Originally posted by ph0t0trip:
A lot to reply too...
kirbic... In that case, then these are not hot pixels.
mike_311... Hmmm. I was bumping the exposure up a bit. I didn't think I was over doing it, but later tonight I may open the shot and be aware of that.
DCNUTTER... Maybe I was doing too much. You said, "I prefer to do my sharpening in Photoshop and just leave the input sharpening of the RAW converter to the default setting which is Standard for screen display". What do you mean by "input sharpening" and "default setting which is Standard for screen display"?
I was using the masking function some, but felt it was softening the photo too much. But yes, I will re-edit soon with all this in mind. |
RAW files get zero processing applied and are an exact representation of how the camera sensor saw the light. That is why jpeges always look better to people compared to the RAW files. They see contrast, saturation, sharpening, white balance etc. applied and like the final in camera processed result. You get none of this with the RAW file and it's up to the photographer to "mold and shape" the image to their liking.
In layman's terms...there are filters that are in front of the sensor in most cameras for various reasons including the blockage of UV light. The sensor has in effect a grid over it that forms the millions of pixels of the photo. Each pixel collects various levels of red, green and blue to form the color data of that pixel. It's like catching light in a million buckets. Due to the separation of pixels by this grid the sensor has a filter over it to soften the gap or grid line in between pixel buckets. Follow? Because of this necessary, and intentional softening upon capture a RAW image needs to be pre-sharpened....or have input sharpening applied using the RAW converter to counteract the softening inccured during capture. If you're capturing jpegs...this is done in camera. If you are capturing RAW it's done during the RAW processing phase. It doesn't take much sharpening at all to correct for input sharpening, but after that most photos still need some level of output sharpening. That amount largely varies depending on your output media such as a file destined for screen use..web photos or images destined for print. Two entirely different output medias that require their own levels of output sharpening.
That's why I apply little to no sharpening during RAW processing. The default levels for Adobe Camera RAW can be found by clicking on the link at the bottom center of the ACR RAW window. There you can find the color space, bit depth, size, DPI and level of sharpening that will be exported either to Photoshop for further processing in your case. Since you are bringing the file as a tiff file INTO Photoshop it's called Input Sharpening. I sometimes bump the sharpen slider up on unusually soft photos, but normally leave it alone and have my default settings set to sharpen for screen...and the standard amount....set by clicking on that link.
To get the right amount of sharpening in RAW if you feel you need to apply more..
Make sure you are at 100 percent view. You can do that by double clicking on the first icon on the top left of the ACR window. You have to be at that level to see the true impact on the photo. You can boost the sharpening, but then hold down the Alt key (Windows) or the option key (Mac) as you move the mask slider you will see the image turn to black and white. Areas that are totally black are masked from the sharpening effect, and areas that are white such as the outline or eyes and facial features WILL have that level of sharpening applied. So say you have a person standing outside shot against the sky as a background. You don't want to sharpen the blue areas of the sky...or the clouds that much, but you do want to sharpen the person's facial features. Apply your level of sharpening, and then hold the alt or option key down, move the masking slider until the majority of the sky is black, but you have the outlines of the persons facial features. Then let go. That's all she wrote...
Dave |
