3 STEP SHARPENING

[patricklavoie]

<p>@Peter/ The first step could be done of course in ACR / Ligthroom. I just find it difficult to get fast and excellent result when you have to play with 4 slider for the regular joe who use those software. Did it give you better sharpen? According to my personal test, and my small experience with those slider, i say i have try a lot of combination and for all the trouble (trouble for me is when you need to fiddle with 4 slider for more than 10sec) i didtn see anyhting spectacular vs using PK Sharpener ($) or the free excellent Smart Sharpen. And also, im so use to do it as my first step in Photoshop that i simply do it there with a action, since most of the time if not all the time, the first sharpen is the same number for me.</p>

<p>@Sam/ Youre right, smart sharpen dont create halo and problem if done with a commen sense and taste, and in case of theyre is the advanced tab (not use often) that could protect those problematic area..but i used it once or twice since i use smart sharpen. As for Bruce Fraser, i have a incredible respect for this guy since Photoshop 2..yeah 2 not CS2 ; ) when i was barely reading english, it was the guy i follow like is shadow over a 28k modem! I dotn recal having read that in is latest and last book, but i think he was also a owner / creator of PK Sharpener (along other well knowned person i respect) so i think it could be hard for someone to say that is baby is not better than another one...</p>

<p>I have test PK Sharpener at the best of my knowledge and many more paid plugin and free solution, and in the end i didtn see how they where superior vs Smart Sharpen, and since they where not free most of the time for the same result i didn think of talking about it. For me it is so simple (as you can see on my tutorial) to get result with SS that its really hard to see something else to replace it..as today ; )</p>

<p>@Allard and others/ thanks for the good word. Im sure some day i am a arrogant bastard, by choice or by motivation..or simply the way i express myself in this second language..sometime it come out wrong vs what i really want to say.. but its not a ego trip or a better than you thing.. it is because most of the time i simply say it as it is, and sometime people have difficulty with direct oppinion. Im sorry for the future time where i will be a arrogant jerk ; )</p>

<p>On a side note, i have little respect for people who just give s*** to someone without contributing anything, here or in real life. Specially after you make good information available to them.</p>

<p>I will repost the pdf version of this tutorial right here, i received so many email in 24hre that i need to create a automatic response!? so heres the link to this PDF and if it doestn work, theres a link higher in this thread where you can download a zip file containing the pdf.</p>

[patricklavoie]

<p>here's a before file at 100%</p><div></div>

[patricklavoie]

<p>and here's the after file.</p><div></div>

[patricklavoie]

<p>I always apply my filter at 100% view on screen, then i reduce it after to 50% view to see if its enough for inkjet printer, and i reduce it to 25% view if the file gonna be print on a fashion magazine. If the file look good at 50% on my NEC, i could say it will look good printed on epson luster paper.</p>

[patricklavoie]

<p>oh, and heres one with the highpass filter..can you see the difference ; )</p><div></div>

[jeannean_.]

<p>Thanks Patrick. This tutorial just helped me figure out why I was seeing too much pixelation in some of my low light shots after resizing and sharpening in the one step "Unsharp Mask" mode. I'm a newbie at this and couldn't figure out what the problem was. Some of us have a lot to learn and instructional tips like this are appreciated. Again, thank you.</p>

[ken_thalheimer]

<p>Take it for what it's worth. I found the information interesting. Thanks Patrick. Whether the title is in upper or lower case; who the hell cares?</p>

[elmroc]

<p>Hi Patrick,<br>

For what it's worth (FWIW shouted) I don't get all this business about the negativity about your posting.<br>

For me the content is the most important thing. You emailed me sometime ago with this process, and is indispensible.<br>

Keep up ithe great work with informing people, the way you see fit!</p>

<p>John</p>

[roger_smith4]

<p>Thanks for all your posts, Patrick. </p>

<p>If this forum were more actively moderated we could have sticky topics like the tutorials you put together. <br>

I think routinely reposting with a title in caps (and maybe preface [TUTORIAL] would help people separate this from the endless string of repeated questions normally found on this forum.</p>

<p>Keep it up and those of you who are "critics," please post your own tutorials if you have any expertise to share.</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>Sharpening within the Raw converter can be problematic depending on the brand of converter used. Each have their own internal algorithm for interpreting the demosaicing pattern to come up with a preview you see on your screen. Some Raw converters can show pixel for pixel representation with worts and all of the Raw data and others sort of clean it up a bit like ACR which uses a proprietary unknown to the industry algorithm that can render a clay like texture to high frequency detail if sharpening is applied too much.</p>

<p>This clay like texture is reduced or amplified more or less depending on the distance of the subject to the lens and the resolution of the camera's sensor. If the detail is far enough away it will get softened a bit and the texture isn't as obvious. If shooting ground detail like small rocks, leaves and blades of grass 10-20 feet from the lens, then this texture tends to show up viewed at 100%. BTW this texture can't be seen on a print but on an LCD it can be quite obvious and annoying.</p>

<p>You'll note that Patrick's 100% view sample shot shows no clay like texture because the model has a lot of fine detail that is made up from what I'm assuming is a higher resolution camera maybe several feet from the subject. If I was to take that shot with my 6MP Pentax K100D DSLR at just the right distance the result would be obvious. See below as an example.</p><div></div>

[hjoseph7]

Thanks I'll print this out. I hate unsharp mask !

[patricklavoie]

<p>here the technical info for those interested..i always forgot to post them, but will gladly do it ;</p>

<p>The portrait have been shot with a Canon 5D (not the mkII) with a 70-200 f2.8 in studio, f11 with the 70mm 100ISO to be exact.</p>

<p>Here's the full uncropped frame, reduce to 700pix wide with Bicubic (no smoother or sharper)</p>

<p>"What! you dont use Bicubic Sharper to reduce your images?" nope. following the methode i use as per my tutorial if i was using the bicubic sharper method my file would have this out of this world over sharp look.. a common mistake among user. Bicubic Sharper is good when you have a soft focus image or when you dont apply the correct amount of sharpen along the way.</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

[patricklavoie]

<p>heres another one from my small G9.</p>

<p>first a 100% crop</p><div></div>

[patricklavoie]

<p>and the full frame version of this crop.</p>

[patricklavoie]

<p>oups..sorry..the image</p><div></div>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>Patrick, what Raw converter did you use and what were the sharpening settings if any?</p>

<p>I've seen this shot of the model before in past tuts you've conducted and it never ceases to amaze me how well rendered it is. It's like you can reach in and ask her for her phone number. Yow-Zah!</p>

[marshall]

<p>Thanks for bringing this back up, Patrick. Even for folks who don't routinely adopt all of the steps, it's worthwhile learning for people who want sometimes to squeeze the last ounce of quality out of their pictures. I'm also glad to see the late, great Bruce Fraser is still getting credit for some great work on this topic. For the interested, one of his articles is <a href="http://www.creativepro.com/article/out-of-gamut-thoughts-on-a-sharpening-workflow">here</a> : <br /> <br /> A couple random thoughts and opinions: <br /> - When sharpening for output, I find that I undersharpen if I view at 100%. Viewing at 50% (at least as related to inkjet output) works much better for me. It's hard for me to adjust to knowing I should make it "crunchy" on screen.<br /> <br /> - I understand some resistance to editing like this. The three-stage sharpening presents for many folks a serious workflow problem. It's impractical when dealing with a large number of images, which is where programs like Lightroom really excel. The sharpening routines there are actually pretty good. What they lack is the specificity of control that a robust, multi-stage workflow offers. That, in turn, is great when a single picture or smaller set of pictures merits the attention, of course. <br /> <br /> - In the pdf, you mention saving as a pdf file and then as a TIFF. At this point, doesn't saving as a TIFF also allow you to get back into the sharpening controls for the other layers? Are there specific steps in here that don't save in a TIFF file? (TIFF vs. PSD seemed to have gotten controversial a little bit when someone (Schewe, maybe?) posted that PSD is a crappy format, not that file format issues are really the point of this thread.) <br /> <br /> - I'm a little surprised that you say using Smart Sharpen is rarely advantageous. Are there cases where you still control the highlight and darken side of the sharpening separetely, or does that not come up in your work? <br /> <br /> Personally, I do still find that being able to fade the highlight and shadow side of sharpening can be useful or even necessary for some pictures and uses. Most of the time that pictures appear oversharpened, it is the highlight side of the sharpening that creates the visible problem. In those cases, using the Advanced Smart Sharpen can be useful. (I still sometimes use an antiquated method of sharpening on two layers, one set to Highlight and the other set to Darken Blending Mode. That gives me pretty intuitive (to me, anyway), visible "handles" to control the application of sharpening. I find it easier and stronger than Smart Sharpen, but maybe I never learned to use Smart Sharpen well.) <br /> <br /> Anyway, just a couple opinions from a random observer. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> p.s. Yes, I do think that the all-caps headlines seems like saying "HEY LOOK AT ME! HEY LOOK AT ME!", and if everyone all-capped the titles, the page would be harder to read. But I also think that being rude about it is, well, being rude. So, moving on...</p>

[marshall]

<p>p.s. The sharpening on the portrait does bring out netting well.</p>

[john_renda1]

<p>THANKS PATRICK</p>

[patricklavoie]

<p>@Tim/ Lightroom was use, or ACR i dont remember at that time..depend of when the picture was taen vs when lightroom was release.. But for the past 2 years a exclusively use Lr without any sharpening. All my sharpen are done later in Ps.</p>

<p>@Marshall/ I reread the PDF, and what i meant is this..well exactly what i had writen ; )</p>

<p>" Before flattening my images, I always make a copy that includes all the layers in PSD format. That way, I can go back to the adjustments made as needed. Once the file is flattened, you have to rename it (so as not to save it by mistake over your PSD copy). I add the suffix ‘flat’ to my flattened images and save them in TIFF format with LZW compression, which reduces by half the weight of the image without losing visual quality.<br>

In addition, a TIFF file can be opened using almost any image-editing software, which makes for an excellent saving format." So saving a TIF for me just indicate that this file is ready to be send and that this TIF have been cropped and sharpen accordingly.</p>

<p>I dont think its a bad or good format, for me a PSD is where all the recipe is done, a TIF is a flatten copy of this PSD, and a JPEG is made from it for web, powerpoint, client approval or to be print externaly.. i dont think any format is a crappy format.</p>

<p>i dont recall saying that Smart Sharping is not advantageous? maybe you mean the advanced tab in the Smart Sharpen? I dont really use it or have use for it, maybe im just lucky? but i never find my image to have problem in the dark or light area enough to use the advanced button. Im sure for some it will be a obvious button to press, but for me it never really served even if i test it in many situation.</p>

<p>I respect any oppinion from any kind of user, this is how you can grow and be able to determine what is best or not. Im a very curious person, but not technical like Tim or Andrew when talking about color management, delat E and other related stuff (nothing to do wiht the subject for now) or the why behind the effect..thats why i respect everybody, because i can learn from anyone. the only thing is i have the chance of doing this for a living, and i have the chance to test those method on hundred of images per month, so i can see if the recipe work well once in a while or everytime, and for me, the smart sharpen method just work.</p>

[sven keil]

<p>Hi Patrick,<br /> 1. I am not bothered by your UPCASE letters<br /> 2. The tutorial is very neat, thanks for sharing!<br>

3. In terms of image processing, sharpening is always based on enhancing amplitudes of higher spatial frequencies (=the details) in an image. Usually this is done with high-pass filters (hence the name), or applying thresholding to image contours (=Iceberg effect). I guess most photographic software use adjustable versions of both things. However, as far as I know, you cannot squeeze out more details than a 3x3 highpass (Laplacian operator). However, this usually also increases the visibility of noise. And, with a single image, there is no way to create details which have not been there before.<br /> 4. Upon downsizing (e.g.for web) you lose the higher spatial frequencies. Thus, if you enhanced these frequencies before, then you won´t see any effect. Furthermore, in order to avoid aliasing effects, you have to apply some sort of low-pass filtering to the image before down-sizing. Depending on whether the algorithm optimizes this filtering operation as a function of target size, you would need to do some detail enhancement on the down-sized result or not.<br /> 5. In the end, everything boils down to basic signal processing and mathematics, and there is no magic involved in neither technique. The magic is usually equivalent to no-information, as often the mathematical details of sharpening filters are not visible to the software user.<br /> Regards,<br /> MS</p>

[cherubinphotography]

<p>Thank you Patrick. As always, I appreciate and respect your input. It is easy to see here those who have small minds. Please don't stop teaching.</p>

[marshall]

<p>Yes, Patrick, I did mean the Advanced tab of Smart Sharpen. Sorry for the bad edit. Thanks for the response.</p>

[lopezslf]

<p>Thanks Patrick for sharing this tips.<br>

Very helpful for me.</p>

[nyphotopro]

<p>Very nice article and tips and other stuff (actions, etc.) Thank you for sharing.</p>