversion to TIFF or JPEG?
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01/26/2007 01:27:31 PM · #4 |
I will often push things as far as possible with sharpening, and even can go too far at times. However, given the tastes of DPC, I run into far fewer problems with the "oversharpening" crowd than with the "not sharp enough" crowd. I usually apply 3 passes at various strengths of USM and can do as many as four or five (in decreasing amounts) depending on the subject.
However, I am careful with two things: 1) bare branched trees and 2) hair. They can very quickly take on that oversharp look and so I usually mask those areas off almost completely or turn the sharpening way down for those sections.
I do not think I would call your shot oversharp at all. It is just a product of the subject. The branches on the left do not show artifact, they are merely what they are "a tangle of bare branches".
Message edited by author 2007-01-26 13:28:49. |
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01/26/2007 01:28:28 PM · #5 |
| I don't think you went too far. But the subject of sharpening is tough. I think it all comes down to what the photographer feels is right. I have a very hard time choosing whether or not to sharpen at all. There are times when I really like it and it adds that needed punch, other times I just want to throw the sharpen tool out the door. |
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01/26/2007 01:28:41 PM · #6 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
However, I am careful with two things: 1) bare branched trees and 2) hair. |
Absolutly, those are the worst.
Message edited by author 2007-01-26 13:29:03.
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01/26/2007 01:29:26 PM · #7 |
| I can never seem to make the sharpening on the uploaded version match the original.I'll have to usm-submit-hate the sharpening-unsubmit-change the setting-resubmit several times before I get it right , and sometimes it's still not "right". |
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01/26/2007 01:32:05 PM · #8 |
| does everyone use USM? when it is advanced or higher editing I use the high pass filter. I like it but am not sure it is any better or worse than USM. |
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01/26/2007 01:37:55 PM · #9 |
I wouldn't say the whole shot is oversharpened. Just some parts seem so, like the twigs on the left. And the edges of the boulders, they have a little halo around some parts. Just applying the blur brush there would smooth it out nicely. The rest looks pretty good.
An advanced challenge gives one the opportunity to do selective sharpening which I think more people should practice. Copy the layer, apply some sharpening (or none at all) to the first layer, and even more on the 2nd, and erase away the jaggies and halos. The sharpening tool can be very usefull too. |
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01/26/2007 01:38:35 PM · #10 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
I do not think I would call your shot oversharp at all. |
Um, Doc, you might want to reread your comment... ;)
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
nice scene, possibly a bit oversharp. 6 |
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01/26/2007 01:38:38 PM · #11 |
I always have much better luck sharpening images that are a bit larger. For example, I upload images to Flickr and always reduce to 1024 on the long side and I tend to be able to sharpen those up rather well. But if I downsize the image to 640 on the long side it gets more difficult IMO. I find it difficult to find the happy medium when trying to sharpen most images that are only 640pxls. So much detail has already been thrown away out of the image already by having to downsize to such a small size sometimes sharpening just throws that much more away. Because when you re-size your subjects get much smaller, the sharpening seems that much more intense. I usually sharpen images for DPC at .3 using USM. Sharpening at 1.0 just makes it to intense IMO.
Just my 2-cents. Not even sure if it makes any sense but that's just the kind of day I'm having...
Oh yea, the image posted only looks a little over-sharpened to me in the areas where the subject matter is very small to start with, like in the branches on the trees which happens to be a large part of the scene. I think the water and mountains look great...
Message edited by author 2007-01-26 13:40:07.
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01/26/2007 01:42:26 PM · #12 |
Originally posted by _eug:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
I do not think I would call your shot oversharp at all. |
Um, Doc, you might want to reread your comment... ;)
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
nice scene, possibly a bit oversharp. 6 |
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HAHA, oh man, I'm totally busted! Well, I at least used the modifier "possibly". Well, we can all be wrong. I think I was fooled by the branches on the left. When looking at them closely, I don't think they are oversharp. However, I also do not think they are appealing. In the same way fir trees are really hard to capture and make look good, trees with lots of fine bare branches are hard to work with. |
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01/26/2007 01:45:22 PM · #13 |
This particular shot was really difficult for me. I tried it several ways, some less sharp, some more, and settled on this. There's actually very little sharpening applied after resizing, and only very small radius (0.3, about amount=100) applied prior to resizing. I emphasized detail retention during resizing by using a combination of "bicubic" and "bicubic sharper" resizing.
It truly does become astoundingly difficult to render a shot like this in a pleasing manner at these sizes. I absolutely love the full-size shot, but the resized version loses a lot, IMO. |
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01/26/2007 01:45:43 PM · #14 |
I find a huge amount of images i see on this site far too sharp for my tastes. I consider 'over sharp' to be when I can start seeing the halos on the shot. DrAchoo's dandelion entry to Best of 2006 would be a prime example.
In part I think it might also be to do with the monitor used to view the images, I have very good 'pro' LCD panels in both places that I view images and they tend to be much crisper than any CRT that I've seen.
I'd also say that Kirbic's Sedonia shot screams 'oversharp' to my eyes on this display. Every one of the fine tree branches has a sharp halo around it from sharpening. If not, then it has that appearance.
Message edited by author 2007-01-26 13:46:53.
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01/26/2007 01:48:04 PM · #15 |
Originally posted by kirbic:
This particular shot was really difficult for me. I tried it several ways, some less sharp, some more, and settled on this. There's actually very little sharpening applied after resizing, and only very small radius (0.3, about amount=100) applied prior to resizing. I emphasized detail retention during resizing by using a combination of "bicubic" and "bicubic sharper" resizing.
It truly does become astoundingly difficult to render a shot like this in a pleasing manner at these sizes. I absolutely love the full-size shot, but the resized version loses a lot, IMO. |
I think that's part of the problem - you are trying to retain very fine detail and still display it at a very low resolution. So what was a diagonal line becomes a step pattern of single pixels either white or black, which gives really clear jaggies and sharpening halos as a result. The harsh light you shot it in further compounds the problem, so that you already have built in 'halos' on the branches because of the huge contrast range from the shadow to lit side. Sharpening it at all makes that worse, but I think that's more a function of the feature size you've sharpened at, rather than too much or too little sharpening.
Message edited by author 2007-01-26 13:52:04.
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01/26/2007 01:48:32 PM · #16 |
Originally posted by W.R.Miller:
I always have much better luck sharpening images that are a bit larger. For example, I upload images to Flickr and always reduce to 1024 on the long side and I tend to be able to sharpen those up rather well. But if I downsize the image to 640 on the long side it gets more difficult IMO. I find it difficult to find the happy medium when trying to sharpen most images that are only 640pxls. So much detail has already been thrown away out of the image already by having to downsize to such a small size sometimes sharpening just throws that much more away. Because when you re-size your subjects get much smaller, the sharpening seems that much more intense. I usually sharpen images for DPC at .3 using USM. Sharpening at 1.0 just makes it to intense IMO.
Just my 2-cents. Not even sure if it makes any sense but that's just the kind of day I'm having...
Oh yea, the image posted only looks a little over-sharpened to me in the areas where the subject matter is very small to start with, like in the branches on the trees which happens to be a large part of the scene. I think the water and mountains look great... |
for when i USM on smaller images(640pix) i just do a strong sharpen on a duplicated layer then adjust the opacity to fine tune the sharpness |
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01/26/2007 01:50:42 PM · #17 |
Good idea, I shall try that... Thanks for the info...
Originally posted by noisemaker:
Originally posted by W.R.Miller:
I always have much better luck sharpening images that are a bit larger. For example, I upload images to Flickr and always reduce to 1024 on the long side and I tend to be able to sharpen those up rather well. But if I downsize the image to 640 on the long side it gets more difficult IMO. I find it difficult to find the happy medium when trying to sharpen most images that are only 640pxls. So much detail has already been thrown away out of the image already by having to downsize to such a small size sometimes sharpening just throws that much more away. Because when you re-size your subjects get much smaller, the sharpening seems that much more intense. I usually sharpen images for DPC at .3 using USM. Sharpening at 1.0 just makes it to intense IMO.
Just my 2-cents. Not even sure if it makes any sense but that's just the kind of day I'm having...
Oh yea, the image posted only looks a little over-sharpened to me in the areas where the subject matter is very small to start with, like in the branches on the trees which happens to be a large part of the scene. I think the water and mountains look great... |
for when i USM on smaller images(640pix) i just do a strong sharpen on a duplicated layer then adjust the opacity to fine tune the sharpness |
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01/26/2007 01:51:28 PM · #18 |
Kirbic, I think it's a tad over-sharpened, but I think that perhaps a tiny bit of soft-focus (faded Gaussian blur) would go further than trying to sharpen it less. At least in this instance.
Had to prove it to myself:
Whatcha think?
Message edited by author 2007-01-26 14:05:49.
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01/26/2007 01:52:01 PM · #19 |
i would say the originally posted image is 'apparently' oversharp.
i think it's a combination of the bright highlights being centered around the clusters of twigs - drawing your eyes there. if this had been shot with a longer shutter speed - to give that silky feel to the water the 'apparent' oversharpening would be much less of an issue.
as far as me - i tend to sharpen a couple to three times at decreasing levels of potency. for instance i might sharpen the full res image fully at 300 - 0.4 - 0. then mask out areas that don't need more of the effect and sharpen whats is visible through the mask to a lesser degree say 150 - 0.2 - 0. i'll then resize and sharpen again along the lines of 75-100 - 0.2 - 0. where the threshold setting may be between 0 and 4 depending on the amount of 'solid' color in the image.
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01/26/2007 01:55:29 PM · #20 |
I'm waffling all over the place here. I'd love to see the original. Perhaps it's the wide radius USM I'm reacting too. Maybe I think it looks like there is too much contrast. One area where my eye just senses something "wrong" is the water. That wouldn't be a natural area to have problem with sharpening, but could have issues with the wide-radius USM. I can't pin exactly what I'm reacting to, but I see something.
The mountains look excellent. |
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01/26/2007 01:58:23 PM · #21 |
I'm generally surprised at how much people sharpen on this site, and how well images do that would consider oversharpened.
Yours is a beautiful shot. It has some of that "not of this world" quality but that's more from the tonemapping than the sharpening. Again, it's completely subjective- I find so much of the HDR processing absolutely garish, though a little touch of it can really enhance a photo. |
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01/26/2007 01:59:14 PM · #22 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
The mountains look excellent. |
Though if we are being picky, I don't much like the mountains either. Looking more closely at this a lot of the problem might be JPEG compression too. The artifacts in the sky right at the edge of the mountain/sky boundary and also the halos along the edge just don't work for me. That's partly compression and partly over sharpening there. (e..g, the peak in the top left)
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01/26/2007 01:59:17 PM · #23 |
Originally posted by Gordon:
In part I think it might also be to do with the monitor used to view the images, I have very good 'pro' LCD panels in both places that I view images and they tend to be much crisper than any CRT that I've seen. |
Very true. I use a monitor with a natural resolution of 1900x1200. I have issues with oversharpening my images because on my monitor the halos do not look nearly as obvious. (my Broken entry is a prime example). Sometimes I switch over to 1280x1024 or something and see what it looks like, but I'm so not used to seeing pictures at that resolution I don't know what constitutes good or bad. |
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01/26/2007 02:00:42 PM · #24 |
| Aha! Thanks donenright. It's the tonemapping. I didn't realize it was done, but I'm pretty sure that's what my eye is reacting to. |
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01/26/2007 02:01:39 PM · #25 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Originally posted by Gordon:
In part I think it might also be to do with the monitor used to view the images, I have very good 'pro' LCD panels in both places that I view images and they tend to be much crisper than any CRT that I've seen. |
Very true. I use a monitor with a natural resolution of 1900x1200. I have issues with oversharpening my images because on my monitor the halos do not look nearly as obvious. (my Broken entry is a prime example). Sometimes I switch over to 1280x1024 or something and see what it looks like, but I'm so not used to seeing pictures at that resolution I don't know what constitutes good or bad. |
Seeing as you are in this thread :) I find the same issues with
It's a beautiful shot, but looks over sharpened to me, at that resolution. E.g. the bright red(!) halos that have appeared in the center of the seed pods and the halos on the white/ green boundaries of the end of the seed pods.
Not entirely sure the red stuff is sharpening related, but the dark/ light halos on the edges certainly look to be and seem really obvious to my admittedly over trained and over sensitive eye for image processing.
Message edited by author 2007-01-26 14:10:20.
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