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It does look oversharpened to me, at least for display. If this image was prepared for printing, then it might be okay (though I still think it might be too much), depending on the print size and resolution of course.
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I agree mostly with P-A, differing in that I'm not at all about sure if it is too much for printing - I can't tell until I see a print.
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Thanks guys ,not sure if I'm rule breaking so I will post the image I think is ok for comparison tomorrow.
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Lifetime Member
Hi Keith - I also think it is oversharpened. There also seems to be a blue cast in some of the whites. If you want to post another version of the same image for comparison then it is fine to post it as a reply in this thread. If it is a different image then it should go in a new thread.
TFS,
Rachel
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I like the image, but it is over-sharpened. The whole thing is a delicate balance and I think we could wish for better tools.
You can't really compare it for a print, as you wouldn't be printing a small JPEG, and you should be viewing it at 100% to judge sharpening for printing.
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Wildlife Moderator
Keith first question:
What's the ISO and is this a large crop?
Have you added any Contrast or Black?
Steve
Post Production: It’s ALL about what you do with the tools and not, which brand of tool you use.
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Looks better. But it looks as though focus was slightly behind the bird -- the cones look a little sharper. If you're trying to sharpen something that wasn't in good focus, you can't do very much, at least with the tools we commonly have.
It helps to give your specs -- both for shooting and processing.
There are some odd things happening to the left of the bird's left foot and up along the cones-- looks like cloning artifacts where a part of a cone got picked up, and some posterized areas. The latter may not be so much from cloning as from the bit depth of the image. What is your RAW converter? (You are shooting RAW? That's by far the best. JPEGs are 8 bit from the start, which is asking for posterization if you do much tonal correction.) Handling tonalities carefully there will minimize posterization. Do you then come into PS? As 16 bit?
Last edited by Diane Miller; 12-22-2013 at 11:59 AM.
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Originally Posted by
keith mitchell
Thanks for your help, here is the one that I think looks ok.
Back off a good bit more on the Sharpen, and then use a touch of USM. (This will work better for a small downsized image intended for web viewing; but for a larger version that will be printed you'ed want to use more Sharpen and less USM.)
Do sharpening while viewing at 100% (1 image pixel to 1 display pixel), and with the ability to switch back and forth between original and edit views. One way, assuming you don't want intentional oversharpening, is to adjust to the point were switching between views shows just a few edges, and no areas of solid colors, that get brighter.
It is also important to watch the histogram. Before sharpen is applied there should be no whites brighter than perhaps 245 and no black below 40 that are not fully intended to be washed out areas of a solid color. When sharpen is applied the edges of fine detail will go all the way to 255 on the histogram. A little blip at 255 is normal, but if it climbs up the edge of the graph very far it is clearly too much.
In images that have little fine detail you want to watch for any haloing around dark objects that have edges with bright areas (things, for example,with the sky in the background).
In images that do have a lot of fine detail (grass, hair, fabric texture, and bird feathers being good examples) watch for any tendency for the detail to become grainy looking. Even a touch means it is way too much.
The artifact that Diane is looking at just left of the birds foot is a shadow from the cones against the background. Looks like you might want to mask off the background and blur all of it a little. There are other shadows, but that is the most distinct.
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Wildlife Moderator
Keith, is the original sharp, if not, no matter how much you apply i.e. Smart sharpen or USM it will still look rough, plus, if you crop hard, just bin and you know why I keep banging on about this. As I said, just opening those blacks and shadows just brings out truck loads of detail you have, but in doing so the image does not so chocked and contrasty. Yes the whites look blown and nothing you can do, that should have been addressed via the histogram in the original capture. Ultimately you want to preserve those mid tones and you know why. Having the image correctly exposed & sharp will give you the best platform every time.
Xmas reading Keith, this may help you also, as you love Avian. http://www.birdsasart-blog.com/2013/...ode-re-visited
Have a good Xmas.
Cheers
Steve
Post Production: It’s ALL about what you do with the tools and not, which brand of tool you use.
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The whites are blown, but it may or may not be because of the exposure at capture -- it could be the exposure was to the right, but it is possible that the highlights might have been recovered in RAW processing, of which we have no information for this image.
Keith, what RAW conversion are you using? If ACR or LR, there is an excellent e-book by Michael Frye that goes into the fine points of conversion. He is using Lightroom but it applies equally to ACR. He is using the new ACR v7 with the Process 2012 sliders, new in LR4 and PS CS6, which are a significant improvement over the previous versions, He also talks about initial careful sharpening in RAW conversion. It's the first one on this page -- Landscapes in LR5.
http://www.michaelfrye.com/books/books.html
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Originally Posted by
Diane Miller
The whites are blown, but it may or may not be because of the exposure at capture -- it could be the exposure was to the right, but it is possible that the highlights might have been recovered in RAW processing, of which we have no information for this image.
I'm pretty sure the white clipping is an artifact of the sharpening process being applied. Using a threshold tool to show which pixels have values at 255, it appears as if they are all at edge transitions, as there are no solid areas that clip.
I would assume the RAW conversion was done pretty close to "correct", but either the brightness was a touch too high or the sharpen should be reduced.
Given that I otherwise think it is oversharpened, I'd say that going back to the state it was in just before sharpen was applied, reducing brightness by perhaps about 5 points, maybe 10, and then applying sharpening might work a lot better. As I've said before though, for a small JPEG version to be posted to the web the process works much better if "Sharpen" is used just enough to barely detect that it did something, and then a USM tool should be used to get the desired amount of sharpening.
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Hi Keith- Well I agree with the above.
The images I like the best are those that have an "easy" sharpness. It's hard to describe but they are very sharp but not "crunchy". "Easy" sharpness usually starts with a sharp image out of the camera.
Last edited by John Chardine; 12-24-2013 at 06:31 AM.
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BPN Member
Hi Keith, Thanks for submitting your image for discussion! And thanks for all the great input from other members... Most helpful!.
I have one question: What bird is this? It looks a lot like the Pine Siskins we have here (but wearing some very bright "clothes")
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Wildlife Moderator
Hi Keith one last thought, if this is a feeding station and the birds come to the same point on a regular basis then pre focus or at least move the FP to within the area of where they land, this may give you a bit more time.
Have a great Xmas and kick 2014 up a gear, as those pints are mounting up Keith, however I bet you wish pints cost the same as John C's first camera. 
Post Production: It’s ALL about what you do with the tools and not, which brand of tool you use.
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Keith.
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