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sharpening.....

Stan Lawrence

New member
I've been testing out an RZ with a 33mp DM back. Does anyone have a sharpening "formula" I can use as a starting point? :cool:
 

gsking

New member
Well, I'm a bad advisor, but since it's been 2 days... ;) My answer is...don't.

My 11mp back pretty much needs no sharpening. As I understand it, the "primary" purpose of USM is to remove the blurring of the antialiasing filter. No AA filter, no Gaussian blur to remove with USM. Or, to simulate removal...I don't think you're technically removing it, since that image data is forever gone. USM just fools your eye into thinking it's there. :)

Of course, there may be some sharpening built in to the C1 program, but if so, I have mine set to the default.

Now, I do recall there being 2 or 3 stages of sharpening. I think "capture sharpening" is the one I mentioned above.

The 2nd stage, if I recall, is the "artistic" sharpening you do to add punch to an image, either for pure effect or possibly to correct lens softness. This is probably where you'll get most of your subjective opinions?

The last one is for printing, and you'll arguably need that regardless of your capture method. It varies by print size, format, etc.

See? Told you I was a bad person to ask. Where are Jack and Guy when you need them? ;)
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
In C1 with the P40+ C1 i do a small amount presharpen 1 is about it. Nice thing about MF is you almost don't need any but I do a little than if I go to print I may add some more but really depends on the image and how aggressive I want to be.

BTW presharpen 1 is

amount 200
radius .5
threshold .8

also keep your luminous down on noise like 10 or 15
and color 30.

You can increase the 200 to 250 and radius to like 1 if you want to be a little more aggressive. I try and keep it down simply because I have very sharp lenses and I like keeping a certain look and adding too much sharpening looks really fake to me. Or maybe better said to digital. Honestly you can kill a image by being to aggressive and we have no AA filter to compensate for so we really don't need much.
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Also little trick which can help is using clarity which increases the mid tone contrast which gives the appearance of sharpening. Careful here as well like 20 on the plus side. Try these out and see if you need more.
 

Jan Brittenson

Senior Subscriber Member
USM only increases local contrast so isn't useful for removing lens and filter blur. This requires deconvolution, like the smart sharpening filter in PS set to use the lens or gaussian blur model. USM is more useful for output sharpening like for printers or projectors.
 

Stan Lawrence

New member
Thanks for the responses.... I was referring to sharpening when I process the raw file.... I'm using LR, I'll experiment with the above suggestions. :cool:
 
T

tetsrfun

Guest
Thanks for the responses.... I was referring to sharpening when I process the raw file.... I'm using LR, I'll experiment with the above suggestions. :cool:
*******
In LR3, some of the biggest improvements were in sharpening/noise reduction. The LuLa LR3 tutorials are quite useful and for more in depth info., the Second edition of "Image Sharpening" by Bruce Fraser and Jeff Shewe.

Steve
 

Wayne Fox

Workshop Member
Well, I'm a bad advisor, but since it's been 2 days... ;) My answer is...don't.

My 11mp back pretty much needs no sharpening. As I understand it, the "primary" purpose of USM is to remove the blurring of the antialiasing filter. No AA filter, no Gaussian blur to remove with USM. Or, to simulate removal...I don't think you're technically removing it, since that image data is forever gone. USM just fools your eye into thinking it's there. :)
The de-moisaicing of the image data in the raw conversion most likely will also cause a slight softening of edges, so a slight capture sharpen is a good idea for all digital captures.

As to whether the data is forever gone I suppose it isn't really gone, it's just been spread to adjacent pixels. Theoretically it might be possible for software to understand how that spread had taken place and restore it to the correct pixels. As to whether sharpening moves some of it back or just fools your eye ... you might be right, but way above my pay grade, and fortunately it works pretty good.
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
I am going to say it depends on sensor pixel pitch AND how sharp the original capture is...

I always capture sharpen MF files, but the 6u sensor on the P40+/P65+ has changed whether I do additional "detail" sharpening in CS post. If I detail sharpen a well-captured one of them, the resultant print appears too sharp -- not over-sharpened mind you, just too sharp. So I no longer do detail sharpening on my P65+ files unless it is soft to begin with. However, for 6.8u and larger, I still think it's a good idea to do some extra sharpening in your image editor (CS or LR).

So for your 33MP back, I'd try using capture sharpening of around 125%, 0.4 radius and threshold 2.0 in C1 for a sharp original; pre-1 for a slightly softer than normal; and even soft-1 or 2 for an obviously bad original, then add some smart sharpen or even high-pass sharpening in CS/LR as appropriate.

FWIW and as an aside, I just printed a 15x20 print for a friend that got a great P65+ composition but with obvious camera movement -- so obvious that blades of grass were "doubled" in the image. He asked if it could be salvaged. I wasn't sure, so I used soft-1 on the raw and then one of my high-pass sharpening recipes in CS. The result amazed even me, as the final print looked critically sharp all over, even on close inspection with my +200 cheaters on...
 

gsking

New member
The de-moisaicing of the image data in the raw conversion most likely will also cause a slight softening of edges, so a slight capture sharpen is a good idea for all digital captures.

As to whether the data is forever gone I suppose it isn't really gone, it's just been spread to adjacent pixels. Theoretically it might be possible for software to understand how that spread had taken place and restore it to the correct pixels. As to whether sharpening moves some of it back or just fools your eye ... you might be right, but way above my pay grade, and fortunately it works pretty good.
Good point, Wayne. I must have been intentionally unintentionally referring to the just-announced monochrome back. Yeah, that was it. ;)

Perhaps the default setting in C1 is doing what you speak of.

I was looking at some examples of "proper sharpening" and was amazed at how soft the original images looked. I can't recall seeing anything that bad unless it was a poorly focused image.

And from the above comments, it's apparent that what we're getting with Smart Sharpen and LR is "way above the pay grade" of USM as well, so it's difficult to discuss. They've made it so easy that it's confusing. :eek:
 

Ed Hurst

Well-known member
So Jack, based on your principles above (according to which you made a suggestion for a 33MP back), what would you recommend as starting values for a 40MP sensor such as that of the 645D?
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
So Jack, based on your principles above (according to which you made a suggestion for a 33MP back), what would you recommend as starting values for a 40MP sensor such as that of the 645D?
Right about the same as the 33MP back Ed, maybe cut amount down to ~ 100%...
 

Stan Lawrence

New member
So for your 33MP back, I'd try using capture sharpening of around 125%, 0.4 radius and threshold 2.0 in C1 for a sharp original; pre-1 for a slightly softer than normal; and even soft-1 or 2 for an obviously bad original, then add some smart sharpen or even high-pass sharpening in CS/LR as appropriate.
Worked very nicely, thanks. Time to order the 645 now....:cool:
 

KeithL

Well-known member
I would never apply capture sharpening.

Differing outputs require differing levels of sharpening or indeed in some cases no sharpening at all.
 

yaya

Active member
Stan if you have not tried Leaf Capture yet, you should know that the sharpening presets that you have set on the back will be read by the software.

Tese are geared mainly towards print and as such tend to look a little bit "over" on screen.

They also use a clever algorithm which adjusts the parametres (radius etc.) according to the output size

Hope this helps, enjoy your new Mamiya back

yair
 
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