Posted by Joe Rogers on January 23, 2010 at 4:32 PM
Has anyone use Fred Miranda Intellishapen plugin for PS and what is your opinion. Is there something (action,plugin,etc) that you like better. I am shooting a D700 as well as a D200.
Many thanks,
Joe Rogers
Posted by David Bostock on January 23, 2010 at 9:23 PM
Joe, you'll probably get many responses here, as we all have our own preferences. So, my preferences are for Focal Blade or PhotoKit Sharpener.
I personally prefer Focal Blade because it offers so much flexibility.
I've yet to see any sharpening program that's any better than what you can do in Photoshop. And I don't understand what makes some people think its difficult to use sharpening in Photoshop. Once you grasp the simple theory of how digital sharpening works, Photoshop gives you a couple of sliders to move and you're done, WYSIWYG. I thought a little individual control was a good thing. Would these same people prefer a point and shoot camera to make photography easier for them also?
I've no experience with the Intellisharpen plugin, but do use NIK Sharpener Pro now and then. Most of the time I am very satisfied with the integral sharpening of Lightroom. The same Photokit Sharpener algorithms are integrated into Lightroom (I believe Adobe purchased PKS a couple of years ago) and Lightroom is designed around the late Bruce Fraser's 3-stage sharpening model.
The upcoming version 3 of Lightroom is supposed to improved on sharpening significantly.
NIK Sharpener Pro allows more control than what's built into CS4--which is perfectly OK by itself, but not quite as good as the NIK product.
ME
Posted by Jim Bullard on January 24, 2010 at 6:12 PM
Photoshop works for me (CS3). If you are having problems sharpening go to Lynda.com, pay for a month's access and run through Deke McClelland's tutorial on sharpening. WARNING! It is more than you really want to know but when you get through it you will understand sharpening.
Posted by David Bostedo on January 24, 2010 at 10:03 PM
And I don't understand what makes some people think its difficult to use sharpening in Photoshop. Once you grasp the simple theory of how digital sharpening works, Photoshop gives you a couple of sliders to move and you're done, WYSIWYG. I thought a little individual control was a good thing.
Well most sharpening plug-ins I'm familiar with were created not because they want to simplify anything. It's because it gives you control over the minute details of sharpening that can be made better (masks, intelligent edge detection, pinning, etc.). The guys at Pixel Genius who make PK Sharpener certainly aren't trying to make photography easier. Instead they're trying to make the sharpening better even it's it's just barely and only with your nose up next to a print.
If Photoshop works for your purposes...great! For some people it doesn't and they're looking for something with more/dfiferent controls, or that avoids the creation of a lot of masks (which some advanced sharpening flows require). Personally, I pretty much just use Photoshop, although I sometimes make edge masks for better control of where it's applied. And I use Qimage for printing which invokes its own bit of sharpening for prints.
Discussion
5 repliesMany thanks,
Joe Rogers
I personally prefer Focal Blade because it offers so much flexibility.
The upcoming version 3 of Lightroom is supposed to improved on sharpening significantly.
NIK Sharpener Pro allows more control than what's built into CS4--which is perfectly OK by itself, but not quite as good as the NIK product.
ME
Well most sharpening plug-ins I'm familiar with were created not because they want to simplify anything. It's because it gives you control over the minute details of sharpening that can be made better (masks, intelligent edge detection, pinning, etc.). The guys at Pixel Genius who make PK Sharpener certainly aren't trying to make photography easier. Instead they're trying to make the sharpening better even it's it's just barely and only with your nose up next to a print.
If Photoshop works for your purposes...great! For some people it doesn't and they're looking for something with more/dfiferent controls, or that avoids the creation of a lot of masks (which some advanced sharpening flows require). Personally, I pretty much just use Photoshop, although I sometimes make edge masks for better control of where it's applied. And I use Qimage for printing which invokes its own bit of sharpening for prints.