Sharpening your images in post processing

Hello all,

I wanted to share one of my favorite techniques for sharpening my photos and some other photo tips along the way.

My photo disclaimer is - I do NOT claim to know everything and am well aware there are people on this site that have better workflows/results and are far more knowledgeable than I. I am always wanting to get better but at the same time I like to help out those that are "coming up" the aviation photography ladder. My workflow isn't the only one but it works for me almost all of the time, so here goes:

First of all, software. I use:

Lightroom 4 (I do exposure/contrast/dust spots/library management here)

Nik Define 2.0 (noise management)

Nik Color Efex Pro 4 (creative editing)

Perfect Effects Perfect Resize 7.5

I shoot in RAW

I try and think about position of the sun (backlighting is generally not good)

My camera is usually set on shutter priority for fast movers and aperture priority for static shots (generally)

1/640th or faster for jets but watching your aperture depending on how far you are from the subject.

Good rule of thumb - Shutter speed equal to or greater than focal length to eliminate camera shake when hand holding. (200mm - 1/200th or faster)

For all of my shots my camera is in CH or CL mode for focus. This allows for changes in distance to subject and the camera will refocus continually. Not sure in Canon world what that's called.

I mostly use the cameras 51 point auto area focus for shots that are moving. I will at times switch to single point if the camera is having a hard time detecting enough contrast to find my subject.

I never just squeeze the shutter release button once. I fire off a few shots each time to ensure I get at least one keeper.

Now for importing. I bring the shots into lightroom 4 applying custom names and folder destinations for the images. I use external 1TB drives that are all backed up to a 4TB master.

Lightroom 4 is very intuitive and packed with features. It has RAW processing built in and camera/lens profiles for just about any camera made. The image comes in and a small amount of "pre sharpening" is applied. Remember in RAW, there is no sharpening done in the camera. The pre-sharpening applied on initial input accounts for this.

I will then correct for camera/lens distortion and chromatic aberration. It's simple in Lightroom 4, the RAW file contains this info so all you do is click "Lens Corrections" and select "enable profile corrections" then the tab next to it is the "Color" tab....select it and check the box to fix chromatic aberration automatically. If you do this AFTER you edited in photoshop or elements the info won't be there, so I do this first while it's still a RAW file.

Now I will crop and straighten the image. For wide angle shots, pick something vertical near the center of your image and level off of that. For zoom shots look for vertical or horizontal objects that you can level off of.

Next, I'll fix any dust spots that are visible. There are a couple really cool tricks in lightroom 4 to "find" the dustspots. Any major cloning I do in Elements later.

Now I will employ Nik Define 2.0 and control/eliminate any noise in the shot. Usually I use the factory preset. It's almost always spot on.

After this I will look at my histogram and decide if I have any "hot" or "cold" spots. What whites have been over exposed or what darks are underexposed. After fixing them (usually using the levels adjustment) I'll look at overall contrast. Contrast is important to get right. If you don't have contrast correct, you really will not effectively be able to sharpen correctly either. I personally do my contrast/detail edits in Nik Color Efex Pro 4 but if I want, I could do the basic edits right in lightroom 4. After contrast I'll look at vibrance/saturation. Remember, if you shoot RAW, your shot will be dull and lacking contrast/saturation. The reason for shooting RAW is you'll have more control in post to put these adjustments right where YOU want them, not where the Canon or Nikon people decided they should be.

Next is resizing. I'll edit the photo with Perfect Effects Perfect Resize 7.5 and save as a 3000px for the long side of the shot saving this with NO sharpening added yet.

Now I will send the photo to Elements 10 and edit as follows.

1. Create duplicate layer

2. Select "Enhance" then "Unsharp mask"

3. Set Unsharp mask settings to amount 400% - Radius 4 - threshold 0

At this point it will look TOO sharp...that's ok

4. Now select "Layer" then "Layer Mask" then "hide all"

You just "hid" the over sharpening you applied....next we'll paint it visible again but with less strength

5. Next select "B" for the brush tool. VERY IMPORTANT, set your brush to 20% opacity with a flow of 100%, otherwise you'll just paint in that excessive sharpening we are hiding under the black mask.

6. Select "X" to make sure your foreground color is white. There should be two small boxes under the toolbar on the left....those are your foreground and background colors. White should be on top, black below. Remember "white reveals - black conceals"

7. Now simply "paint" with the brush where you want sharpening. You can zoom in and paint specific spots avoiding trouble spots like the edge of tires against blue sky. This is a great technique to avoid those jagged edges. If you paint an area you wished you hadn't, just switch your foreground color back to black (hit "X") and paint the black mask back on. Be sure to go BACK to white as your foreground color to keep sharpening though. This technique will keep you from getting those jagged edges on the registrations because you can mask them or even select a lower opacity for just those areas.

When I am all done here, I save back to Lightroom. If I need a touch more sharpening, I'll use the sharpening brush in LR4 JUST for those areas.

My lightroom export for AP.NET is simply 1.5MB max file and 1600PX on the long side.

That's a basic workflow and it will take me about 5-7 minutes per photo.

For those that have a different technique please feel free to share.

I hope this helps your aviation photography workflow!!

Angelo

This post has been edited by Martin Krupka on 19th July 2014 - 22:51

I do some sharpening in LR4 before the image is converted, this is to counter the anti-aliasing filter in my cameras (different amounts of sharpening for each camera.) LR4 is very good for this sharpening and noise reduction if necessary.

My own favourite method is High Pass Sharpening with Vivid Light instead of Overlay, works better in USM, another is Smart Sharpen as a Smart Object and a luminosity blend mode instead of the usual Normal blend mode.

I am experimenting with a High pass Filter augmented by a levels layer to further target the sharpening process.

Whatever way you do it the ability to use a layer mask to selectively sharpen is definitely the way to do sharpening.

Either way sharpening has to be done with a degree of thought, glibly applying Unsharp Mask is not the way to go, especially if you the person is unable to see the effects of over or under sharpening.

I keep mine really simple. I use Elements 10, open the RAW file in ACR, adjust the necessary, open it in Elements, Topaz noise reduction to clean it up a bit, then ill do the horizon etc. For the sharpening all I do which works well for me is to do a 2 stage sharpen, I resize the photo to 3000px first and just use the adjust sharpness slider with the radius at 25% then select the amount as required. After this I just resize again to 1600px taking care not to compress the image, then add another little bit of sharpning using the same method as before, then job done.

FYI, Google Selling Nik Software Photo-Editing Plugins for $149 (from $499):

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