Woodhouse's Scrub Jay

[Brian Sump]

This was the first day I got the Sigma 500mm. In Roxborough Park, CO along the foothills between Denver and Colorado Springs.

We were taking a hike with our girls and looked over to find the Jay. It was slightly overcast with a nice, soft light.

Nikon D500
Sigma 500mm f4
Handheld

ISO 280
1/2000
f4.5

Edited in C1P and PS. Cropped and removed some excess branches, hopefully you cannot tell where.

[Colin Driscoll]

Well you got that one parallel to the sensor. nicely focused throughout.
Great light, and complimentary background. Maybe a touch over-sharpened?
Just shows, don't go anywhere without a camera!

[gail bisson]

Nice perch and like the complimentary grey BG. Nice vertical crop.
Just wish for a better HA.
And image is oversharpened.
Gail

[Joseph Przybyla]

Hi Brian, beautiful bird very similar to the Florida Scrub Jay. I agree with Gail's comments regarding the HA and sharpening. Perch and background quite nice, a tad less sharpening on the bird would be good. Thank you for sharing.

[Bill Dix]

Nice find, in good light. Ditto comments about re HA and sharpening, but just a tad.

[Brian Sump]

I receive the comments, and thank you.

I didn't do anything different from my normal sharpening process 1. 180/.8/1 in Capture One, 2. 50/.5/1 in PS and then a final 50/.5/1 in PS. But it appears it was too much.

For what it's worth, here is the original with just global sharpening in C1P. This bird definitely has crunchier feathers than many which probably requires less sharpening?

[Jim Crosswell]

Nice image Brian. I agree with the comments regarding the image being over sharpened. Some birds feathers are more coarse and less sharpening might be called for. I would say let your eye be the judge as opposed to using a formula for all images.

[Brian Sump]

Nice image Brian. I agree with the comments regarding the image being over sharpened. Some birds feathers are more coarse and less sharpening might be called for. I would say let your eye be the judge as opposed to using a formula for all images.

Thanks makes sense, thanks

[Joseph Przybyla]

Hi Brian, I looked at the original that you posted with just global sharpening. To me, on my display it appears that is oversharpened. I can only tell you what I do with the Nikon D500. Lightroom Classic by default adds a value of 40 for sharpening. I zero that out, no sharpening applied to the raw file. I do this because the global sharpening of the raw file was to overcome the softening that the low pass filter caused. The Nikon D500 does not have a low pass filter, so no need to overcome that softening. I only sharpen a image once and that is done on the 16 bit TIFF for presentation after all the tone mapping has be done. I know that when I export a TIFF out of Lightroom as a JPEG for posting on the web/BPN that there is sharpening by Lightroom to overcome softness created by the compression used for a JPEG. I don't think you need that global sharpening of the raw file with the D500. Although everybody is different and I think there are as many different ways as there are photographers. Take care and stay healthy, Brian.

[Brian Sump]

Hi Brian, I looked at the original that you posted with just global sharpening. To me, on my display it appears that is oversharpened. I can only tell you what I do with the Nikon D500. Lightroom Classic by default adds a value of 40 for sharpening. I zero that out, no sharpening applied to the raw file. I do this because the global sharpening of the raw file was to overcome the softening that the low pass filter caused. The Nikon D500 does not have a low pass filter, so no need to overcome that softening. I only sharpen a image once and that is done on the 16 bit TIFF for presentation. I know that when I export a TIFF out of Lightroom as a JPEG for posting on the web/BPN that there is sharpening by Lightroom to overcome softness created by the compression used for a JPEG. I don't think you need that global sharpening of the raw file with the D500. Although everybody is different and I think there are as many different ways as there are photographers. Take care and stay healthy, Brian.

Joe, super helpful. Thank you for explaining that; your opinion is highly regarded.

[dankearl]

I never sharpen files until I downsize for posting or something.
in C1P, I use the sharpening values that Arash gives but they just adjust the sharpening for the iso.
His values de-sharpen the Raw at higher iso's.
So after I adjust the RAW using those values, I leave it alone. Save as a Tiff and that is it until
I decide to do something with the file and downsize it.
I only try to keep tack sharp photos. They don't need to be sharpened.
When I edited with lightroom I never changed the sharpening for the TIFF file.
If they are not sharp, I do not keep or try not to.
You did not apply sharpening, that is just default sharpening.
If you used values Arash gave, you would have turned the sharpening up to 200.
I leave default sharpening to 180 and just lower it down for higher iso.
Arash may correct me, but he is not really applying sharpening per se.
I do not think your image is that oversharped, The RAW is sharp, you did not need much.
You sharpened in PS, you should not have.
Arash values are for sharp photos which yours is, they are enough.
I hope he would weigh in, but his formulas do not work for photos that are not sharp,
he assumes they are. He lowers sharpening for iso because it lessens noise and if they are
sharp they look better. If they are not, they don't.

[Brian Sump]

I never sharpen files until I downsize for posting or something.
in C1P, I use the sharpening values that Arash gives but they just adjust the sharpening for the iso.
His values de-sharpen the Raw at higher iso's.
So after I adjust the RAW using those values, I leave it alone. Save as a Tiff and that is it until
I decide to do something with the file and downsize it.
I only try to keep tack sharp photos. They don't need to be sharpened.
When I edited with lightroom I never changed the sharpening for the TIFF file.
If they are not sharp, I do not keep or try not to.
You did not apply sharpening, that is just default sharpening.
If you used values Arash gave, you would have turned the sharpening up to 200.
I leave default sharpening to 180 and just lower it down for higher iso.
Arash may correct me, but he is not really applying sharpening per se.
I do not think your image is that oversharped, The RAW is sharp, you did not need much.
You sharpened in PS, you should not have.
Arash values are for sharp photos which yours is, they are enough.
I hope he would weigh in, but his formulas do not work for photos that are not sharp,
he assumes they are. He lowers sharpening for iso because it lessens noise and if they are
sharp they look better. If they are not, they don't.

Dan, thanks as always. This is starting to make more sense and I appreciate your comments as a C1P user.

To clarify, once you have the edits in the TIFF file you want, do you sharpen in PS at that particular full image size, export to desired size then re-open and do one last smart sharpen? If so, generally what values?

[John Mack]

The pose on the bird is very nice. You guys have covered the technical side already.

[dankearl]

Brian the full size Raw I posted of the Osprey with a stick has zero sharpening other than
the default sharpening values, at iso1400 I used 150 for sharpening value, I actually reduced sharpness
which Arash does if the file is sharp.
It is just the 'as shot ' file, converted to TIFF in C1P.
It is not even adjusted for exposure, That is just the out of camera photo.
It looks sharp not sharpened to me.
I cropped that file as I posted, resized to 1800 and applied a default sharpening from a program from Tony Kuyper
that just sharpen that file for posting.
I do not sharpen my files at all anymore, If they are not sharp, I don't process them.
I don't keep the 1800 downsized photos, I keep the TIFF file and I can reprocess if and when I want.

[arash_hazeghi]

nice frame Brian, all covered above as mentioned some birds feathers just need less sharpening especially when taken in great light at such close range. there is jut so much detail that is easy to over sharpen it. use the values as the starting point and adjust until you see no halos

best

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Brian, I looked at the original that you posted with just global sharpening. To me, on my display it appears that is oversharpened. I can only tell you what I do with the Nikon D500. Lightroom Classic by default adds a value of 40 for sharpening. I zero that out, no sharpening applied to the raw file. I do this because the global sharpening of the raw file was to overcome the softening that the low pass filter caused. The Nikon D500 does not have a low pass filter, so no need to overcome that softening. I only sharpen a image once and that is done on the 16 bit TIFF for presentation after all the tone mapping has be done. I know that when I export a TIFF out of Lightroom as a JPEG for posting on the web/BPN that there is sharpening by Lightroom to overcome softness created by the compression used for a JPEG. I don't think you need that global sharpening of the raw file with the D500. Although everybody is different and I think there are as many different ways as there are photographers. Take care and stay healthy, Brian.

technically speaking this is only 50% correct. the sharpening or sharpness factor applied during de-mosaic of the raw files achieves two effects. 1. most important is to recover spatial detail that is lost in the demosaic process itself. digital cameras use Bayer type sensor where each pixel "sees" only one color. the values from neighbor pixels are then used to guess and calculate the missing colors for each pixel so the sensor cannot resolve single pixel color detail. 2. as you mentioned to undo the effect of the optical low pass filter (LPF). D500/D850 don't have an LPF but they still need some sharpening for de-mosaic process

best

[Brian Sump]

technically speaking this is only 50% correct. the sharpening or sharpness factor applied during de-mosaic of the raw files achieves two effects. 1. most important is to recover spatial detail that is lost in the demosaic process itself. digital cameras use Bayer type sensor where each pixel "sees" only one color. the values from neighbor pixels are then used to guess and calculate the missing colors for each pixel so the sensor cannot resolve single pixel color detail. 2. as you mentioned to undo the effect of the optical low pass filter (LPF). D500/D850 don't have an LPF but they still need some sharpening for de-mosaic process

best

Thanks for clarifying Ari