Posted by Cezar Mart on September 21, 2007 at 3:25 PM
Please, forgive me the beginner question: can you recommend a plugin, or an independent application, to sharpen landscape images? Or any images? Any application that does it well - does sharpen, but doesn't leave halos and doesn't add noise. Does such thing exist?
Thank you,
Cezar Mart
Posted by Chris Hodney on September 21, 2007 at 3:38 PM
I recently purchased Photokit Sharpener from Pixel Genius, after trying a number of plugins, and spending too much time trying to figure out the ideal Unsharp mask for each print/image.
I've been very pleased with it, and prints are looking much much better. Most of the programs give you several filter options, and you just brush away what you don't want affected with a layer mask.
Posted by Mark Hudon on September 21, 2007 at 3:43 PM
I have a method, using that LAB color space, that is really killer. I'm busy right now but give me an hour or two and I'll write it up.
Posted by Peter Ziminski on September 21, 2007 at 3:44 PM
Lightroom has a Preset for Landscape Sharpening.
In the Develop Module, expand Presets (on left)
Use it as a starting point since every landscape will problaby need different settings.
See this:
http://lightroom-news.com/lightroom-11-update/sharpening/
and this:
http://www.lightroomkillertips.com/2007/video-tip-sharpening-in-11/
Pete
Posted by Jon Leibowitz on September 21, 2007 at 5:16 PM
I hope Marc can chime in and give insight into his amazing techniques.
Posted by Cezar Mart on September 21, 2007 at 5:17 PM
Can't wait!
Posted by Mark Hudon on September 21, 2007 at 6:33 PM
Okay,
Duplicate your photo and flatten it.
Got to Image>Mode>Lab Color.
Go to Window>Arrange>New Window for XXX. You now have two windows of the same photo.
Make one real small so you can barely see it and arrange the other one so it's quite large and you can see all of it.
Select the small one and hit Command-1 (I don't know what the Windows key is Control-1 might be it). Anyway, you want only the L channel showing.
The small photo will turn black and white.
Go Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask.
set your Threshold to 0
You can go two ways here.
You can go HIgh Radius, Low Amount or Low Amount, High Radius.
Either way, you can really go nuts on the photo and not get ANY halos.
The advantage is that you are sharpening the L channel and not the color A and B channels. This is all happening in the little window, in Black and White, but you're seeing the results in the larger color window. Cool, eh?
BTW, I'm Mark, that other guy is Marc.
Posted by Cezar Mart on September 21, 2007 at 6:49 PM
Mark,
I tried the method. I tried it on an image 900 pixels wide x 650 pixels high and if I go nuts, as you are suggesting, then I am still getting really big halo as before.
The question is: what do you call "low or high amount or radius"? For my 900x600 is 100% amount high or low? Is 1 pixel radius high or low?
I noticed that for 900x650 the halo starts showing above 0.4 radius with 100% amount.I am talking about halos around pieces of grass, or on high contrast edges.
However, when I keep radius under 0.4 then the sharpening efects are really minimal if at all in other places that are also important.
What is your winning combination of radius/amount for images say 720 pixels wide?
Posted by Chris Hodney on September 21, 2007 at 6:59 PM
Cezar,
You'll be happy Marc Adamus' Web sharpening suggestions for images that size. you can find that on the Tips/ Photoshop Tips n Tricks.... page per the links at the top of this page. From what I've read, the bigger the image (more pixels) the more aggressive the sharpening. I seem to remember that (and I may be quoting information I read on this website) you want a 'halo' to print at about 1/100th of an inch to not be visible. So this means on an 720px image at 72 dpi screen resolution...a halo would be 0.7 pixel. WIth a 3000px image printed at 300 dpi, acceptable halo would be 3 pixels, and so on. Sorry if my quick math is fuzzy, but this helped me a lot recently.
I also recommend purchasing a plugin that has already figured all that out for your for different outputs
Posted by Mark Hudon on September 21, 2007 at 7:01 PM
Okay, bag the High, Low and only go Low, High.
I'm looking at a 720 pixel wide shot right now, the Amount is at 8 and the Radius is at 70.9, no halos. I can go to 15 Amount and 250 Radius without seeing any halos.
Are you in the Lab color mode? In the L channel?
Posted by Cezar Mart on September 21, 2007 at 7:25 PM
Wow, so these are the amount you are talking about. I thought the high amounts are around 100%.
Yes, I am in LAB mode in the L channel. The problem is that the combination of even as big as 15/250 does not give halos, that's true, but it doesn't sharpen at all either. This combination increases the overall contrast of the entire image, but doesn't sharpen details. Try this on the image I posted on ESS: http://www.themarts.com/galeria/Trillium_0050_900_lab.jpg
The true detail sharpening begins around 100/0.3 combination.
Unless I am doing something completely wrong...
Posted by Cezar Mart on September 21, 2007 at 7:29 PM
Chris wrote:
> I also recommend purchasing a plugin that has already figured all that out for your for different outputs
Do you have a specific plugin in mind?
Posted by Mark Hudon on September 21, 2007 at 7:30 PM
sounds right... To tell you the truth, I don't use this method on my web images. I find Marc's method better for that.
Posted by Chris Hodney on September 21, 2007 at 7:41 PM
Cezar,
yep, I mentioned it in my first post. I purchased PhotoKit Sharpener from Pixel Genius (Martin Evening,Bruce Fraser & company). But there are some others. Another common one is Nik Sharpener Pro. It's good too, I just thought the Photokit one was easier for my workflow. Both have Capture, Creative, and Output sharpening and recommend not sharpening in ACR or Lightroom or any other RAW converter.
Discussion
13 repliesThank you,
Cezar Mart
I've been very pleased with it, and prints are looking much much better. Most of the programs give you several filter options, and you just brush away what you don't want affected with a layer mask.
In the Develop Module, expand Presets (on left)
Use it as a starting point since every landscape will problaby need different settings.
See this:
http://lightroom-news.com/lightroom-11-update/sharpening/
and this:
http://www.lightroomkillertips.com/2007/video-tip-sharpening-in-11/
Pete
Duplicate your photo and flatten it.
Got to Image>Mode>Lab Color.
Go to Window>Arrange>New Window for XXX. You now have two windows of the same photo.
Make one real small so you can barely see it and arrange the other one so it's quite large and you can see all of it.
Select the small one and hit Command-1 (I don't know what the Windows key is Control-1 might be it). Anyway, you want only the L channel showing.
The small photo will turn black and white.
Go Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask.
set your Threshold to 0
You can go two ways here.
You can go HIgh Radius, Low Amount or Low Amount, High Radius.
Either way, you can really go nuts on the photo and not get ANY halos.
The advantage is that you are sharpening the L channel and not the color A and B channels. This is all happening in the little window, in Black and White, but you're seeing the results in the larger color window. Cool, eh?
BTW, I'm Mark, that other guy is Marc.
I tried the method. I tried it on an image 900 pixels wide x 650 pixels high and if I go nuts, as you are suggesting, then I am still getting really big halo as before.
The question is: what do you call "low or high amount or radius"? For my 900x600 is 100% amount high or low? Is 1 pixel radius high or low?
I noticed that for 900x650 the halo starts showing above 0.4 radius with 100% amount.I am talking about halos around pieces of grass, or on high contrast edges.
However, when I keep radius under 0.4 then the sharpening efects are really minimal if at all in other places that are also important.
What is your winning combination of radius/amount for images say 720 pixels wide?
You'll be happy Marc Adamus' Web sharpening suggestions for images that size. you can find that on the Tips/ Photoshop Tips n Tricks.... page per the links at the top of this page. From what I've read, the bigger the image (more pixels) the more aggressive the sharpening. I seem to remember that (and I may be quoting information I read on this website) you want a 'halo' to print at about 1/100th of an inch to not be visible. So this means on an 720px image at 72 dpi screen resolution...a halo would be 0.7 pixel. WIth a 3000px image printed at 300 dpi, acceptable halo would be 3 pixels, and so on. Sorry if my quick math is fuzzy, but this helped me a lot recently.
I also recommend purchasing a plugin that has already figured all that out for your for different outputs
I'm looking at a 720 pixel wide shot right now, the Amount is at 8 and the Radius is at 70.9, no halos. I can go to 15 Amount and 250 Radius without seeing any halos.
Are you in the Lab color mode? In the L channel?
Yes, I am in LAB mode in the L channel. The problem is that the combination of even as big as 15/250 does not give halos, that's true, but it doesn't sharpen at all either. This combination increases the overall contrast of the entire image, but doesn't sharpen details. Try this on the image I posted on ESS:
http://www.themarts.com/galeria/Trillium_0050_900_lab.jpg
The true detail sharpening begins around 100/0.3 combination.
Unless I am doing something completely wrong...
> I also recommend purchasing a plugin that has already figured all that out for your for different outputs
Do you have a specific plugin in mind?
yep, I mentioned it in my first post. I purchased PhotoKit Sharpener from Pixel Genius (Martin Evening,Bruce Fraser & company). But there are some others. Another common one is Nik Sharpener Pro. It's good too, I just thought the Photokit one was easier for my workflow. Both have Capture, Creative, and Output sharpening and recommend not sharpening in ACR or Lightroom or any other RAW converter.