Important Sharpening Information!

[Grace Scalzo]

This thread was copied in part from Avian Free and Wild. If you are either new to digital or are sharpening your master files, do take a minute to read down to the repost.

later and love, artie......... Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART

BAA Site Guides, Digital Basics File, Mark III User's Guide, APTATS, Wimberley products, Lens Coats, Leg Coats, Mongoose heads, Delkin Products, Gitzo Tripods, and tons more: http://www.birdsasart.com (http://www.birdsasart.com/)

Portland, Maine Seminar/OCT 11-12: http://www.birdsasart.com/Portland%20Seminar.htm. Learn everything that I know about digital nature photography here: "The Art of Bird Photography II" (on CD only) (http://birdsasart.com/ABPII.htm)

From our recent vacation to Maine, a little slice of heaven right here on earth.

Thank you for looking.

1/500, f8, ISO400
1Dmk2n, 500 f4 + 2xtc (1000 mm efl)

[Rosl Roessner]

Beautiful image of a beautiful bird.
It only looks a bit soft to me.

[Grace Scalzo]

Thanks, Rosl. I agree it does look a little soft as posted, yet my optimized image does not. NOt sure why.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks, Rosl. I agree it does look a little soft as posted, yet my optimized image does not. Not sure why.

Is your optimized file sharpened???

How are you viewing it?

More to come...

[Manos Papadomanolakis]

Nice pose,bg and composition,
it looks a bit soft to my monitor!

[Grace Scalzo]

THanks, Everyone for your comments.
Artie, I do sharpen my optimized files. I remember that you don't, but I only use them to post on my website, so I sharpen them for that purpose.
You ask how I am viewing my image..., I don't know what you mean. I view them in photoshop. (With my glasses on. LOL)
Went back to this one, and sharpened some more, it looks better now to my eye. May I repost?

[Axel Hildebrandt]

You could post the altered version by replying to your own thread. It's always great to see the difference a repost can make. Great perch, light and BG.

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Grace, I am still confused. It sounds as if you are sharpening your full sized optimized files and then downsizing them. Is that correct?

Reposts are always welcome on BPN.

[Grace Scalzo]

Yes, Artie. I prepare my images with whatever PS adjustment are necessary, levels, s/h, whatever, then sharpen them, then convert to srgb, save them. THen I open the saved file, apply a bit more sharpening if warranted, then put in my signature (as I don't like it sharpened), save again. There probably are multiple flaws with this, thanks for your insights.

[Linda Robbins]

I would like to see the sharpened version of this image as it is soft as shown. Love the great rear view of the plumage and the raised crest. The dark bg sets off the bird well and the cedar perch is pretty. A few degrees more head turn would have been desirable.

[Arthur Morris]

Yes, Artie. I prepare my images with whatever PS adjustment are necessary, levels, s/h, whatever, then sharpen them, then convert to srgb, save them. THen I open the saved file, apply a bit more sharpening if warranted, then put in my signature (as I don't like it sharpened), save again. There probably are multiple flaws with this, thanks for your insights.

Hi Grace,

I am still a bit confused... When you say I prepare my images.... then sharpen them and covnert to sRGB, are you working on small JPEGs or on the full resolution TIFFs? (Sorry to be a pain but the answer to that is vital to you getting the help that you need...) Thanks!

[Grace Scalzo]

Hi Artie, thanks for your persistance. I first sharpen the full resolution Tiff , then resize it for the web, save it as a jpeg and sharpen it again if needed.

[Arthur Morris]

OK. Here we go. It is absolutley wrong to sharpen your full sized TIFF master files. No digital image should be sharpened until it is sized for final usage. I save my optimized master file. If we need to make a print, we open the master file, duplicate the image, close the master file, size the image to the print size and then sharpen the image. The larger the print (and the larger the file size), the more sharpening the image will need. Need a large j-peg for slide programs, downsize the copy, sharpen to taste, and then save. Same for a small j-peg. An 11 X 16 priint might need sharpening in the range of 450%, .8 (or more). A large jpeg, 325, .3. A small jpeg, 225, .25.

And there is a huge difference in sharpening for print versus sharpening for the web. When sharpening for print, your sized file should look over-sharpened (to allow for the ink soaking into paper). When sharpening for web, you want to sharpen without any apparenet over-sharpening... What you see is what you want...

If you sharpen your master file and then downsize it, the image should theoretically be well over-sharpened. You are the second person here in two days who states that they sharpen their master files and then downsize for the web (yet whose jpegs looked soft...) I have no explanation for that, but best to do it right and learn to sharpen for a given size...

BTW, all of the above info is contained in both Digital Bascis and in the Digital Workflow chapter of ABP II.

(Aside from capture sharpening, which is a whole other can of worms), the only time that a master file should be sharpened at all is when the eyes or the face are selectively sharpened a small bit.

OK, now I can get to the image. I love the bird and the cedar and the BKGR. And love your framing of the cedar bough. The head turn is good but a few degrees short of perfect. And yes, the whole bird could stand a good round of selective sharpening. You paint a QM of the bird, and sharpen only that layer. This avoids sharpening any noise that is present in the background... The beauty of using a QM is the seamless blending--you do not have to worry much about painting exactly between the lines...

I sharpened only the bird at 228, .3, 1 and then lightened the whole thing a bit as jpegs tend to get darker when they are re-saved. Hope that you like.

[Roger Clark]

OK. Here we go. It is absolutley wrong to sharpen your full sized TIFF master files. No digital image should be sharpened until it is sized for final usage. I save my optimized master file. If we need to make a print, we open the master file, duplicate the image, close the master file, size the image to the print size and then sharpen the image. The larger the print (and the larger the file size), the more sharpening the image will need. Need a large j-peg for slide programs, downsize the copy, sharpen to taste, and then save. Same for a small j-peg. An 11 X 16 priint might need sharpening in the range of 450%, .8 (or more). A large jpeg, 325, .3. A small jpeg, 225, .25.


Art,
I do my sharpening on my highest resolution image. I describe why below.

Before I start, a little background. I have been doing digital imaging since 1976 (started with experimental scientific applications with 480x512 pixel digital cameras at MIT; the system weight about 200 pounds not including two 3-foot racks of electronics). I routinely write my own image processing algorithms for scientific applications, usually using aircraft and spacecraft based sensors for studying ecosystems and mapping other planets. I understand the theory and principles of image processing.

If anything can be said is absolutely wrong, it is calling unsharp mask sharpening! ;-) Unsharp mask is a method derived from film days as an analog darkroom process for edge enhancement. As such, unsharp mask actually does not sharpen; it increases accutance. See, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpness_(visual (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpness_%28visual))
The unsharp mask tool in Photoshop and many other image processing systems actually does not change resolution, and in fact depending on the application can actually decrease resolution. But the human visual system is usually fooled into thinking the image looks sharper due to increased edge contrast.

Having said that for background introduction, I disagree with your statement that it is absolutely wrong to sharpen the full size master file. I don't disagree that if you want to do it that way, that it is fine, but I'll use the posted image to illustrate why I do work on the full size image. Often there are multiple ways to achieve an image processing result, and no one method is usually right or wrong.

Take a look at a typical full size image. Not all parts of the image are in equal focus. This is common to many photographs, due, for example limits in the depth of field, subject movement, or camera movement with too long of an exposure time. Thus, if one wants to compensate for some of these problems, one must selectively sharpen different areas of the image, just as one may do selective dodge and burn on an image. It is this basic reason why I feel it is best and most time efficient to complete the processing on the full resolution image, so you don't have to do it again and again for each size image one wants to produce.

I produce a file that I believe will be my largest print size. This may start with up-sampling at the raw conversion, and/or include cubic spline interpolation to more pixels. Such an "up-rez'd" image is soft at the pixel or even couple of pixel level. So after increasing pixels, and after all other processing is completed (I archive this version of the image), the last processing step I do is to really sharpen. By this I mean to use algorithms that actually sharpens, not simply unsharp mask. A master with Photoshop and unsharp mask can do a pretty good job at making an image look great, but in my experience, the true sharpen algorithms produce better fine detail which when combined with a little unsharp mask can produce stunning results with more visible fine detail.

The algorithm I use most is "Richardson-Lucy Image deconvolution." This algorithm, for example, was used to fix images from the Hubble telescope before the optical fix. Given a model of the blur, the algorithm tries, through iterative estimations, to put energy back into a better focus. Blur can be from many causes, from motion to lens aberrations, to defocus. It can repair, for example some motion blur. If you have an otherwise great image but there is a slight blur due to subject movement, one can reduce that blur with this algorithm. There is no free lunch, however, as the process increases noise. Fortunately, the low noise images we get from DSLRs are generally so good, that the algorithms can be used pretty effectively. Below, I'll show and discuss the results of the bird image in this thread as an example.




And there is a huge difference in sharpening for print versus sharpening for the web. When sharpening for print, your sized file should look over-sharpened (to allow for the ink soaking into paper). When sharpening for web, you want to sharpen without any apparenet over-sharpening... What you see is what you want...


I agree with this with a couple of caveats. With more and more people using LCDs, which have sharper edge response (high Modulation Transfer Function, MTF) if you prepare your image with a CRT, it might look over sharpened when viewed on an LCD. So use similar technology (LCDs these days) to prepare images that are going to be viewed on the web.
If you are printing using other technology than ink, such as a Lightjet, you should not over sharpen in my opinion.


If you sharpen your master file and then downsize it, the image should theoretically be well over-sharpened. You are the second person here in two days who states that they sharpen their master files and then downsize for the web (yet whose jpegs looked soft...) I have no explanation for that, but best to do it right and learn to sharpen for a given size...


As you downsize a master file, the image is not over sharpened at all. In fact, due to sampling, it again becomes under sharpened, just as expected by theory. Thus, after downsizing, one must resharpen the image. Downsizing can not over sharpen, unless perhaps you use a pretty poor algorithm.

An example thought experiment is to consider a perfectly sharp edge, one pixel black, one white. In the resampled image, it is a very low probability that two pixels will fall exactly on each side of the edge to maintain that perfect sharpness. More likely, one pixel will fall on the edge, so it takes 3 pixels to define the edge, the one in the middle would appear a shade of gray. So what formerly took 2 pixels to define an edge degrades to 3 upon resampling. The formerly perfectly sharp image then needs to be sharpened after resampling.



(Aside from capture sharpening, which is a whole other can of worms), the only time that a master file should be sharpened at all is when the eyes or the face are selectively sharpened a small bit.


If one only sharpens when producing the final image, then one has a lot of extra to do work for each size print one wants to produce.

Now I'll get to the example. I saved the original bird image in this thread, converted it to a 16-bit tif file for processing, then applied multiple runs of Richardson-Lucy image deconvolution. I used 3x3 Gaussian point spread function with 1500 iterations, and 5x5 Gaussian point spread functions at 50 and 200 iterations, noise threshold = 2 standard deviations. That produced 3 output images. I then blended the images together using layers in Photoshop using the more aggressive portions for the most blurry regions (the leaves of the bush), and the least aggressive 3x3 for the overall image, the more aggressive layers where set to 50% opacity. This is by no means a universal set of parameters, just what I used, and the final image is sharpened more than I would normally do, I just did it for illustration.

Then I flattened the image and in Photoshop I converted the image to LAB mode, then did an unsharp mask with radius=0.3, amount=128, threshold =6 only on the luminance channel. Unsharp mask can saturate highlights losing color. Doing the unsharp mask on the luminance channel reduces that problem.


OK, now I can get to the image. I love the bird and the cedar and the BKGR. And love your framing of the cedar bough. The head turn is good but a few degrees short of perfect. And yes, the whole bird could stand a good round of selective sharpening. You paint a QM of the bird, and sharpen only that layer. This avoids sharpening any noise that is present in the background... The beauty of using a QM is the seamless blending--you do not have to worry much about painting exactly between the lines...



I sharpened only the bird at 228, .3, 1 and then lightened the whole thing a bit as jpegs tend to get darker when they are re-saved. Hope that you like.

Picking out one small detail do show the difference in methods, look at the catch light in the bird's eye. There are 2 spots, one larger, and the second a smaller one to the left. If you compare the spots in each image (original, Art's unsharp mask, and the Richard-Lucy, RL, result) you'll see the RL result shows the smallest spot. RL produces finer lines (e.g. hairs), and fine detail which we perceive as texture). Unsharp mask usually increases the widths of lines and in Photoshop's implementation (which use some additions to approximate multiplies to make the algorithm run faster) gives what I call a pasty look.

I have an article about Richardson-Lucy Image deconvolution at:
http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedetail/image-restoration1

On my core 2 duo 1.8 GHz PC, the 3x3 deconvolution took 45 seconds per 100 iterations on the bird image here, so a large image can take a while to compute.

Roger

[Tom Charles]

This is what I was always lead to believe.



As you downsize a master file, the image is not over sharpened at all. In fact, due to sampling, it again becomes under sharpened, just as expected by theory. Thus, after downsizing, one must resharpen the image. Downsizing can not over sharpen, unless perhaps you use a pretty poor algorithm.

An example thought experiment is to consider a perfectly sharp edge, one pixel black, one white. In the resampled image, it is a very low probability that two pixels will fall exactly on each side of the edge to maintain that perfect sharpness. More likely, one pixel will fall on the edge, so it takes 3 pixels to define the edge, the one in the middle would appear a shade of gray. So what formerly took 2 pixels to define an edge degrades to 3 upon resampling. The formerly perfectly sharp image then needs to be sharpened after resampling.



Roger, I thoroughly enjoyed your explanation on this obviously, emotive subject. I have bookmarked the site you mention that discusses the Richard-Lucy Iteration.

I have only been processing digital images, for about 5 years or so, and Ive reached a stage where I feel ready to be more 'clinical' in my sharpening and basic post-image editing.

Thanks for your informative and fascinating explanation of the above techniques :)

Regards,

Tom

[James Prudente]

Why can't I see rnclark's image?

[Dan Brown]

Well, Mr. Clark's sharpening information is very interesting and enlightening (to me at least!). I also would like to see Mr. Clark's image. This info really blows a big hole in my workflow! Mr. Clark's methods seem way over my head and much more complex than the "sharpen for output method". What do we do now? Isn't the "sharpen for output method" adequete?
PLEASE, EXPERTS, CHIME IN ON THIS THREAD!!!!!!!!

Dan Brown

[Sid Overbey]

Fascinating article on the algorithm. I also wish I could see Mr. Clark's image. The examples on his website and at the ImagesPlus site show nice detail in the sharpening.

[Ed Erkes]

Very interesting post by Mr Clark. I don't understand Art Morris' statement, "It is absolutely wrong to sharpen your full sized TIFF master files. No digital image should be sharpened until it is sized for final usage." I thought that method had been dead for years. Not that there is necessarily anything wrong with it (as long as you're doing some selective and not just global sharpening), but that it just isn't very efficient. Bruce Fraser and other sharpening experts have been advocating multi-pass sharpening for some time.

[Roger Clark]

You can click on the image and see it (at least I can). I guess a moderator must approve the image. Try clicking on the image with your middle button (windows) and it brings the image up in a new window. Then you can scroll up to the other images and put them side by side for comparison.

Here is a description of my digital work flow:
http://www.clarkvision.com/photoinfo/digitalworkflow

I realize it may sound a little complex, but it is really no different than running unsharp mask in photoshop, except you have to try some parameters and wait while the program runs. The parameters I cited will mean nothing until you try the algorithm, much like the unsharp mask parameters mean little until you've done it. So it takes a little more fiddling because you don't get immediate feedback. I don't do it on every image, only my best ones that I want to make even better.

Roger

[Roger Clark]

Too bad your picture is not visible (yet).

Peter,
If you click on the image, does it not show? If it does, try middle click (windows) to show it in a new window.
Roger

[Chris Zink]

opening it in a new window doesn't work either.

Chris

[Bill Bryant]

This is all VERY interesting. I have a suggestion that I think most of us would appreciate. How about a REAL side by side test or two starting with an original Raw files? In looking at Rogers comments and his website, it looks like he is brining a bit of "rocket science" to the game.

What if we started with 2 or 3 raw images sent to Roger, Artie, and any other of you PS gurus, and then compared the final results side by side? In addition to posting the results here, we may want to have a link to another website where we can view the full sized end product.

What do you think?

Bill

[Diana Zorrilla]

This topic is very interesting and enlightening. Thanks for taking the time to share all this information.

Hope we can see the images soon.

Diana

[Douglas Bolt]

I've tried Firefox and IE and none of the right-click options in either show mclark's image for me.

[Roger Clark]

Grace, as the original poster, and owner of the image, with your permission, I'll post the Richardson-Lucy computed image to a temporary location on my web site, then remove it once the image shows up here, so everyone can see it. I guess all the moderators who could approve the image are out for the holiday. So let me know if that is OK.

Roger

[Noel Carboni]

I'm weighing in late, here, but I'd like to respectfully disagree with Arthur and add my views...

You can achieve a very much finer, more detailed result by sharpening first, THEN downsizing. You can add a touch more sharpening to the downsized (web) version afterward to crisp it up and overcome both the softening effects of downsampling and also pre-compensate for blurring on some monitors (but watch out for that latter; lots of folks have nice sharp LCDs nowadays).

ESPECIALLY with nature and animals, it's all about details and the perception of details.

And all sharpening methods are not created equal.

Deconvolution (e.g., Richardson-Lucy) can be a very good means to sharpen certain images, and others simply fall apart with it. It's worth noting that astrophotographers use all kinds of deconvolution to overcome the limitations of seeing and optics.

I'm not saying it's impossible to work with images at the size posted on the web. Here, for example, is what I could make of the posted image above. The process I used involved upsampling, sharpening, then re-downsampling back to original size. Compare this to Arthur's version. You simply cannot achieve sharpening this fine without working at a higher resolution. Grace, I hope you don't mind my reposting your image; if you do please let me know and I'll take it down.

http://forum.ourdarkskies.com/gallery_images/1219717607/gallery_131_16_91686.jpg

As the author of what I'd like to think are best-in-show sharpening tools myself I'd like to see the full-sized image as well.

-Noel

Edit: I just read through Roger's info. He's quite clearly (sorry for the pun) an expert in image processing.

[Sid Overbey]

Noel, beautiful work. What did you use for the sharpening?

This has been a very informative thread.

Sid

[Roger Clark]

Noel,
How did you get your image to load?
Roger

[Noel Carboni]

It's not loaded on this server; use IMG and /IMG tags with square brackets around them, and paste your URL between.

I used my own fractal sharpening actions for Photoshop, which employ the Genuine Fractals plugin.

-Noel

[Sid Overbey]

Noel, are you using Genuine Fractals to do the sharpening when you upsize? If yes, what values do you use. I use GF to scale my photos, but had sharpening turned off.

Thanks.

[Noel Carboni]

No, I'm not using the sharpening function inside GF. I use the basic Genuine Fractals function to upsample, then I manipulate and sharpen the image at the upsampled resolution, then finally return the image to original size.

-Noel

[Roger Clark]

All,
My attachment has been approved, so you can see my sharpening on the image. See my post from August 30.
Roger

[Noel Carboni]

Looks great, Roger!

-Noel

[Grace Scalzo]

Hey, to all you who asked permission to work on my image, I say a big thank you for going ahead and doing so! By all means. This was a great thread, I must take some time to digest it, but all of the re-worked images look fantastic.

[Bill McCrystyn]

Thank you Roger and Noel for this enlightenment. You have how-ever, created some new questions that I hope one of you could answer.

Roger, would the Richardson - Lucy method in any way be analogous to PS "Smart Sharpen" / Lens Blur or Motion Blur functions? I have learned to ask you how much things cost, assuming one could purchase it. Can you offer a source for this program?

I have long been an advocate of original image sharpening mostly for workflow purposes also while of course, still maintaing my original TIFF file for any possible opps.

Noel, My California based custom lab (very occasionally used for scans) always poo pooed on GF unless absolutly necessary, but what I am seeing is telling me otherwise and confirming my suspicions. How does GF intergrate with CS3?

[Roger Clark]

Thank you Roger and Noel for this enlightenment. You have how-ever, created some new questions that I hope one of you could answer.

Roger, would the Richardson - Lucy method in any way be analogous to PS "Smart Sharpen" / Lens Blur or Motion Blur functions? I have learned to ask you how much things cost, assuming one could purchase it. Can you offer a source for this program?

While some people do like smart sharpen, I've never been able to get as good of results as that I get with Richardson-Lucy, Smart sharpen is still a single step process (so is fast) and the math of the blur says there is no single step solution, so I would expect Richardson-Lucy deconvolution should do better. Of course,any of these tools with the wrong parameters can produce bad results. I find with each of them different parts of an image needs different parameters, so I'll try several and bring them in a layers and blend the best areas together.

I'm using ImagesPlus from http://www.mlunsold.com (currently $210). The software is designed for astronomical processing. If you do stacking of night photos it works great too. The interface is not as good as photoshop in my opinion. But it does work in 32 bit floating point and you can push limits much more than in photoshop because photoshop does 15-bit integer math with additive approximations for multiplies, which compromises accuracy.

Thanks for the email alert. I just got back from Alaska and have been processing my bird and bear photos.

Roger

[Noel Carboni]

Hi Bill,

Genuine Fractals 5.0 is a plugin for photoshop that allows you to upsample an image via a process where it applies fractal algorithms to match the original image, then extrapolates those algorithms in the upsampling process. The detail that's "created" closely matches that which is found in everyday things. It simply allows you to specify the new size you want for the image and the image size is changed. It can be pretty slow with large images at high bit depth.

I have no business affiliation with OnOne Software (the makers of Genuine Fractals), by the way.

My dSLR Fractal Sharpen actions upsample the image to 250% of original size with Genuine Fractals, which preserves the crispness of subject edges with minimal "ringing" or "haloing", manipulates the image at the higher resolution to add additional edge crispness, and finally downsizes back to original size. This is incredibly effective for that last little bit of sharpening, such as what is needed with most digital cameras. Here are a couple of before / after images to give you an idea of the results... The first is done with one of my most aggressive actions, Heavy Sharpen Low ISO. The second with a less aggressive one, Medium Sharpen Max Texture. I describe the "feel" of the results as "refined detail", and it's well suited for prints.

http://forum.ourdarkskies.com/gallery_images/1219717607/gallery_131_16_33623.jpg

http://forum.ourdarkskies.com/gallery_images/1219717607/gallery_131_16_18268.jpg

Like Bill, I am also very familiar with deconvolution sharpening (I process a lot of astrophotos) and there are limits to what the deconvolution can produce. It's highly dependent on data quality for one thing, and personally I find the results from deconvolution can all too easily get to a point where the image looks overprocessed, especially at the edges of subject material. I worked to avoid that look with my own sharpening actions.

Lastly, I have been experimenting with a technique I call "iterative smart sharpening", in which multiple passes of very light Photoshop Smart Sharpen are applied at slightly decreasing radii. This is proving surprisingly effective.

-Noel

[Michael Lloyd]

Wow... what a great thread. If I thought I had a clue about sharpening this thread has dispelled that myth for me.

Has anyone here used Lewis Kemper's Multi Sharpening method and if so how does it compare to deconvolution, fractal sharpening, and iterative smart sharpen?

[Bill McCrystyn]

Thanks again, both you guys. It would seem you are indeed the Guru's of the sharpening universe. I will be looking on line for a new software plug-in, one that I always suspected would work (back in my old 8mp 20D days). It is interesting Noel that I have been playing around with a similar tactic of decreasing radius passes with unsharp mask. I guess I wasn't entirely barking up the wrong tree. I'm not sure why multiple passes seems to work so well - but it does. Would it be partly because you are averaging down % wise on each pass rather than taking one big chuck off the original. I guess you could look at like moving down in sandpaper grades to get to the final finish.

[Roger Clark]

I'm not sure why multiple passes seems to work so well - but it does.

There is a theoretical reason why it should work, in case you are interested. In Fourier series, all wave forms can be described by a set of sine waves. For example a square response, like the intensity profile of a building in an image would be made up of increasing frequency sine waves, and the higher the frequency used, the better the edge is represented.

In a blurred image, the edges are soft which corresponds to reduced intensity sine waves at high frequency. So when you do multiple sharpening steps, each with decreasing radius, it is like boosting those high frequency sine wave components in the Fourier Transform.

Here is an example of multiple passes I did in 2002:
http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedetail/unsharpmask
(obviously the statement about adding other images: I never got back to it).

Roger

[Bill McCrystyn]

Thank you Roger - I am always interested and as an old audio guy, understand your answer. Light, like sound has remarkable similarities. Your example is impressive. I will continue to play with it.

[Michael Lloyd]

Hi Bill,

Genuine Fractals 5.0 is a plugin for photoshop that allows you to upsample an image via a process where it applies fractal algorithms to match the original image, then extrapolates those algorithms in the upsampling process. The detail that's "created" closely matches that which is found in everyday things. It simply allows you to specify the new size you want for the image and the image size is changed. It can be pretty slow with large images at high bit depth.

I have no business affiliation with OnOne Software (the makers of Genuine Fractals), by the way.

My dSLR Fractal Sharpen actions upsample the image to 250% of original size with Genuine Fractals, which preserves the crispness of subject edges with minimal "ringing" or "haloing", manipulates the image at the higher resolution to add additional edge crispness, and finally downsizes back to original size. This is incredibly effective for that last little bit of sharpening, such as what is needed with most digital cameras. Here are a couple of before / after images to give you an idea of the results... The first is done with one of my most aggressive actions, Heavy Sharpen Low ISO. The second with a less aggressive one, Medium Sharpen Max Texture. I describe the "feel" of the results as "refined detail", and it's well suited for prints.

Like Bill, I am also very familiar with deconvolution sharpening (I process a lot of astrophotos) and there are limits to what the deconvolution can produce. It's highly dependent on data quality for one thing, and personally I find the results from deconvolution can all too easily get to a point where the image looks overprocessed, especially at the edges of subject material. I worked to avoid that look with my own sharpening actions.

Lastly, I have been experimenting with a technique I call "iterative smart sharpening", in which multiple passes of very light Photoshop Smart Sharpen are applied at slightly decreasing radii. This is proving surprisingly effective.

-Noel

Even with my rudimentary sharpening skills (one pass with Smart Sharpen) I can see a difference when I use GF first. I would love to know what your sharpening steps are as well as how you downsize.

[Roger Clark]

I would like to make one more comment regarding up-sampling and sharpening. As a scientist I work with a lot of algorithms regarding sampling and convolution. Every algorithm I have seen has artifacts, and those artifacts get worse the harder you push. But more importantly, no one method consistently does better than another. Many are pretty good and "good enough" for many applications. When you really want to push the limits, try different settings for each algorithm you have, then choose the best parts of each test image and blend those together.

For example, if you want to improve the sharpness of the bird's eyes in an image, you will likely need one set of parameters for your sharpening algorithm, then when if you want to sharpen the bird's feathers that are slightly out of focus, you will need a different set. Optimize the settings for each section of image then dlend those sections together. That's what I did on the image I posted on Aug 30.

Roger

[Lance Peters]

Fantastic thread - just goes to show you never stop learning.

Version 6 has been announced and supports CS4 (No 64 bit support) cant wait to see what it can do.
Would be good if some of the guru's in this software would post a mini tutorial.

:)

[Lance Peters]

Noel - do you still sell your actions??

:)

[Noel Carboni]

Noel - do you still sell your actions??

:)

Sorry I haven't been back here for a long while.

The answer is yes, and I've just made a new version that supports Genuine Fractals 6 and Photoshop CS2 through CS4.

Thanks.

-Noel

[Paul Lagasi]

Will the standard Genuine Fractals 6 be enough or do you need Professional Version?

[Michael Lloyd]

i use standard and the actions work very well with it.

I've got to give Noel an unsolicited plug. His actions work very well. Especially this newest round. I've seen very good results with them right out of the box (so to speak). I really need to take the time and read through the instructions but this is a bad time of year for that :)

[Jay Gould]

Sorry I haven't been back here for a long while.

The answer is yes, and I've just made a new version that supports Genuine Fractals 6 and Photoshop CS2 through CS4.


Thanks.

-Noel

Noel, just had a peek at your website. The before/after images are amazing. Your stuff is way ahead of where I am; however, no reason not to look waaaaay ahead. Are you tools similar to presets in LR?

Cheers,

[Noel Carboni]

Wow, I'm remiss for not checking back here in an age... I've been working on plug-in development.To answer your question, Jay, in short: No. I've described what my actions do a bit up-thread. They work in Photoshop only....I just wanted to mention that OnOne Software has released a successor to Genuine Fractals. It's called Perfect Resize 7, and it's all that Genuine Fractals was under the covers and more.I have developed actions that work with Perfect Resize. They're still pre-release, but I do supply them to people who ask, and to people who make new orders. (I guess you could say they're released, though I am still doing some testing to see if I can use some of the new settings to achieve even better results).By the way, OnOne has shown their appreciation to me by giving me a discount code I can provide to my customers... So...If you're looking to upgrade to Perfect Resize 7 and are thinking about buying my dSLR Fractal Sharpen actions, just drop me an eMail. I will be happy to send you the discount code, which will actually save you more than the entire cost of my actions on the OnOne plug-in! :)-Noel

[Noel Carboni]

Oops! I'm not sure what happened to the above post - it got all run together. As I don't see an "Edit" link, I'll try sending it again with a different browser. Moderator, please feel free to delete the one above.


Wow, I'm remiss for not checking back here in an age... I've been working on plug-in development.

To answer your question, Jay, in short: No. I've described what my actions do a bit up-thread. They work in Photoshop only.

I just wanted to mention that OnOne Software has released a successor to Genuine Fractals. It's called Perfect Resize 7, and it's all that Genuine Fractals was under the covers and more.

I have developed actions that work with Perfect Resize. They're still pre-release, but I do supply them to people who ask, and to people who make new orders. (I guess you could say they're released, though I am still doing some testing to see if I can use some of the new settings to achieve even better results).

By the way, OnOne has shown their appreciation to me by giving me a discount code I can provide to my customers... So...

If you're looking to upgrade to Perfect Resize 7 and are thinking about buying my dSLR Fractal Sharpen actions, just drop me an eMail. I will be happy to send you the discount code, which will actually save you more than the entire cost of my actions on the OnOne plug-in! :)

-Noel

P.S., if you've already bought my actions, please write to me anyway. I'll still give you the discount code and the updated actions will be yours free of charge.

[Arthur Morris]

I had never seen that Roger Clark pretty much told the world that I was dead wrong in Pane 14 when I wrote this in Pane 13: OK. Here we go. It is absolutley wrong to sharpen your full sized TIFF master files. No digital image should be sharpened until it is sized for final usage. I save my optimized master file. If we need to make a print, we open the master file, duplicate the image, close the master file, size the image to the print size and then sharpen the image.

Roger explained clearly and at great length using scientific terms that most real world photographers have never heard of much less understood.

Then John Chardine wrote in the thread here: http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php/116579-Maintaining-image-fine-detail

Quote Originally Posted by Dick Ludwig View Post

If you downsize an image you should do the final sharpening after you do the downsize, not before.

"
This is a common myth. See this excellent BPN thread (viewed 18,300 times to date):

http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php/18534-Important-Sharpening-Information!

So John was clearly agreeing with Roger who had clearly indicated that I was dead wrong about my original comments. Many folks who are now and may not have been then agreed with Roger;s position. And many thanks Roger for his insightful comments.



Yesterday I wrote friend and digital photograph guru Tim Grey as follows:

Hey Tim,

Hope that all is well. All here is A-OK.

As a matter of course, do you feel that it is best to sharpen your full resolution master files and then downsize them and add additional sharpening? Or you you feel that it is best to save your master file unsharpened and then sharpen the images after sizing for a given use be it a billboard or a small JPEG?

thanks and later and love, artie

Here is his reply:

Artie,

Greetings from Austria!

My general approach is to leave the master image unsharpened, applying sharpening only to derivative images (such as an image created for printing or online sharing). This way, the sharpening is only applied to the image based on the final output size (pixel dimensions).

That said, there is a reasonable argument for applying sharpening in two stages. Very slight sharpening can be applied to the master image to compensate for the slight loss of sharpness inherent in a digital photo. Then, after resizing, output-based sharpening is applied as well. If this approach is taken, it is important that the initial sharpening be very subtle.

But regardless, sharpening should definitely be applied based on the final output size, even if a small degree of sharpening had been applied to the master image previously.

Tim

There are of course two sides to every argument. Whom do you want to believe is right here, a scientist who uses terms that you do not understand or someone on the Photoshop Beta team for more than a decade and a well respected digital photography guru?

I do not mind being told I am wrong when I am actually wrong but that was not the case here. Please do not be fooled by scientific mumbo jumbo, endless rhetoric, and dozens of folks agreeing with a scientist....

Respectfully.

[Doug Brown]

I subscribe to Tim's/Artie's approach.
1. Lightroom default sharpening of the RAW file
2. Save an unsharpened master TIFF file
3. Resize the TIFF to output size and then sharpen for the intended use