D2X performance at ISO 800 vs film...

Laurie, as Shun just said, i downsize with cs2, image/image size and go to 720, about the max for most that are still on 1024x768 here. then i 'save for web' and hit the highest quality that is under 100k, usually 'high'. then uplaod to my folder and use html text to post it in the thread. this way i can remove them when the thread is stale.

I've found the following unsharp mask settings to work pretty well in Photoshop (for submitting to photo.net). Amount = 70%, radius 0.7, threshold 2. Give or take a little. The pics look surprisingly bad when you don't apply unsharp mask.

100/0.8/1 works well for me, but I'll give yours a go Ilkka. Anyone have a suggestion for a 15x10" from a Frontier?

<i>Anyone have a suggestion for a 15x10" from a Frontier?</i><p>

Actually, yes. None. In my experience, the Frontier tends to zap a little USM itself and if I do some beforehand as well, it gets very messy in larger prints. Maybe just the settings on the one machine I use...

I'm with Nikos. And Agfa D-Lab is even worse for doing its thing.

Regarding Canon's new top gun dSLR, one of the first things I noticed about their ad campaign (featuring a full page photo of Bo Derek) was that the sample photos were too soft. If they wanted to show off the camera's potential for sharp images they probably should have chosen a younger model and not have to worry about wrinkles. (Or they could have photographed me: I'm a little older and a lot wrinklier than Bo.) With an $8,000 dSLR I'd want to see its potential for maximum sharpness at the ISOs where it'd typically be used. I'd be less concerned about high ISO noise.

 

The D2X is obviously sharp. I suspect the noise some folks are seeing could be effectively reduced with Noise Ninja or Neat Image. Judging from the multicolored speckling in the ISO 2000 photos Eric provided I'm guessing that not much was done in the way of noise reduction.

"Judging from the multicolored speckling in the ISO 2000 photos Eric provided I'm guessing that not much was done in the way of noise reduction."

 

You're right Lex. I did nothing, they are straight out of the raw converter. No sharpening, no noise treatment, no exposure adjsument. I felt a 'wysiwyg' was the most fair judgment for displaying what the camera is capable of for those considering the camera in the near future.

Since that's the case I'd say those images are plenty acceptable. Once Noise Ninja and Neat Image have had a chance to refine their presets for the D2X at high ISO settings, a little noise reduction followed by sharpening should alleviate most concerns about high ISO noise.

 

While I can't do anything about the banding that occurs with badly underexposed photos taken at 1600 and 3200 on my D2H, noise reduction and sharpening software really help improve the correctly exposed images.

Shun, Eric Ilkka and Guy, Thanks for the info. I'll give it a try!

OK...I tried resizing in steps and used the 70%/.7/2 USM guidlines. The result is MUCH better. Before, I was going straight to 750 or 800 on the long end (bicubic) and using 50%/1.5/0 (give or take on the %).

 

I used 5 steps to go from 3834 to 750 (bicubic sharper). Is there a formula for the number and size of the increments when downsizing?

"Give or take a little. The pics look surprisingly bad when you don't apply unsharp mask."

 

huh? i rarely apply it for anything, and never for just posting here. my whole folder(s) contain images withoput usm, nadda one. maybe you're talking film scans Illka?

Eric, What image sharpening menu setting are you using?

i don't sharpen at all, they're straight out of the camera, raw. my whole folder here is like that.

 

when you do sharpen, you should do it in lab mode though. so make duplicate layer, in case you don't like it, then go image/mode/lab and hit 'don't flatten' then go into your layers pallet and click on channels, click on lightness, the image will go to grey scale, then preform your usm settings, then revert out the way you came and back to adobe rgb. click on your new layer and compare it to the one underneath, your original, and if you like it then flaten the layer if you wish.

Eric, recently I've been doing it both on film and digital captured images for p.net submission. I think a little unsharp mask helps compensate the fact that most of the details of the pic are thrown away when resizing for web. It's a matter of taste but for a long time I didn't know what settings to use and now I feel I've got it right.

 

Layers ... ugh, layers smells like requiring more memory than my laptop has ... ;-) So your method doesn't sharpen color contrast but sharpens luminosity contrast at the edges? I'll give it a try some time.

Thanks for another great tutorial Eric. I'll give it a try tonight on some product shots I need to have processed and e-mailed to the printer by tomorrow afternoon.

oh Illka, i wasn't reccomending not to harpen, i'm just lazy here.

 

Laurrie, no worries

While waiting on the product shots to back up, I played with the different sharpening methods listed above. Here are three versions of the same photo. The first was resized in steps but no USM applied. The second was sharpened using Illka's recommendation. The third was sharpened using Eric's recommendation. Otherwise, the image is straight out of the camera (and it's not straight). I'm hoping the differences will evident on the small jpgs.<div></div>

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OK..so you can't really tell at this size. My preference (when viewed larger) is Eric's version. It only took a few seconds longer.

 

I look forward to trying both methods on different images. I suspect like most things, different methods will work better on different images.