Slide show

[picman]

In another thread (I put my new question here not to disrupt the actual topic of that thread)

http://forum.getdpi.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5532


Guy Mancuso suggested I try Bridge for slideshow and whereas this seems to work very nicely I cannot get the pictures really sharp the way they were when processing. They all look kinda fuzzy. Any ideas what I might be doing wrong?

Cheers, Bob

 

[routlaw]

Guy Mancuso suggested I try Bridge for slideshow and whereas this seems to work very nicely I cannot get the pictures really sharp the way they were when processing. They all look kinda fuzzy. Any ideas what I might be doing wrong?

Cheers, Bob

Bob, you did not state what platform you are working on which makes a big difference in the software available. PC users tend to swear by Pro Show or PS Gold I believe it is. For the Mac FotoMagico by Boinx is head and shoulders above the rest, very intuitive and easy to use with some great features and also modestly priced.

Regardless of the software how you prepare your pictures for a slideshow can make a huge difference in their final outcome and much of that will be dictated by how far you plan to zoom in (and out) on a given image. So lets say you are making a slideshow that will be exhibited at 1080p, the bare bones minimum image size for each photo should be at least 1080 pixels on the short dimension, but if you are planning on zooming in on any of these images you need some "pixel" leeway so increasing the short dimension to 1.5 to 2 times the 1080 pixels is not unreasonable.

Also how you downsize your images for the slideshow will make a big difference. From my experience downsizing in 50% increments using the PS gradient (yeah yeah I know Adobe recommends the sharper method) bicubic method works by far the best IMO. Once you get to the final size needed then run some USM with a large amount and very small radius, something like 250 or 300 for the amount and .2 (point two) for the radius, 0 for threshold.

Hope this helps.

Rob

 

[picman]

Hi Rob,

Thanks a lot for your comprehensive reply. It seems I still have a lot to learn (I come from film/slides and have only recently migrated to digital). I never downsized the images (at least not knowingly) I just took the jpegs out of the camera (A900).

I am working on a Mac and noticed something else very strange. It is not only when I was trying to make a (simple classical) slideshow that I noticed the fuzziness. I am testing C1 against, Aperture and Lightroom and simply opening one and the same jpeg file in these produces a visual difference. Please look at the enclosed screenshots from a part of an image opened in C1 and in LR. The difference in sharpness is visible without enlarging or pixelpeeping. What I have done now is open RAW files in C1, postprocess as required, save as tiff file and then do a slideshow in apreture. As far as I can see the sharpness exhibited in C1 is then fully preserved. It apparently has something to do with the way the different apps render jpegs?

Anyway I am definitely going to look up FotoMagico.

Thanks again, cheers, Bob.

 

[picman]

Screenshots of jpeg opened in respectively C1 and in Lightroom:

 

[routlaw]

Hi Rob,

It is not only when I was trying to make a (simple classical) slideshow that I noticed the fuzziness. I am testing C1 against, Aperture and Lightroom and simply opening one and the same jpeg file in these produces a visual difference. Please look at the enclosed screenshots from a part of an image opened in C1 and in LR. The difference in sharpness is visible without enlarging or pixelpeeping. What I have done now is open RAW files in C1, postprocess as required, save as tiff file and then do a slideshow in apreture. As far as I can see the sharpness exhibited in C1 is then fully preserved. It apparently has something to do with the way the different apps render jpegs?

Anyway I am definitely going to look up FotoMagico.

I have not experienced these differences you are showing here, but then I don't shoot jpegs either, only raw files. So just taking a stabbing guess, it would appear C1 is applying some sort of aggressive sharpening to all files imported/opened in the program where as LR is probably being much more conservative on this issue. It might well behoove you to make the same comparison making sure any sharpening is set to zero on both programs. If you are shooting jpegs in camera, its also possible LR is ignoring those camera settings and C1 not or it is applying some additional sharpening on top of what the camera has already done. Once again just guessing here.

Its been awhile since I tried C1 and can tell you I must be the only photographer on the planet who does not like it (though not for lack of trying) or think its the best raw converter available, so as the saying goes YMMV from mine using this program. An audio engineer once told me, gear sounds different this we know, but the question is why and always emphasized one should be very careful to level the playing field when making comparisons. Under most circumstances, perhaps not all, I think this discipline holds true for digital imaging as well.

In any case I use LR/ACR daily with excellent results with my Nikon cameras.

Hope this helps

Rob