When is it too sharp?

[Phoenix_Jackson]

I use Canon's DPP for most of my very basic PP needs. I have a habit of +3 contrast, +5 sharpness, and -8 highlights, before proceeding to "thinking" mode.

I am pleased with this image except for the desire of more details on the flower. And I welcome any nitpicks if there's anything I missed. But I'm very much concerned if I shouldn't have touched sharpness. The wings of the bees looked a bit too sharp for me whereas the eyes aren't sharp enough. Without sharpening though, my errors of misfocusing shows up too much.

Should I just leave it alone?



Canon 60D with CZ VS T* 80-200mm
Aperture = f/4
ISO = 100
Exposure = 1/100 seconds
No Flash

[crockny]

I can't tell if the bee is too sharp or not because it's so small ... I'm thinking the blurry seedpods on the left don't help the image any ... perhaps a vertical crop to just the bee, flower and stem with leaf would put more focus on the bee ... clone out the dead leaf and the rest of the seedpod stem ... anyway that's what I would do ... I know this isn't what you asked but really I can hardly see the bee ...

[Phoenix_Jackson]

Thank you for the suggestions.
So I cropped it to what I think is suggested and cropped it even a bit more (with a little tweaking) to get a closer look. It doesn't look that sharp at all when up close.

[crockny]

Well just cropping for the bee, flower and leaf you've cut out half your photo so cropping it even further you are going to get a lot of deterioration ... I think the vertical crop looks better than the original - I would clone out the stem going nowhere on the left and the leaf behind it and leave the right-hand leaf for balance. I think that will look pretty good. If the bee is your subject try to get closer next time ... otherwise you will have a nice composition overall the way it is after cropping ...

[Phoenix_Jackson]

Yes I saw that extra stem and it's annoying me, but my cloning skills aren't that good yet.
But thank you for correcting me. Still, I'd like to know when sharpening is just unnecessary. I really can't tell whether an image is too sharp or not.

[crockny]

Looks like you cloned out the dead leaf really well ... as for sharpening, when you sharpen is your view at 100%? You can't see the effects unless it's full size ... there should be a preview checkbox, check and uncheck it to see the difference. Or if you want to see the whole photo go back a step in history to see the before ... I think sharpening is a really difficult area and many people don't know how to use it properly, including myself! I sharpen in RAW and then I'm not sure if I should sharpen again according to the JPEG size and whether it's being printed or posted on the web ... but if you sharpened and the wings look funny then probably it's sharpened too much ... I hear you can selectively sharpen but haven't figured that out yet ...

[BPhil8835]

My problem with all this is that's there's too much there. I like the composition and the great color but it seems to me it's either the bee or the flower. I think you should fill the photo with just the bee and its flower and that should be it. Cropping in this case does deteriorate the photo. It's so hard to think in the moment of shutter action but guess that's what experience is for. Good luck in the future.

[JFSanders]

Phoenix, I think you may have a slight misunderstanding of "sharpness". The lack of detail in the bee's eyes isn't going to be helped by +5 sharpness. It may hurt it though. When a image is post processed for "sharpness" what really happens is the contrasting edges (think of lines of pixels that are of different brightness and possibly hue) are exaggerated by an algorithmic process in the processing engine. This creates a allusion in our minds that there is a "sharp" edge there.

But in doing this the image can be degraded and become soft in focus due to the algorithms lack of a brain such as ours to see the overall image. Now when you are posting to the internet "sharpness" is not so much a issue to be concerned with as it would be in a print due to the nature of pixels and rendering engines.

Best to get as much clarity and focus in the original image so that you can use minimal sharpening to make the image pop.

Jim