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Fun with MM DNG - 4 XingPing bridge

V

Vivek

Guest
I'm wondering if I want this camera to just relive my youth writing FORTRAN code for image processing.
That is an interesting perspective, Brian. I have been look at this camera for street snaps. I am terrible when it comes to post processing, even when there are no major problems with the files that can not be dealt with the garden variety software.
 
V

Vivek

Guest
Wouldn't a decent printer driver handle this (anti-aliasing) as a matter of course? I'm sure Qimage does.

Cheers

Brian
Are you implying that this is some momentary thing that vanishes before the final output? What happens to the "micro details"?

Someone commented on "delayed gratification" and how it enhances the photographic experience (with an M9), earlier. This would prolong that even further! :)
 

jonoslack

Active member
LOL! Jono, I originally thought you had your regular M9 with you on your travels when shooting the M9M.

Yes, if its possible for you to take comparitive shots from each camera and post the "out of the camera" DNG's, that would be fantastic. I'm sure everone would love a attempt at not only adjusting these but evaluate the advanatages of B&W with the M9M. Thanks!

Dave (D&A)
HI Dave

you mean like this:



I did have an M9 with me, but I didn't usually take the same image, or necessarily use the same lens. . . . . . . and I certainly didn't have a tripod with me.
There isn't much point of a test which has nearly similar images with a different lens hand held - which means a boring brick wall picture is required (well, I might manage to be a bit more adventurous!).

all the best
 

D&A

Well-known member
Hi Jono,

Although the color M9 image you just posted here would certainly help to a degree in comparing output of the M9M with the M9 and posting a download of it I'm sure would please many. I was also thinking of something along the lines of a more controlled comparison as you stated, but it can be a compromise of "real world shooting"...not necessarily brick walls etc. For example, the same scene shot with each camera but using same ISO and same lens stopped down to identical aperture and using what you feel is best exposure (shutter speed wise) for each camera to capture the scene. Both can be handheld if that emulates how you shot these images or tripod mounting would be fine too. It doesn't have to be perfect.... just to get a some idea as to the differences one might expect between both cameras when final output is B&W. Interesting, after staring at the B&W images of this scene for last 20 minutes, when your M9 color image popped onto screen, it was a bit jarring. Sort of took me out of the past into the present....at least that was the illusion your image and all these B&W's created for me with this particular scene :)

OK, here are three of my "takes" for consideration....

Thanks!

Dave (D&A)
 
...Am I the only person in the world who finds luminance aliasing horrible?
Dave, Lightrooms default sharpening is horribly aggressive. I know Alamy have banned sharpening altogether on submitted images for exactly the artefacts you are seeing.

My basic rule is don't sharpen until you output. Nik Define is pretty good. Some people to like to do a little pre-sharpening, if you want, try 31, 0.5, 0, 8 in Lightroom.


I didn't get around to printing today but I'll try and then upload crops from each step and then a macro shot of some print details.

Paul
 

Hosermage

Active member
Someone commented on "delayed gratification" and how it enhances the photographic experience (with an M9), earlier. This would prolong that even further! :)
Hehe.. I think it was me, because I found importing pictures at the end of the day with M9 often wow me more than when I was composing through the LCD screen on the NEX. But even I would not want to wait until print time, might as well go shoot film! I think I've just realized that compared to others, focus/sharpness/pixel-peep is much less important to me when I look at a photograph.. Ignorance is bliss! :D
 
V

Vivek

Guest
Hehe.. I think it was me, because I found importing pictures at the end of the day with M9 often wow me more than when I was composing through the LCD screen on the NEX. But even I would not want to wait until print time, might as well go shoot film! I think I've just realized that compared to others, focus/sharpness/pixel-peep is much less important to me when I look at a photograph.. Ignorance is bliss! :D
You disappoint, David! ;)
 

Brian Mosley

New member
Are you implying that this is some momentary thing that vanishes before the final output? What happens to the "micro details"?

Someone commented on "delayed gratification" and how it enhances the photographic experience (with an M9), earlier. This would prolong that even further! :)
No, I was just thinking that the jaggies appear at 100% pixel peeping level on screen because the image isn't smoothed... if you are worried about jaggies at full image view (either on screen, or in a print) then use the appropriate scaling software - either your printer driver will handle this, or the algorithm chosen in your post processing software.

Cheers

Brian
 

jonoslack

Active member
Dave, Lightrooms default sharpening is horribly aggressive. I know Alamy have banned sharpening altogether on submitted images for exactly the artefacts you are seeing.

My basic rule is don't sharpen until you output. Nik Define is pretty good. Some people to like to do a little pre-sharpening, if you want, try 31, 0.5, 0, 8 in Lightroom.


I didn't get around to printing today but I'll try and then upload crops from each step and then a macro shot of some print details.

Paul
Hi Paul

I absolutely agree about sharpening - especially with the MM files. Like everyone else, I'll be fascinated to see your results on this - it might actually be worth a new thread.

all the best
Jono
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Here's a thought ... just a different approach ... since I work with a number of different CCD cameras I discovered this technique seemed to be relatively effective in mitigating jaggies. Each new camera is different, presents new processing challenges and has to be worked out.

For this specific MM camera file of the Bridge, I base it off a 20" print at 360 ppi because that is the largest I can print on my Epson 3880. I would not be overly ambitious in enlargement sizes with a 18 meg file anyway. Anything will produce saw-tooth jaggies eventually ... the M9 does it much sooner than my S2, and S2 sooner than my H4D/60 ... the only cameras I've seen without an AA filter that defies luminance aliasing well past 100% are Sinar and Hasselblad Multi-Shot MFDs.

The notion is to preserve micro contrast by reducing any RAW software sharpening to zero, and even reduce the Clarity slider a bit ... then use the broad array of exposure tools in LR4 to produce more acute micro contrast ... effectively making the image look sharp without resorting to edge sharpening or wholesale contrast tools like Clarity.

I think it is also important to recognize that a file at "fit to" a computer screen is not the best evaluative tool for this specific exercise. My 30" monitor displays at 2560 X 1600 ... a 20" file @ 360 dpi is 7200 X 4791. So, when figuring out a new camera, I crop sections of any demo image @ 100% and print them, then adjust accordingly.

Rather than try to demo what I mean here at 1200 pixels wide ... I did quick version using the technique outlined above, and loaded it to my "Jono's MM Processing gallery" on SmugMug. ... There is a full image, a crop (which is sort of ridiculous, since it represents a print the size of a bill-board : -) ... and I also placed the LR settings that I used as a screen shot for easier reading ... (also shown below at 1200 pixels).

It is STILL a downsized version jpg on SmugMug, so DO NOT just view it at screen size ... place your cursor over the large preview image to the right and click on it, then select "Original" in the top right corner for a larger version to scroll around and pixel peep. This SmugMug version is no-where as good as the full 20" version on my screen, which in turn sucks next to the print I pulled ... and from direct experience the inkjet print I made will suck next to a laser print on a good silver based photo paper :)

Jono's MM files - fotografz's Photos | SmugMug

:)-Marc-:)
 

jonoslack

Active member
HI Marc
Thank you - that's really useful.
In fact - simply backing off on the clarity and removing sharpening does an excellent job of removing the jaggies on the girl's bike stem.
I'm planning to print this as soon as I get the time. and then I'll see!

all the best
 
Hi All,
My first round printing this image. The big problem with getting to know a new sensor is that it might look terrible on-screen but in fact prints quite well. I generated a TIF with some light pre-sharpening from lightroom, used Perfect Resize to upscale to 94cm wide and also had to crop a little of the image. The final dimensions were 11,102 x 7,772 for the actual photo, but the printed image has a light border bringing the output size to 100x70cm. The paper is a satin matt and using my own custom profile.

I then dried and mounted the image in a hotpress (it's very humid here so this really makes the print set well).

Why 100x70cm? Because I had a crummy Ikea frame around that was that size.

In summary I can say this first attempt is way off and could be much better. Anyway below are pictures of the process, followed by some macro shots of the print. I should have used Nik Define to get me started and could have sharpened much more.


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So on the girls face you can see the tone around her cheek bone, that was not so apparent on screen so I refrained from sharpening too much, which has left some details kind of blurry.
 

Steen

Senior Subscriber Member
laser print


(...)
... and from direct experience the inkjet print I made will suck next to a laser print on a good silver based photo paper :)

you say "laser print", Marc ... :eek:

what kind of printer would that take, I know it's a bit off topic, but please elaborate ...

where I live (in Denmark) the Epson 3880 is very expensive and the ink too, so I have often been thinking about some kind of useable alternative, I could even live with black-and-white only
 

arild

New member
Jono,

thank you for providing the MM files. I took the liberty of downloading your bookshelf picture, and, just for kicks, tried to see how it would hold up if I interpolated the file to 13500x9000 pixels. I´m thoroughly impressed with the quality, and yeah, not much more to pick up than a stop or so of detail in the shadows, but with a proper exposure in the first place, who needs it?

I was almost set on getting an X-pro1/18mm kit, but I have to reconsider. Henri is calling, my bank account is weeping at the horror.. The horror..

My computer is slowly trying to kill itself now, after I erroneously clicked "smart sharpen" in CS5, but here we go.

Full size image file is about 121 megapixels (I´m on a 3ghz,12gb old type hard drive imac, not up to snuff at all for these types of things). It may look grainy as all hell up close, but imagine the potential with these files, shot at ISO 10000, on a poster!



Jono, while this probably really won´t garnish any interest from any pirates out there, I´ll delete as soon as you say the word. I´m just amazed, and wanted to share.
 

arild

New member
Oh, forgot, no noise reduction or sharpening on that one. It has visited SEfex2, as for some mundane reason, Leica includes the software with the camera. I have no idea why.
 

davemillier

Member
Hi

A valiant attempt at smoothing the image but it doesn't work that well. Forget about the bike jaggies, it's the jaggies in trees that bother me. Not only are there still very obvious "spiral candle" type artifacts on thin branches but there is that patchy messiness on complicated overlapping foliage which screams aliasing. It's exactly what my NEX 3 does too.

I also don't really see the point of starting out with an aliased image then attempting to disguise it with various forms of blur. Why not just start off with a nice clean, artifact free anti-aliased image to start with and sharpen appropriately to restore the MTF around Nyquist.

There is a thread over on the Lula forums about the D800 vs D800e. The guys there showed conclusively that with proper attention spent deconvolution sharpening, the acutance advantage of the D800e is negligible. The D800 provides the cleaner files. The reviews of course draw a different conclusion because they don't do deconvolution.

I applaud Leica's mono initiative but there nothing that screams "digital" to me more than aliasing artifacts - cleanly rendered or "disguised".

Here's a thought ... just a different approach ... since I work with a number of different CCD cameras I discovered this technique seemed to be relatively effective in mitigating jaggies. Each new camera is different, presents new processing challenges and has to be worked out.

For this specific MM camera file of the Bridge, I base it off a 20" print at 360 ppi because that is the largest I can print on my Epson 3880. I would not be overly ambitious in enlargement sizes with a 18 meg file anyway. Anything will produce saw-tooth jaggies eventually ... the M9 does it much sooner than my S2, and S2 sooner than my H4D/60 ... the only cameras I've seen without an AA filter that defies luminance aliasing well past 100% are Sinar and Hasselblad Multi-Shot MFDs.

The notion is to preserve micro contrast by reducing any RAW software sharpening to zero, and even reduce the Clarity slider a bit ... then use the broad array of exposure tools in LR4 to produce more acute micro contrast ... effectively making the image look sharp without resorting to edge sharpening or wholesale contrast tools like Clarity.

I think it is also important to recognize that a file at "fit to" a computer screen is not the best evaluative tool for this specific exercise. My 30" monitor displays at 2560 X 1600 ... a 20" file @ 360 dpi is 7200 X 4791. So, when figuring out a new camera, I crop sections of any demo image @ 100% and print them, then adjust accordingly.

Rather than try to demo what I mean here at 1200 pixels wide ... I did quick version using the technique outlined above, and loaded it to my "Jono's MM Processing gallery" on SmugMug. ... There is a full image, a crop (which is sort of ridiculous, since it represents a print the size of a bill-board : -) ... and I also placed the LR settings that I used as a screen shot for easier reading ... (also shown below at 1200 pixels).

It is STILL a downsized version jpg on SmugMug, so DO NOT just view it at screen size ... place your cursor over the large preview image to the right and click on it, then select "Original" in the top right corner for a larger version to scroll around and pixel peep. This SmugMug version is no-where as good as the full 20" version on my screen, which in turn sucks next to the print I pulled ... and from direct experience the inkjet print I made will suck next to a laser print on a good silver based photo paper :)

Jono's MM files - fotografz's Photos | SmugMug

:)-Marc-:)
 
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