1D Mark II N and sharpening RAW images in Photoshop

Hello everyone,

 

I recently upgraded from a 10D to the 1D Mark II N and love it...

Only thing is my workflow has changed with the new file format.

Therefore, I would love to hear from those who are using this body

with regards to their sharpening of RAW images in photoshop and what

settings have worked for them. I know that everyone's technique will

vary and some might not even use PS as a final sharpening solution,

but I would be interested in hearing from everyone and seeing what

has worked for you.

 

Thanks,

Norman

Norman, I use 160 1.6 2 as a rule with the blue channel always turned off, this

almost always works for me with unsharpen mask. Take Care, Pete

Hi Norman,<p>

I have a couple of standard procedures depending on the case. Most often I use something like:<br>

rad 0.3, 120 ... 200%, 0 levels.<br>

For skin I use slightly bigger radius 0.6...1.1 and lesser percentage and about 3..8 levels threshold.<br>In the worst cases I do it in three steps. Say it could be like:<br>

1) rad 1.6 / 30 ... 40% / 0 ... 10 levels<br>

2) rad 0.6 ... 0.8 / 50% / 0 ... 6 levels<br>

3) rad 0.3 / 120% / 0 levels.<br>

So, I do the multistep from bigger to smaller radius, but, I've read that some do it the opposite. To me bigger to smaller makes more sense.<p>

For internet I apply the "Knoll" as the last step, typically with slightly reduced percentage. The original Knoll is to my knowledge:<br>

rad 50 / 20% / 0 levels. (I use typically 9 ..12 %)

Hey Pete, <p>

What's the benefit of having the blue channel off? I am interested to learn?

One more thing,<p>

If you are shooting for an agency or for a mag you might want to leave it just slightly soft because it may be resized in the mag office. Perfectly sharp picture is difficult to resize. Make a pin sharp picture bigger or smaller saw edges are threatning you. Leave it just a tiny bit soft and they can resize and apply usm as the final step in the mag office. Ask your agency/mag for instructions.

Hi Juha, The blue channel contains the most amount of noise so the last thing thing you

want to do is sharpen it. If you check my photo's I have work at 1600and 3200 iso that

are virtually noise free. Take Care, Pete

Thanks Pete. I've got try that now.

Thanks everyone... I am now going to give it a try (especially the blue channel thing) ;)

When processing images in PhotoShop, I do the normal curves, levels, saturation, and other corrections, but NOT sharpening.

 

I never sharpen archived images. The reason is the following: The amount and way one sharpens depends directly on the size of the image, where the image will be displayed (web, print), the kind of paper (matt, gloss), and the type of printer.

 

To archive images after sharpening paints you into a corner, and now you're stuck with a level of sharpening that may not be beneficial to the ultimate output, be it on screen, paper, etc.

 

Also if you'll be selling the image to an agency, it would be wrong to apply your own sharpening...let them do it, and they'll want to have this control for the reasons I just stated in the above paragraphs.

 

For printing 4x6's on Canon Pro paper, I start with the following USM parameters (as suggest in Canon's own White Paper on 1D series digital image processing:

 

300% (yes this high).

 

0.3 radius

 

3 threashold.

 

The above is a starting point, and most often I end up around this:

 

300%.

 

.4 radius.

 

0 threashold

 

Let me stress however that these are just guidelines and not to be necessarily applied to many images in a batch, for example. I process one picture at a time because applying USM can differ greatly from one image to another.

 

For human skin, after I apply USM, I thin apply a subtle anti-noise filter (yes even for ISO 100) to finish off the skin with a nice smooth texture....it really makes comlexions awesome. It minimizes small complexion imperfections, pores, etc....often making the model years younger in looks.