Seamstress Buccaneer

Please comment and leave suggestions. I have been having trouble

getting sharp focused shot at events. I have been having to add

sharpness in post-processing.

Looks fine to me!

There are telltale signs of sharpening by software, but they are not too distracting from a great shot. I like what you did with the colors, too. But with what seems like enough light (unless the muted colors are because of an overcast dusk), here are three of the things I have found robbing me of sharpness that might be affecting your work as well.

Usually, in my desire for greater fine detail, I use too low an ISO for a handheld shot of some distance. Bumping up to even 800 or above does not seem to lose as much sharpness as the longer exposure does for me.

Sometimes, because I do not want to distract someone and thus alter the shot I'm trying to get, I use the longer (longest) reach of my similar zoom (Pentax DA 18-270). This exacerbates the handheld steadiness problem, and seems to have less sharpness than backing off slightly on the zoom, even to 250 or so. 

Third, and it seems from your example that this might be the case, I am choosing such a wide-open f-stop for a shallow depth of field that my plan of focus is off. In the photo, the shoulder seam of her vest seems more sharply rendered than her face, hair, feather, etc. 

So, in each area (ISO, length of zoom, and depth of field) it might help to think in terms of a minor compromise between the optimum you seek and the practical limitations of both equipment and operator. (As a final note, your shutter speed seems high enough so that it's not a matter of your subject's movement blurring the image. Perhaps an adjustment there might help as well.) 

[i just checked photos in your other folders. Does the sharp focus problem seem only to affect those in the RenFaire folder? I'm not seeing it elsewhere. That suggests a fourth issue I occasionally have to remind myself about: is the lens clean?]

Suggestion: Learn how to focus better!

Cheers

PDE