Why are my images over sharpened?
When it comes to sharpening, I have had two kinds of responses to my images with respect to how i sharpen them. 50% of the response is about “over sharpening” and the remaining 50% is about “not enough sharpening”.
Well, its definitely subjective! just like everything else i have blogged about before.
The thing though is that my work flow often dictates how i sharpen, and that i am kinda lazy to make multiple versions for each output type (Print, Web etc).
Ever since i read about sharpening from the late genius Bruce Fraser, i have been religiously following it. Since i started using Lightroom – i have stopped doing input sharpening (i feel not recommended for DSLRs – but highly recommended for film scans) and have pretty much only use capture sharpening and output sharpening. I however, have on occasions hugely benefited from creative sharpening as well.
Blurry Images…
What exactly do you do on blurry images – blurred either due to shutter speed issues, camera or hand shake, focus issues or something else….
Until recently, i used the infamous “delete” key – and got rid of it immediately. I wish i hadn’t.
There are several ways to recover them – if they are good. One of my most satisfying images so far, was a very blurry image due to slow shutter – this was taken hand held in an extremely dark indoor environment, with an aperture of f1.4, and a shutter speed of 1/8 sec and ISO 1600. No wonder it was blurred and noisy.
Since the image was pretty powerful, i was determined to rescue it.
My research on the subject led me to a software to both remove noise as well as remove blurring. Unfortunately though, the software did not help me at all – i decided not to use it.
As you can see from the image (viewed large) – there is absolutely no or little shake visible here – so how did i do it? read on… Read more
Thoughts for the week…
I have written about post processing once before. What prompted me to write one again was a recent forum posting by someone that said – “I dont like Photographers who use Photoshop, Photographers are supposed to capture the best image in the camera not in post processing”
Back in the old days (film days that is) – Photographers (at least professional ones; and artsy types) did their own processing. This involved dark dinghy rooms and being accustomed to seeing things in strange red/orange glows, dealing with strange chemicals and formulas, enlargers and other such huge equipment, weird paper cut-outs for burning and dodging and other strange things.
In fact, the popular photographer Ansel Adams – did a lot of post processing work. His prints were very specific and his notes included exactly how he came up with each print (what paper, which size burn, where, shape etc – it sorta looked like a modern day meta data equivalent).
The best ones usually were both scientifically inclined as well as artistic/creative.
Nothing has changed today. You still need to do both – You just do it differently. So, i have no idea why people complain about “minimal processing” and such.
My thoughts about these folks are that these are the people that probably used P&S cameras and gave their films for development/printing at Walmart. They are no-doubt good quality, but thats not what “Photographers” did/do.
Taking that image is not the end of it (i recently heard someone famous photographer say, all he did was to act like a monkey clicking the button – the rest was done by his assistants), one needs to either (a) make it the way your eye saw it or (b) make it the way your heart saw it.
I mostly see with my brain – but thats a different thing. I am nether here nor there – being logically inclined, i have fewer options – but thats my problem.
Translator
By N2H
Powered by FireStats