The GetDPI Photography Forum

Great to see you here. Join our insightful photographic forum today and start tapping into a huge wealth of photographic knowledge. Completing our simple registration process will allow you to gain access to exclusive content, add your own topics and posts, share your work and connect with other members through your own private inbox! And don’t forget to say hi!

Sharpening for a rather average lens?

I am fairly new to digital cameras and totally new to RAW processing. In fact, I have not done any RAW processing as yet. Most of my previous photography experience has been with film. Not too long ago, I bought a Peleng 8mm fisheye lens for my Panasonic G2 and I'm not overly impressed with the quality of the optics, even when shooting close to mid aperture. Viewing the JPEGs full screen on a computer monitor, they're not all that sharp.

Is it possible, with RAW processing, to give images shot with this lens some decent or even good shapness? And more importantly, is it possible to make the sharpness appear natural rather than making it look like it's been artificially sharpened with software?
 

Bob

Administrator
Staff member
In general sharpening in post processing as distinct from sharpening for print, is intended to overcome the slight blur in the imaging system. Some raw processors are better than others, but sharpening for lens blur can't often be overcome when viewed at 100%. OTOH, some raw processors are capable of a decent if not perfect job of "over-sharpening" which might give a visually appealing although not correct. You may wish to try chromatic aberration correction which will correct for that alone, but nothing will correct from lens blur other than forensic techniques that have profiled the specific lens or type of lens.
I would try Capture One first, then PS CS6 with lens blur correction.
There are lots of causes for unsharp images from camera motion to subject motion, imperfect focus and a slew of other things.
-bob
 

jlm

Workshop Member
oversharpening is best seen by analyzing sharp contrast edges,(roof lines agains the sky, eg.) where halo-ing is a pretty good indicator of too much sharpening. I use unsharp mask in CS5 (images already converted from raw to tiff in capture one) which has a magnification window you can move around the image to inspect the effect. the advantage in not doing it at the raw conversion stage is that you may want different levels of sharpening depending on the final viewing, printing usually needs more than web viewing, for example. and the advantage of tiff over jpg as well.
i haven't bothered to keep all post-processing in capture one, since i almost always finish up in cs anyway
 
Thankyou both of you. Ive heard 'unsharp mask' being referenced many times before but Ive never actually done it myself in Photoshop. Is it a straight forward process?

And as for the final output / intent of such images, I guess you could say it is for web viewing more or less. There will be hundreds of very similar looking images assembled together to create a time lapse video sequence in High Definition. Usually, these would be 1280 x 720 clips played on youtube, vimeo etc. Though I'd also like to create some 1920 x 1080 clips to play on a HDTV. And there may be the odd occasion where I'd want prints as well.
 
O

organicfood

Guest
oversharpening is best seen by analyzing sharp contrast edges,(roof lines agains the sky, eg.) where halo-ing is a pretty good indicator of too much sharpening. I use unsharp mask in CS5 (images already converted from raw to tiff in capture one) which has a magnification window you can move around the image to inspect the effect. the advantage in not doing it at the raw conversion stage is that you may want different levels of sharpening depending on the final viewing, printing usually needs more than web viewing, for example. and the advantage of tiff over jpg as well.
i haven't bothered to keep all post-processing in capture one, since i almost always finish up in cs anyway
iam agree lot.:clap:
 
Top