Sharpening, where to find good information

[engardeknave]

I have been struggling for years to come up with some sort of reliable approach to sharpening. I've mostly used Photoshop smart sharpening, but now also ACR 8. It seems promising but there has to be a more methodical approach than just screwing around with the Amount/Radios/Detail/Masking sliders.

Mind you, I'm no amateur, and I get good results. But I want much better results. (I am using the same lens as was used to take those photos.) It's kind of hard to Google for this sort of thing though since you get flooded with intro to sharpening articles with instructions on how to find the unsharp mask menu. Anyone know of any good resources?

[ItsMeLenny]

One way to get sharper images is an expensive lens OR something (an equation) to get rid of any chromatic aberration.
Also the amaze algorithm to demosaic. And then probably an unsharp mask to sharpen.

[Walter Schulz]

There is some bogus information around concerning "Detail" slider in ACR/LR. Cambridge in Colour got this one wrong, too.

Well, even Jeff Schewe had to learn from MadManChan some years ago.
EDIT: Just learned thread above is living up again: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=45038.msg698192#msg698192

Ciao
Walter

[PressureFM]

Those pictures you link to are multiple exposures and most likely use Focus Stacking as well. You can make your photos sharper and cleaner by using a median stacking algorithm to improve the Signal-to-Noise ratio.

[engardeknave]

There is some bogus information around concerning "Detail" slider in ACR/LR. Cambridge in Colour got this one wrong, too.

Well, even Jeff Schewe had to learn from MadManChan some years ago.
EDIT: Just learned thread above is living up again: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=45038.msg698192#msg698192

It would have been more accurate and descriptive to name that slider Moar Sharpy Sharper. I'll have to read all that later.

Those pictures you link to are multiple exposures and most likely use Focus Stacking as well. You can make your photos sharper and cleaner by using a median stacking algorithm to improve the Signal-to-Noise ratio.

He briefly talked about some things he does and didn't say anything about focus stacking.


Here's a shot I'm playing with now. I think it was 10 frames 1 ev apart, not sharpened yet (but lens corrected, so not really optimal). Anyone want to give it a try?

[Audionut]

I'm sure there was a good tutorial on POTN about using masks for sharpening, but I can't find it atm.

Lately I've just been using Nik sharpener pro, mainly because I'm lazy and like the results.

[engardeknave]

Ok, progress. Thanks to Walter's threads I looked up deconvolution and got RawTherapee, which I never bothered to try but found to be awesome. To get that silly sharp pixel-crispness you have to create a fine halo around the details. I like this effect, but I can see some not really appreciating it. Anyway, I was able to get close to the images to which I linked before by using "Contrast by Detail Levels", specifically sliders 0 and 1 at high settings. I combined this with deconvolution all in RawTherapee. (Oh, also I edited the full size tif (5000px) and saved as 1500px.)



If you don't like quite that much "crispness" it can certainly be dialed down. Does anyone know how to do the equivalent of RawTherapee's "Contrast by Detail Levels" in Photoshop?

[Audionut]

RawTherapee has very good highlight recovery too.  Never thought to check its sharpener.

[Walter Schulz]

If you don't like quite that much "crispness" it can certainly be dialed down. Does anyone know how to do the equivalent of RawTherapee's "Contrast by Detail Levels" in Photoshop?

Haven't looked into RawTherapee until now. Sharpening tools inside CS/CC itself (means: not in Camera RAW/LR) aren't that much sophisticated. There are tons and tons of Photoshop Action scripts dedicated for this and dozens (?) plug-ins as well.
You might already have tried "Clarity" in Camera RAW/LR. That is "local contrast" manipulation for midtones. Can be done with Photoshop Actions, too bit would require more than 10 steps (most of them with own controls) according to Jeff Schewe.

Ciao, Walter

[garry23]

This link maybe be of interest and worth experimenting with.

http://www.hidefcolor.com/photoshop-2/sharpening-noise-reduction-photoshop-advanced/

Cheers

Garry

[engardeknave]

I actually managed to get very similar results to RawTherapee with smart sharpen at 500%/0.1px/0%nr (1500px image). Just duplicate the layer first and mask out the parts that get ugly. I'm not sure, but it may even be better to smart sharpen at 0.1 twice than to bring up the radius.

I also found a Topaz Labs plugin called "Clarity" that does basically the same thing.

http://www.hidefcolor.com/photoshop-2/sharpening-noise-reduction-photoshop-advanced/

I played with something like this a while ago, and did for a while earlier today too. I think this is better for photos with more noise. My photos are brackets of 10-15 frames, so they are really clean. What I've learned is that it's a fundamentally different task sharpening very low noise photos to display extremely fine detail. Most sharpening schemes are focused on avoiding fine detail, whereas I'm trying to capture fine detail but not over-sharpen already thick, contrasty edges.

[Audionut]

Haven't had a chance to read all of this yet:  http://www.clarkvision.com/articles/image-restoration2/

[engardeknave]

I read that a while ago. There's isn't any particularly useful information there as I recall other than the conclusion that deconvolution is better. Adobe does weird stuff like create sliders that lean more toward deconvolution on one side and unsharp mask on the other. I'm not sure if this is what's going on with smart sharpen in Adobe CC (that link references CS5), but I do know my results are similar with smart sharpen at the aforementioned settings. I've been going back and forth with RawTherapee deconvolution and Adobe smart sharpen at .01, and the differences are barely perceivable, at least to me.

[Luiz Roberto dos Santos]

Astra Image