Not sharp or over-sharpened

Hi Guys,

I need your advice about how to find the right balance with sharpening a picture? Most of my uploaded pictures were not published because they where over or not sharp.

Those two were not accepted because they weren't sharp enough.

http://www.airplane-pictures.net/images/rejected-images/2012-5/210982.jpg

http://www.airplane-pictures.net/images/rejected-images/2012-5/210990.jpg

So I worked on it and I added a very little amount of USM and re-uploaded again ,unfortunately they were rejected too because of over-sharpening.

http://www.airplane-pictures.net/images/rejected-images/2012-5/211709.jpg

http://www.airplane-pictures.net/images/rejected-images/2012-5/211705.jpg

I know the screeners are doing their job as best as possible but each screener have his own different point of view. I don't want to say this is a perfect picture but it is not bad either, how to understand that?

It is best that you understand how sharpening works and then understand that there is not one single method for sharpening that works for all images, sometimes one has to SELECTIVELY sharpen parts of the image to give more or less.

Believe it or not the main problem with the first picture is not sharpening but exposure, a large part of the fuselage is over exposed and OVER EXPOSED DOES NOT SHARPEN IT IS AS SIMPLE AS THAT.*

If you "expose to the right" when taking the picture then you will not have any clipped tones, which should make sharpening easier.

One fundamental way of avoiding jagged edges is to shoot in RAW mode (if you use a Canon camera remember to modify the picture style as this automatically adds sharpening to the RAW image.) Shooting in JPEG will add sharpening IN THE CAMERA. Sharpening should only be done at the last stage of your editing workflow before saving the image and not at the beginning.

Even when you expose to correctly sharpening can create clipped tones as sharpening is a destructive process.

Personally I would not use what is called USM, Un-sharp Mask as it is a poor method of sharpening, USM is a curse, too much and it will create a halo or destroy the image to create jagged edges, both are evident in your picture.

My own preference is to use High Pass Sharpening in Lab mode, which only sharpens the lightness of an image and not the colours of the image and if sharpening causes jagged edges or halos I will go back and SELECTIVELY sharpen the image by not sharpening the halo or jagged edges or even apply a touch more in localised areas while leaving the rest of the image without any sharpening.

Another thing that poor sharpening will do as it creates noise in uniform areas like the sky, it sees the subtle variations in blue and tries to sharpen that, creating noise in the process.

Emirates and British Airways are possibly the two worst airlines for over sharpening, the halo is so noticeable when you see it. That's where selective sharpening comes in by not sharpening the areas that have the jagged edges or halos as they are probably sharp enough.

When you can see the halos or jagged edges for yourself then you will be able to start to take control of the process and sharpen properly.

Have a look at this from the old Forum, the link on the first post will explain everything there is to know and understand about sharpening and why USM is a curse.

http://forums.airplane-pictures.net/index.php?/topic/497-sharpening/

These may also be of some help

http://forums.airplane-pictures.net/index.php?/topic/668-selective-sharpening/

http://forums.airplane-pictures.net/index.php?/topic/740-over-saturated-colours-and-sharpening/

http://forums.airplane-pictures.net/index.php?/topic/665-high-pass-sharpening/

* sorry for using capitalisation, it is use as emphasis and not a form of shouting.

This post has been edited by Wallace Shackleton on 23rd May 2012 - 07:36

Attached photos:

If I could just ask one question, I use Photoshop Elements 8.0 is there a way where I can change the sharpness level? I have also had this same problem.

You should be able to change the Amount, radius and threshold in Adjustments.

Thanks Wallace for your big respond about my question and for all the links that you sent me. I'm still lerning and your professional advice will be very helpful for me in the future.

Just a quick clarification, adding in-camera sharpening on a Canon camera when shooting RAW doesn't sharpen the RAW file. By the nature of what a RAW file is it's impossible to sharpen one (as a RAW file isn't a photo, it's merely the information that demosaicing and other processing will turn into an image). If you have sharpening set in-camera then you'll see the effect on the camera's screen but not when you open the image in your editing software.

I have sharpening, saturation and contrast adjusted on my 7D to give a better idea of how the image will turn out after processing but none of these steps show in any way when I open the image in Photoshop, I'm just straight back to how the camera recorded the information.

Paul

That is what I thought... however if you apply a Picture Style in-camera it will add sharpening. This can be verified by viewing the image in Canon's DPP. (It does not show up in Adobe RAW.)

Standard applies a sharpening value of 6 out of 10, Portrait 2, Landscape 4, Neutral and Faithful both 0 and Monochrome 3.

These numbers can also be viewed in-camera, Standard has a value of 3,0,0,0

The only true RAW file is Neutral, all the others will adulterate your image in-camera to some degree.

Wallace, that's simply DPP recreating the picture style you had set, you're not seeing sharpening on the actual RAW file.

As I said, it isn't possible to sharpen a RAW file because it isn't actually an image!

That's also a question I asked me during my last mail conversation with Wallace and I am still not sure of the answer.

Does the picture style affect the raw itself ? I would say no because a RAW file is not really an image but when opened by Adobe Camera Raw or DPP, is there any risk the program takes the picture style into consideration and affects the output without asking the user opinion ?

Nope, the picture style absolutely does not affect the RAW itself! When talking about this it's important to understand that RAW isn't an image format, it's simply a generic name for the uncompressed digitised information from the sensor. Until it goes through demosaicing and other processing to turn it into an actual photo (either in camera or in computer software) it's nothing more than a collection of numbers that have absolutely nothing to do with an actual photo.

I haven't used DPP for probably 6 years but somewhere there'll be an option to set all parameters to 'flat' (i.e. no processing). It may be called 'restore image defaults' or something along those lines. Either way if you're shooting RAW there's always a way of getting back to the original state, minus picture styles and other things that may be applied when you take the photo. After all that's the whole point of RAW, for it to act as a digital 'negative'. :)

OK, thanks for your explanation.