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01/26/2007 02:08:38 PM · #26 |
I'm no expert when it comes to processing, but to me an image that is oversharpened takes on a bit of an artificial feel and makes the picture even flatter, or more two-dimensional, if that's possible. I think that's what happened with your picture, imho.
However, I have noticed in the month or so that I've been a member that sharpening images do very well, and I fell into that trap in my Best of 2006 entry, where I got several comments like yours, complaining (correctly so) that the sharpening ruined the detail on many of the faces in my picture. In the future, I think I'll back off the sharpening and go with what I like, rather than what I think the voters might want.
(edited to shorten and remove my thumbs ... not pertinent or helpful to the great info in this thread)
Message edited by author 2007-01-27 09:46:06. |
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01/26/2007 02:14:26 PM · #27 |
Originally posted by kirbic:
undersharpened, properly sharpened, or oversharpened. |
You also have to define what these mean I guess. To me, properly sharpened means that the sharpening is not visibly noticeable. I can see it if I switch back and forth between the original and the sharpened version, but I can't see the clearly visible, rapid transition halos so common of oversharpening, if I just look at the image alone.
When sharpening you are trying to adjust the contrast along the edge to be more brighter than it was on one side and darker than it was on the other. You aim to create an overshoot at the edge in terms of brightness, from what was there, to fool the eye into seeing a more abrupt contrast edge.
Oversharp to me is when those overshoots become consciously visible in the image.
e.g., see the luminance graphs in this discussion
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01/26/2007 02:16:37 PM · #28 |
Originally posted by donenright:
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. |
I was just gonna go there. I read Gordons post about haloing around the mountains, looked at the photo and saw the details about the tonemapping.
What about sharpening in RAW Gordon before converting. Some people say they do and some don't. Are there ill effects to this?
Message edited by author 2007-01-26 14:22:01.
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01/26/2007 02:21:11 PM · #29 |
Originally posted by Gordon:
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. |
Well, like I say, I do push things to the edge and sometimes go slightly over the line. I do think that the small red pixels are a result of saturation rather than sharpening. I was trying to find the original, but it's on my drive at home and not here at work.
Ultimately you can't please everybody and I certainly think it's valid to think this shot oversharp. When looking at the comments (and thus the tastes of DPC) I had 24 comments who liked the "sharpness", "crispness", or "detail" and 2 who thought it was oversharp. I'll take that every day. :) |
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01/26/2007 02:39:52 PM · #30 |
The oversharpening is a side effect of the photomatrix tone mapping. I received oversharpening comments as well, and I am am very conservative with sharpening. Many times I end up applying a softening blur after steps which end up sharpening. When allowed, I also try to be selective with my sharpening.
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01/26/2007 02:47:48 PM · #31 |
Originally posted by nshapiro:
The oversharpening is a side effect of the photomatrix tone mapping. I received oversharpening comments as well, and I am am very conservative with sharpening. Many times I end up applying a softening blur after steps which end up sharpening. When allowed, I also try to be selective with my sharpening. |
That's probably because half of the tone mapping algorithm involves going crazy with USM to implement the local contrast enhancement.
You can however partition it in to two steps, by effectively switching off the local contrast enhancement in photomatrix and doing it manually as a later step.
I'm not sure if it is possible to get back to the garish extremes that seem common for photomatix HDR output, but you can certainly do it independently, from the few trials I've done.
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01/26/2007 02:49:10 PM · #32 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Ultimately you can't please everybody and I certainly think it's valid to think this shot oversharp. When looking at the comments (and thus the tastes of DPC) I had 24 comments who liked the "sharpness", "crispness", or "detail" and 2 who thought it was oversharp. I'll take that every day. :) |
Yup, I've never understood the DPC fascination with over sharp, obvious haloing and calling it 'crispy' or 'detail' when it doesn't actually exist, but it takes all sorts. It seems somewhat endemic and no doubt as shots with too much sharpening keep winning, it is a good strategy to follow.
I cringe when I look at my early efforts at sharpening in older challenges.
Message edited by author 2007-01-26 14:52:58.
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01/26/2007 02:56:39 PM · #33 |
For those with CS2, do you use USM or smart sharpen?
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01/26/2007 03:10:04 PM · #34 |
Originally posted by NstiG8tr:
Originally posted by donenright:
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. |
I was just gonna go there. I read Gordons post about haloing around the mountains, looked at the photo and saw the details about the tonemapping.
What about sharpening in RAW Gordon before converting. Some people say they do and some don't. Are there ill effects to this? |
I usually sharpen right after RAW conversion, then sharpen again after resizing. I don't usually do much creative/ selective sharpening but if I do that happens just prior to resizing, so at most I'll sharpen three times but I normally sharpen twice.
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01/26/2007 03:12:34 PM · #35 |
Thanks, Gordon! That article is the best explanation for what USM does and why it works that I've ever seen.
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01/26/2007 03:12:48 PM · #36 |
Originally posted by Elvis_L:
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. |
anyone else use this technique or am i jsut stupid? |
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01/26/2007 03:13:25 PM · #37 |
Originally posted by Elvis_L:
Originally posted by Elvis_L:
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. |
anyone else use this technique or am i jsut stupid? |
 Xianart uses it.
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01/26/2007 03:23:56 PM · #38 |
Fritz, I had the same thing with a similar shot at the same location. Must be something to do with the vortex's around Sedona. :-) Here's mine:
It looks GREAT on a large print down to 8x10, which I'm sure is the same case with yours, but it's hard to find a "balancing point" at these small sizes (especially on monitors) where the very detailed areas look oversharp and the not-so-detailed areas tend to look soft. Granted, I shot it at f/29 trying to get a longer shutter speed and some motion blur to the water (didn't have nd's with me), but it really isn't soft at full-size. |
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01/26/2007 03:33:30 PM · #39 |
| Sometimes I have found the best sharpening technique is for the viewer to wear corrective lenses that they either have or might need (and do not know it). :>)! |
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01/26/2007 03:36:31 PM · #40 |
Originally posted by levyj413:
Originally posted by Elvis_L:
Originally posted by Elvis_L:
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. |
anyone else use this technique or am i jsut stupid? |
Xianart uses it. |
I've been using this recently. Not sure if I am doing it right. Do you experiment or is there a forumula. Do you do the HiPass/USM on a seperate layer and if so what layering mode do you use? I have been using soft light. |
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01/26/2007 03:38:49 PM · #41 |
Originally posted by banmorn:
Originally posted by levyj413:
Originally posted by Elvis_L:
Originally posted by Elvis_L:
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. |
anyone else use this technique or am i jsut stupid? |
Xianart uses it. |
I've been using this recently. Not sure if I am doing it right. Do you experiment or is there a forumula. Do you do the HiPass/USM on a seperate layer and if so what layering mode do you use? I have been using soft light. |
I create a new background layer then run high pass and put it in overlay mode. i control it but adjsuting the opacity. if I use this i don't use USM at all. I use USM for basic editing. |
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01/26/2007 03:41:02 PM · #42 |
Originally posted by option:
For those with CS2, do you use USM or smart sharpen? |
Almost always Smart Sharpen.
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01/26/2007 04:19:47 PM · #43 |
Originally posted by fotomann_forever:
Originally posted by option:
For those with CS2, do you use USM or smart sharpen? |
Almost always Smart Sharpen. |
Never tried Smart Sharpen. I do the initial sharpen after converting from RAW with Noise Ninja set at 0.4 300 I feel this avoids sharpening noise to some degree. I used to save for web from the full sized crop I end up with while applying bicubic sharper for the resize but now I find resizing first and the using USM somewhere between .5 to 1.0 at 60% to 100% gives me a much sharper picture. I've also started to select or mask out areas on the final USM in advanced challenges. I think DrAchoo's amount of sharpening has added to the shot. Doesn't quite cross the line to oversharp for me. |
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01/26/2007 04:21:41 PM · #44 |
Originally posted by kirbic:
I'd like to take the opportunity to solicit input, discussion, etc. regarding sharpening images for challenge submissions.
 |
Ahhhhh... sharpening, one of the most critical ingredients of landscape photography and one which I struggle with on every image. This is a great discussion and one I'm very interested in. I agree with others that his entry is oversharpened.
My panorama, taken the same time as kirbic's, offers some perspective. We went there together and when you look at the full sized display you will see kirbic as a tiny red speck in the picture in a position near where, I believe, his actual entry was taken:
I believe kirbic's sharpening issue is unrelated to tone mapping and is one all desert photographers fight - high contrast. Contrasty images with very fine detail like his are particularly sensitive to oversharpening. His goes over the limit, but not by a lot. Compare mine with his and you will notice that Cathedral Rock in my image is actually sharper than in his, yet my trees are less sharp. The reason for that is that I masked out a lot of the sharpeness applied to the trees to reduce the very problem Kirbic's entry suffers from.
My thoughts:
1-The pixel density of the monitor you sharpen on has the biggest impact on how it looks to YOU, but not necessarily to others -
You want to view the image at the pixel density most viewers will see it at, probably 1024 X 768, and adjust for that. Even 1280 X 1024 is still high density for most people.
2-Sharpening images is an artform more than a science and each image has its own individual needs.
3-If you use USM for sharpening then split that into two sharpening layers where you adjust the black pixels separately from the white pixels. Generally speaking, most images seem to require less 'white sharpening' than 'black sharpening'.
4-Like in kirbic's case, different areas of an image may need different levels of sharpening than other areas. My recommendation:
A-Duplicate your flattened image.
B-Slightly oversharpen that layer.
C-Use the opacity slider to back off layer opacity so that the area most critical to the image looks 'best'.
D-Add a mask to the sharpened layer and tone down sharpening on remaining oversharpened areas of the image with black painted onto the mask with a low opacity brush for fine control.
E-Lastly use the sharpen tool to spot sharpen sparingly on areas that may need a touch of additional sharpness.
Message edited by author 2007-01-26 16:25:52.
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01/26/2007 04:38:44 PM · #45 |
Originally posted by fotomann_forever:
Originally posted by option:
For those with CS2, do you use USM or smart sharpen? |
Almost always Smart Sharpen. |
I would go further. If you have Smart Sharpen then ALWAYS use it.
There are many techniques for sharpening images such as the high pass filter, channel sharpening and others. Some methods will work better on individual images than others. The only exception is USM over Smart Sharpen. Smart Sharpen does everything USM does and much, much more. There is a learning curve but well worth the effort.
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01/26/2007 04:41:55 PM · #46 |
The Cindi For DPC method - Smart sharpen at full-size, resize to 640, Sharpen, Fade Sharpen to 30%, save for web. Works a charm for DPC resolution.
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01/26/2007 04:44:52 PM · #47 |
Quite often when I make the comment about overhsharpening, the image is also oversaturated. Kirbic's is more sharpened than what I like but I wouldn't call it oversharpened per se. What I find difficult is doing sharpening on things like branches hair etc at the smaller size. My current entry in the wildlife challenge had to be sharpened a fair bit to keep the detail when it was resized. I think one way to approach is to keep pushing the sharpening until its too much then taking it back a step I think.
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01/26/2007 04:49:05 PM · #48 |
Originally posted by idnic:
The Cindi For DPC method - Smart sharpen at full-size, resize to 640, Sharpen, Fade Sharpen to 30%, save for web. Works a charm for DPC resolution. |
I have been doing essentially the same thing for months now, but my fade percentage is a bit lower then yours on most and a touch higher then others. Generally my fade is 23% after resizing. That may be a product of my settings to your though.
MattO
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01/26/2007 04:59:04 PM · #49 |
Originally posted by idnic:
The Cindi For DPC method - Smart sharpen at full-size, resize to 640, Sharpen, Fade Sharpen to 30%, save for web. Works a charm for DPC resolution. |
I've been trying something similar but instead of fading it I use bicubic smoother (instead of sharper) when resizing. Seems to work well on hair especially when you want good contrast without the pixelation or halos.
ETA: I agree with DrAchoo 100%. It's much better to oversharpen than undersharpen in regards to the challenges.
Message edited by author 2007-01-26 17:00:02. |
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01/26/2007 05:08:48 PM · #50 |
Originally posted by idnic:
The Cindi For DPC method - Smart sharpen at full-size, resize to 640, Sharpen, Fade Sharpen to 30%, save for web. Works a charm for DPC resolution. |
The sharpness of your images is absolutely perfect.
What does Smart Sharpen applied on the full sized image accomplish that you don't get without applying it first? I'm hoping for more explanation than, "it is sharper" but might be all I get. LOL!! :)
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