Posted by Randy Beacham on March 20, 2006 at 12:11 AM
Hi,
I finally broke down and bought a digital camera, a nikon d70s. I will still be doing mostly film work since most of my customers still either only take slides or prefer slides over digital. However, I'm starting a project with a friend of mine who shoots video and we're working on a project, sort of a four seasons in a forest project, that will combine stills, video and music on DVD.
Anyway, I'm slowly learning the ropes and have a question (the first of many I imagine): How do you evaluate sharpness in digital files and incorporate that into your workflow when editing photos. With slides it's easy--in addition to a 4x loupe that shows the whole slide I use an 8x-16x zoom loupe. At 16x it's real easy to see a slide that is soft and, unless it's a rare animal or unusual behavior of some kind, they go straight into the trashcan.
I don't want to spend any more time in front of the computer than necessary so I don't want to waste time sharpening an image that is slightly soft. But I'm having a hard time judging some files. For example, today I shot a few frames of a spruce grouse. After looking at composition and deleting files I'm left with four images. Right now I'm shooting jpegs at the highest resolution. I size the files to %100 on the computer. One of the slides looks sharp enough and one was a little soft but the other two look just a tiny bit soft when comparing with the sharpest one. Maybe I should just delete those two but I'm not sure.
So I'm curious how other people evaluate sharpness and how you do it in your workflow. I appreciate any answers. Thanks, Randy
Viewed at 100% you should be able to tell the amount of detail in an image. The raw capture (I'm assuming you're using raw) will not usually be "tack sharp", but any amount of blur or blown exposure should be very evident.
I suggest investing a little in a good sharpening software that has a capture sharpen function as part of its workflow. This will greatly help identify issues with detail. There's a couple of examples here:
I almost hesitate to say this, but time in front of the computer is inevitable when working with digital capture. Trying to avoid computer work with digital photography is like using cheap ISO 400 print film and developing/printing it at WalMart with film photography - you give up a lot of quality an d control. All things considered, once you have your workflow down you will find it much less of a hassle.
Guy
Posted by Randy Beacham on March 20, 2006 at 12:37 PM
Thanks Guy, I've bookmarked that page for future reference. And I think I answered my own question on sharpness, as with slides if it looks soft it is I suppose. It's just going to take a little time learning to judge sharpness by looking at a computer screen. This is going to get easier as soon as I buy a new computer system and have a better monitor to look at.
For the moment I'm saving two files for each exposure--one raw or nef and the other a large jpeg. The reason for this is I'm working on a six-year old computer that doesn't keep up with working on large files. This week I'm looking at investing in a new computer system, which I should have in working order in two or three weeks. This is an inefficient way to work but is necessary for right now since the DVD project I'm working begins the first day of spring--which is tomorrow I think . All my files, raw and jpeg, are being saved on an external hard drive that will be plugged into the new computer.
I understand what you say about time in front of the computer. To be quite honest up until now I've been making do by knowing as little as necessary to get by digitally. I've done this by having the best quality desktop scanners, using Photoshop Elements to make basic adjustments in brightness/contrast and sharpening, scanning slides that need the least amount of processing work and using web portals like AGPix rather than having having my own website.
Anyone who runs a freelance business knows the hardest part of the business is time, or the lack of it And we're probably five years or so from having my wife work with me full time. Plus, the stock photography business, which is around %70 of my revenue right now, is based on high volume and not really compatible with spending much time on the computer per photo.
This winter I've taken a hard look at my business and changed my business plan. I'm going to gradually spend less time on stock photography and more time on selling my photography through writing, DVD's, printed products, etc. One of the things I'm most excited about with this DVD project is I'm working with a friend who has been very succesful in running his own business and understands how to market and sell work.
This is a long way of saying that I'm going to have to become more proficient digitally so I can produce all my work from home. I'll probably be buying the real Photoshop with the new computer and as soon as the budget allows will be taking a week-long course on Photoshop. I live in a pretty remote area and there's no digital guru's around here so hopefully everyone here will be patient with me as I post my digital questions! Randy
Posted by Scott Buckel on March 20, 2006 at 3:28 PM
Randy - keep in mind that when you first start working on your "workflow" it will be slow at first. Then after practice the flow will go much faster and you will be pretty efficient. The more I process digital images the faster I get.
I have heard several pros, who are stock shooters as well, tell me that the D65 week long class really helped them out. This class is oriented to film pros turning to digital getting their workflow set up efficienty.
I'm an amature shooter so take this with a grain of salt ...
My computer is a few years old so Photoshop's image browser runs just slow enough to frustrate. For weeding out bad RAW photos I've settled on FastStone MaxView, mostly because it's free and supports Adobe's DNG files. Microsoft has a similar free RAW viewer, just without DNG support at the moment. I can flip through a folder of files at full screen, hold down the mouse to scroll around at 100% pixel level, hit DEL to trash or E to open in Photoshop or other editor. It also displays EXIF info if you move the mouse to the side of the screen. Now, if it just came with a histogram.
Every RAW viewer I've tried displays images slightly different - mostly color and camera default stuff. So, it's just a matter of sticking with one and learning how to judge what's acceptable for your needs.
Also very amateur , have found raw shooter - pixmantec very quick for my needs , you can access allpictures from one session very quickly and apply the same adjustments to all (it is also free with an optional pay-for upgrade) it then feeds into photoshop if necessary.Better with a new computer if saving raw files .
Malcolm Mac
Posted by Scott Buckel on March 23, 2006 at 12:14 PM
Andy - one thing to think about. To really judge sharpness you need to look atthe image at 100% view. Microsoft's viewer does not do that. Rawshooter I think does, Capture one (which I have not used) is reported as being one of the best ways to judge 100% view. But it is expensive (about $600). Bridge in PSCS2 does also let you lookat 100% view as well.
Discussion
7 repliesI finally broke down and bought a digital camera, a nikon d70s. I will still be doing mostly film work since most of my customers still either only take slides or prefer slides over digital. However, I'm starting a project with a friend of mine who shoots video and we're working on a project, sort of a four seasons in a forest project, that will combine stills, video and music on DVD.
Anyway, I'm slowly learning the ropes and have a question (the first of many I imagine): How do you evaluate sharpness in digital files and incorporate that into your workflow when editing photos. With slides it's easy--in addition to a 4x loupe that shows the whole slide I use an 8x-16x zoom loupe. At 16x it's real easy to see a slide that is soft and, unless it's a rare animal or unusual behavior of some kind, they go straight into the trashcan.
I don't want to spend any more time in front of the computer than necessary so I don't want to waste time sharpening an image that is slightly soft. But I'm having a hard time judging some files. For example, today I shot a few frames of a spruce grouse. After looking at composition and deleting files I'm left with four images. Right now I'm shooting jpegs at the highest resolution. I size the files to %100 on the computer. One of the slides looks sharp enough and one was a little soft but the other two look just a tiny bit soft when comparing with the sharpest one. Maybe I should just delete those two but I'm not sure.
So I'm curious how other people evaluate sharpness and how you do it in your workflow. I appreciate any answers. Thanks, Randy
Viewed at 100% you should be able to tell the amount of detail in an image. The raw capture (I'm assuming you're using raw) will not usually be "tack sharp", but any amount of blur or blown exposure should be very evident.
I suggest investing a little in a good sharpening software that has a capture sharpen function as part of its workflow. This will greatly help identify issues with detail. There's a couple of examples here:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/software/pk-sharpener.shtml
I almost hesitate to say this, but time in front of the computer is inevitable when working with digital capture. Trying to avoid computer work with digital photography is like using cheap ISO 400 print film and developing/printing it at WalMart with film photography - you give up a lot of quality an d control. All things considered, once you have your workflow down you will find it much less of a hassle.
Guy
For the moment I'm saving two files for each exposure--one raw or nef and the other a large jpeg. The reason for this is I'm working on a six-year old computer that doesn't keep up with working on large files. This week I'm looking at investing in a new computer system, which I should have in working order in two or three weeks. This is an inefficient way to work but is necessary for right now since the DVD project I'm working begins the first day of spring--which is tomorrow I think
I understand what you say about time in front of the computer. To be quite honest up until now I've been making do by knowing as little as necessary to get by digitally. I've done this by having the best quality desktop scanners, using Photoshop Elements to make basic adjustments in brightness/contrast and sharpening, scanning slides that need the least amount of processing work and using web portals like AGPix rather than having having my own website.
Anyone who runs a freelance business knows the hardest part of the business is time, or the lack of it
This winter I've taken a hard look at my business and changed my business plan. I'm going to gradually spend less time on stock photography and more time on selling my photography through writing, DVD's, printed products, etc. One of the things I'm most excited about with this DVD project is I'm working with a friend who has been very succesful in running his own business and understands how to market and sell work.
This is a long way of saying that I'm going to have to become more proficient digitally so I can produce all my work from home. I'll probably be buying the real Photoshop with the new computer and as soon as the budget allows will be taking a week-long course on Photoshop. I live in a pretty remote area and there's no digital guru's around here so hopefully everyone here will be patient with me as I post my digital questions! Randy
I have heard several pros, who are stock shooters as well, tell me that the D65 week long class really helped them out. This class is oriented to film pros turning to digital getting their workflow set up efficienty.
My computer is a few years old so Photoshop's image browser runs just slow enough to frustrate. For weeding out bad RAW photos I've settled on FastStone MaxView, mostly because it's free and supports Adobe's DNG files. Microsoft has a similar free RAW viewer, just without DNG support at the moment. I can flip through a folder of files at full screen, hold down the mouse to scroll around at 100% pixel level, hit DEL to trash or E to open in Photoshop or other editor. It also displays EXIF info if you move the mouse to the side of the screen. Now, if it just came with a histogram.
Every RAW viewer I've tried displays images slightly different - mostly color and camera default stuff. So, it's just a matter of sticking with one and learning how to judge what's acceptable for your needs.
Malcolm Mac
Fast full screen previews and very quick 100% zoom + scrolling. And free is good.