Topic: Sharpening ?

[Greg Groess]

OK,
As we all know sharpening is necessary, multifaceted, confusing and EVIL...

Please tackle this image with your usual work flow and then...
With LAB sharpening only.
I want to see how well we can do in LAB versus having to add a additional tools / plugins to the work flow.
LAB sharpening does not have to occur in CM but you might want to copy a channel when you are in CM for later paste into a channel in PS.

Use CM for color and saturation. 

This is sort of out of bounds for the CM work flow but it is a part of the larger question and I'd like some feedback.  I do read the Color Theory group postings and I understand this is a serious hairball for everyone. 

Full size image...
www.curvemeister.com/video/greg/Valley_of_Fire.jpg

Greg

[themightyzog]

Slightly lost me there Greg - you want us to pp as normal and then sharpen
But in Lab only - and what's this about CM?  I didn't think you could sharpen in CM?
Chris

[Greg Groess]

Slightly lost me there Greg - you want us to pp as normal and then sharpen
But in Lab only - and what's this about CM?  I didn't think you could sharpen in CM?
Chris

Sharpen in Lab can occur to some extent when you adjust the L curve in CM.  "Some"...Have used this in the past to sharpen lightly. 

I would like you to try to sharpen by converting the image to LAB and using only the PS tools.  I am trying to go as simple as possible.  My thoughts around this are that I really do not want to have people saying that they "need" focus magic or any other sharpening tool.  I just want to know before I go there that there are some things that you can do in PS without extras. 

I have just re-read Chapter 5 of Canyon Conundrum and Dan describes a LAB only sharpen that can be done in PS without additional tools.  I have tried and find some of it acceptable but confusing at first.  I want some input from you guys to see if it is an addition I would need to talk about in CM201.

so...

Do one run at this in your normal work flow completely..then...
Do one run at this using LAB mode for the sharpen....instead of your usual sharpen tools unless you just use PS tools for sharpen.

Greg

[themightyzog]

Am in a bit of a rush tonight, so here it is
image-1 CM correction - 3mins
image-2 Lab sharpen - 1min
image-3 CM correction + FocusMagic (just for comparison)

PS image size is very important when sharpening - so to show it on the forum, I reduced the size to 25% before starting

[ganna]

1. In CM set highlight, shadow and one of the light coloured rocks center foreground as neutral. Lighten the picture a bit. ±3minutes.
2. In PS changed mode to Lab; Sharpened L channel only first USM radius 60 Amount 20 to boost midtone contrast and then smart sharpen 50% radius 0.8. ±3minutes
 

[derekfountain]

Do one run at this in your normal work flow completely..then...
Do one run at this using LAB mode for the sharpen....instead of your usual sharpen tools unless you just use PS tools for sharpen.

I don't have time to work the image, but I'll tell you what I would do.

I don't use or much care about any of the clever sharpening tools or techniques. For the vast majority of images that I process, unsharp mask does the job perfectly well. There have been occasions when I've sought out an edge sharpening technique, but they're few and far between. Then again, most of my images end up at 800x600 on a screen; if I were producing A4 sized blow ups I might worry a bit more about it.

My normal sharpening workflow is to resize to final image size, then run unsharp mask on the image in whatever mode it's left in: RGB or LAB. 9 times out of 10 that does a thoroughly acceptable job. If it doesn't, plan B is to run unsharp mask on the L channel. If that doesn't produce the effect I want (I can't normally tell the difference between a full image sharpen and an L channel sharpen) then I think hard about how much I want the effect. I don't 'know' any spelawn jockeyt techniques so I have to dig the books and tutorial site bookmarks out to find; I don't normally bother.

Greg, as you've noted, sharpening is one of those areas that people lose sleep and friends over. It's silly; the practical effects of different sharpening techniques stop way before the theorectical effects do. People argue for hours over the merits of technique A over technique B over the output of product C without actually acknowledging that for the vast majority of real world images at normal magnification there's no visible difference in the output of them.

I would suggest that for the CM course you stop worrying about it. End your examples with "...and finish with your usual sharpening technique. I've used unsharp mask..."

[Greg Groess]

The mention of sharpening is where I was headed as well, I wanted second and 7th opinions on this since sharpen has come up before in various discussions and "needs" requests.

I appreciate the input and willingness to discuss it...

Greg

[gremurphoto]

I'm trying to draw attention to the small patch of white at the center of the clockface.
I sharpened a luminosity layer in the blend mode.I used more amount and radius than usual.
Chris ,I like what Focus-rite did to the rockface on the right.Was there an accompaning color shift?
Great picture by the way,Greg.You go interesting places.
An obvious improvement would be to lighten the shadow in that crevice,as the miner said to the actress.

[themightyzog]

I slightly disagree with Derek and conducted a sharpening experiment, comparing around 11 different methods - the results were quite interesting
see http://www.broadhurst-family.co.uk/lefteye/MainPages/sharpening.htm if you are interested!

[derekfountain]

I slightly disagree with Derek and conducted a sharpening experiment, comparing around 11 different methods - the results were quite interesting
see http://www.broadhurst-family.co.uk/lefteye/MainPages/sharpening.htm if you are interested!

I am interested, but I can't see any difference between the images from that page whatsoever. I have a suspicion that your website doesn't work with Firefox...

[themightyzog]

You are 100% correct - I've no idea what Firefox does as it works with IE & Chrome

[Greg Groess]

Chris, I have to wait until I can get to a PC with IE on it...I have disabled it for all intents and purposes on my home PC.

[themightyzog]

Dead right - I think it is a terrible animal and keeps falling over.  So I tried Chrome, which seems quite good, but I found that it fails on certain sites, just like FireFox does on mine.  Safari is different again and will allow one to break most javascript security that the others will not allow!
Who would have thought that all these browser engines can not all follow standards and behave the same.

[derekfountain]

Dead right - I think it is a terrible animal and keeps falling over.  So I tried Chrome, which seems quite good, but I found that it fails on certain sites, just like FireFox does on mine.

It's a mistake to blame the browser for not being able to render the mass of brokenness that Microsoft Frontpage puts out under the name of a "website." As part of Microsoft's effort to own the web, they made their authoring tool put out piles of non-standard HTML and Javascript, then ensured IE could render it when nothing else could. They then sat back and waited for the whole Internet to start dancing to their tune. Fortunately the whole Internet refused, and it's been Microsoft themselves who've been left with the headache of making new versions of IE standards compliant while somehow still allowing it to render all those millions of broken websites they actively helped create.

I'd like to explore your sharpening research, but I'm not going to install a whole new browser to do it, and I'm certainly not going anywhere near IE. By some measures 20%-25% of users now use Firefox. Another 10% use Safari. A handful more use Netkit based browsers like Konqueror (which also can't render your website). A third of your audience can't see your website. If you want those readers, you have to start using a website creation tool that's standards compliant.

[themightyzog]

Unfortunately I'm not a web developer - I actually wrote the javascript, using an editor, outside of Frontpage and then implanted it.  I do like to pass on what I learn, but know that all Mac users will find a lot of things do not work (ie CM+++), but the main reason I write is so that I can remember!! I have always found that trying to explain something is a great learning tool!
My site seems to be hit by Firefox, Netscape, IE and then Opera in terms of percentages.

Derek, could you spare a minute and confirm that http://www.broadhurst-family.co.uk/Blending/InteractiveBlending.htm also fails under firefox
Thanks
Chris