How much to sharpen?
Hi, I was wondering whether someone could comment on how much they would sharpen the attached image. I always worry about over doing it so would really appreciate the advice. A repost with the correct amount of sharpening applied would be brilliant. Hope you can help.
Thanks very much
Hi Simon, will be interested to see others views on your question I like yourself often wonder the same thing, apart from the fact that your image does look a bit soft don't think I'm qualified enough to answer your question.
Keith.
I suspect this is one for the bin. Others I've processed today have been very sharp so maybe this isn't the best image to start with.
Simon, I too struggle with sharpening. It would help if you said what tools you use to sharpen. Different tools need different approaches.
Simon I would wait to see what others say before the bin .
Ok, I generally raw princess in LR4 or DPP and the drop out into PS CC . I tend to use USM at 0.2 -0.3 and 60-100% but don't like to push it further than that. When I added that amount to the attached image it looked like it needed more but how far to go is the question. When I look at the sharpening on her it looks very fine with great detail, that's what I'd like to obtain in all my images.
Difficult to be sure just looking at this, but if the RAW files isn't sharp when viewed at 1:1, there isn't much you can do. "Sharpening" is just the introduction of artifacts to make things appear better. It won't compensate for bad focus or subtle motion blur, marketing to the contrary. Often a JPEG exported from a good image can profit from coming back into PS for some added sharpening, but you'd just have to experiment with this one to tell.
There are always some that one just didn't quite hit.
Here's a repost. I'm interested in whether people think this is better or not, or good enough or not.Originally Posted by Simon Wantling
I'm assuming a better job could be done with the original RAW or a full sized TIFF rather than a small JPEG. Also this is not just sharpening, as first I changed the gamma curve a bit to have more dramatic contrast on the bird itself (which may not apeal to everyone).
Both Sharpen and USM were applied, and then it was "manually despecked" is perhaps the best way to describe it.
I posted a response to the OP a couple days ago, but a screen flashed that said it would wait for moderation, and it has never shown up.
But Diane's comments need explanation in context. I don't know if anyone wants a really technical discussion of sharpening here though. If so, ask more questions and it will happen...
Actually, 1) you can't even view a raw "image" as such, and if it is made from a Bayer Filter Array sensor it cannot be as sharp at 1:1 viewing as it will be after some form of Sharpen is used. The raw "image" is just sensor data until it is interpolated and an RGB image is formed from it. What you see when you "view" a raw image is either the embedded JPEG or one that is made on the fly. That JPEG may or may not be sharpened, depending on camera configration and the software used to "view" it.
Because the raw data is in a 2x2 matrix, and the interpolation uses at least a 3x3 or larger matrix it is impossible to get a sharp tone transition (either a color change or a brightness change) in less than perhaps 4 and maybe 7 pixels on any axis! And what either Sharpen or USM does is first reduce the length of the transition, and then probably also increases accutance by adding "ringing" to the transition by making each edge overshoot by a slight amount.
Sharpening can indeed reverse at least some motion blur (there are software packages that do a very good job of it), can remove some small amount of blur due to focus errors, and remove at least some small amount of haze due to flare, and the same with the blur from diffraction. Don't expect miracles, but it is a very effective tool.
What sharpening cannot do is add detail that is not there. It just makes existing detail more visible. That is important to realize when an image is resampled to be larger, for example to make big prints, because while it may end up with twice as many pixels they don't have more detail, they just have the same information spread amongst more pixels. Sometimes that looks nice, sometimes that turns nice detail into mud.
One thing to keep in mind is that USM usually works better than Sharpen when applied to an image that has been made smaller, and Sharpen usually has more effect on an image that has been made larger. But again, all images made with a Bayer filter can benefit from a little bit of Sharpening. It should be the last edit made, after an image is resized, before it is saved as a finished JPEG to print or view.
Yes, I was being sloppy with words. I meant view it as it comes into a RAW converter (which is all most of us can do), which of course does have some minimal default sharpening. As to the value of sharpening, the words to remember are some and small and don't expect miracles. Some people in the early stages of learning digital darkroom stuff feel (or hope) they should be able to do more than they can.
There was a discussion of this sort of thing in another thread recently, but I can't find it right now -- maybe someone else can.
It seems apropos to ask here -- I've read that the relatively new Smart Sharpen in its default "Remove" setting of Gaussian Blur works the same as Unsharp Mask, but that the Lens Blur setting is a better algorithm. I've never had any success with the Motion Blur setting.
I understand PS CC has a motion blur filter and all I've seen about it are two reviews from highly-placed people who basically said it was a lot of trouble for almost no result.
Wigeon
Hi Simon
Although I have PSE 11 and Topaz InFocus for sharpening I usually just use FastStone Image Viewer.
Anyway here's my take.
Cheers: Ian Mc
If this is from the original, it is more improvement than I would have expected. I wasn't able to see a difference between InFocus and Nik Dfine, which I already had. I'm not familiar with FastStone Image Viewer.
Simon, when you say you used both Sharpen and Unsharp Mask, do you mean the Sharpen in the same PS dropdown as USM and Smart Sharpen? That Sharpen filter is just a blunt instrument that gives you no control. It's better to just use USM or the new Smart Sharpen (with the Lens Blur choice). I wouldn't recommend using one on top of the other.
The distinction between "Sharpen" and "Unsharp-Mask" is difficult to describe and also difficult to show, but perhaps a description combined with pictures to show the difference can together make it a little easier.
Here are a series of three images cropped from Simon's original. The image on the left in each case is an unedited crop. The middle image and the right image have successively more editing as described. The right most image in the first two sets has an area that best shows the significance circled in red.
It is probably necessary to view these with the screen image magnified to the point where a single image in each set is something close to full screen. The variations are subtle and specifics are hard to see in a small picture. Everyone uses different software so it's hard to know what will work best, but at least initially one way to magnify the screen display in most web browsers is to hold down the control key and repeatedly hit the '+' key to make it larger, or the '-' to make it smaller.
Discussion about each set is below the image. Note that these images were processed using GIMP and the exact parameter values apply only to GIMP. They are relative however, so for any other given editor a different exact value will have the same effect and then the others would be increased or decreased by relatively similar amounts to get the simular results.
The middle image has Sharpen applied set to 40%, the right image has Sharpen applied set to 70%. The 40% value was chosen to show obvious sharpening over the original, and probably represents just a bit too much. The 70% value was chosen to show very clearly the grainy result from too much Sharpen. The area circled in red shows it fairly well.
The middle image has UnSharp-Mask applied with a radius of 3.0 and an amount of 0.3, and the values were chosen to make the effect obvious compared to the original on the left. The right image has a radius of 8.0 and an amount of 0.8, and shows the effect of over sharpening. The highlights inside the red circle demonstrate the effects best, as they are pushed into clipping for much of the area that is bright, thus losing some subtle details in all highlights.
Obviously there is a difference in what Sharpen does and what UnSharp-Mask does.
Sharpen increases the contrast between tonal transitions in fine detail where there are multiple consecutive variations. So the fine lines in feathers are enhanced by making thin dark lines darker and thin bright parts brighter. When overdone it will bring out every single pixel to pixel variation and produce a grainy look. At single edges, for example when the sky is the background for any darker object over sharpening will put a halo of bright white on the lighter side of the edge and a matching ring of darker pixels in the dark area.
UnSharp-Mask looks for single edge transitions. The consecutive transitions in fine detail are averaged and as an area are considered to be one tone, but at the edge of that area USM will adjust the contrast to have a single transition that is more obvious by making the bright edge brighter and the dark edge darker. USM is more prone to halos, and less prone to grainy pixels, than Sharpen.
The last set demonstrates using both Sharpen and USM. In this case Sharpen was applied at 30%, which is just enough to barely see any effect, and then USM was applied at radius 3.0 and amount 0.3 to get the desired result. That is shown in the middle image.
However, none of the above provide optimal results because the original image had highlights that were all the way up to a tone value of 255. The right image in this last set was processed with Sharpen and USM the same as the middle image, except that before each was applied the brightness of the image was reduced by about 10 points to bring all of those bright edges down below clipping levels. A look at a histogram for the original image on the left shows a little blip of clipping at a value of 255, but the middle one shows how sharpening affects that and results in a vertical line 75% up the scale at 255! The right image has a small number of clipped pixels very similar to the original.
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