help with sharpness settings.....

[jax314]

This is a JPEG straight out of the camera except for crop....I tried to do an unsharp mask on it with Photoshop, and it looked good in PS, but when I opened it back up with Windows 7, it looked way oversharpened....Is this becasue I was sharpening a JPEG that had already been sharpened quite a bit by the camera?

So I was wondering, is the sharpening level SOOC for my camera okay? Does it look oversharpened (I have it on setting 6 out of 9)?

I know I should probably just do all sharpening with PS or something, but for now I just want to work on learning other aspects of photography...and so I'm interested to hear whether or not the sharpening SOOC looks okay....

BTW, I'll take any sharpening hints you can give me.....is it a bad idea to sharpen an already "sharpened" JPEG?

Thanks!



Camera: Nikon D5000
Exposure: 0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture: f/2.2
Focal Length: 35 mm
ISO Speed: 280
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: No Flash

[jax314]

Anyone out there that can help? BTW, where can I find good tutorials on how to take a portrait like this and make it look AWESOME with Photoshop?

Thanks!

[aliceinlove]

Just google photoshop tutorials or use youtube.They have alot of great portrait tutorials.

[jax314]

Only one? C'mon guys!!

BTW, I found a few on Google....the easiest being to make a duplicate layer, apply a blur, and then set to overlay......kinda neat I guess....

Anyone else use this?

Still intersted in sharpness question though...unless the message I'm receiving (from not receiving any messages but one) is SHOOT IN RAW AND SHARPEN IN POST...

[junglebear]

My camera doesn't have RAW so I always shoot in Jpeg, but I still sharpen almost all of my shots. It depends on the camera as well, some sharpen more than others.
The sharpness in your shot looks ok, maybe unsharp mask by 1-2 pixels could help but I wouldn't say necessary.
In general the tools I use on most shots are levels, curves, saturation and then sharpen, I rarely do anything on top of that.
Google is your friend! There are also a lot of good tutorials here at DPS.

[peeperita]

i think you should try shooting without the in-camera sharpening....if you look closely at the highlights in her hair, you'll see that they are white in large patches.....if you nail the focus you won't have to rely on sharpeneing......and as it is, i think you did get the focus in this image.....the catchlights in her eyes are as they should be and i don't think any amount of sharpening.....in or out of the camera would have made them so well defined.....

if you google norton effect you might find what you're looking for as far as editing is concerned....i did it with your image and i thought it came out nicely.....



if you are offended by what i have done, i will gladly take it down......

post work was a simple auto preset in levels.....and then the rest was orton effect which consisted of duplicating the background twice, the top layer set to screen and merged down.....duplicating this layer, blurring with gaussian blur filter, and then set to multiply.....this layer is then reduced in opacity to my taste......that's it.......less than ten clicks.....

peeper

[ttosifa]

Sharpening is a big subject. I think the sharpness of the above photo is ok. I think a bigger problem is that the eyes seem slightly out of focus -- I think your focal plane is just in front of the eyes and gets the lips and the nose in focus. f/2.2 is tricky for getting good focus up close as just little movements by you or your subject will move the acceptable focus plane by a relatively large amount.

My favorite book on sharpening is "Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop CS2" by Bruce Fraser. It would seem dated, but the techniques are still very usable in the latest Photoshop (dunno about Lightroom). He is deceased, so he won't be updating it. I think it is still in print.

His main point is that sharpening is subject-driven. Your method of sharpening for a portrait is much different than for, say, photos of a tree or a house. He has examples that show how applying the wrong sharpening makes the photo obviously (very obviously) inferior to a properly sharpened one. He has examples to show the effects of undersharpening (edit: oops, meant oversharpening). If I remember correctly, he believed that most people undersharpen because they are not using the right method.

His methods are complicated, but I think well worth the time to understand. I believe that most of his ideas have been incorporated into a popular sharpening tool (Nik?) but I do not remember exactly. Anyway, the book is wonderful for understanding sharpening and gives step-by-step instructions for creating actions. Good luck!

[ttosifa]

Originally Posted by peeperita

i think you did get the focus in this image.....the catchlights in her eyes are as they should be and i don't think any amount of sharpening.....in or out of the camera would have made them so well defined.....

Hmm, I always look at the edges of the iris, and here they look a bit fuzzy to me (I looked at the big one on flickr). But the catchlights would be closer to what I think is the plane of focus given the roundness of the eyeball

[jax314]

Peeperita, I like your edit.....I tried something similar but have not posted it. Looks good!

Now, I thought I nailed the focus...but apparently not as good as I thought. Those of you who looked at the big picture in Flickr...could it seem slightly blurry because the picture was resized when I uploaded it to Flickr????

Thanks for the other suggestions...I'll check them out!

[jax314]

I am really wondering about FOCUS now...as it seems I used to THINK I knew what focus was.....it is hard for me to see fuzziness in the eyes in the original file I posted....

Here is another one from the same day....it has a distracting background, but is the FOCUS any better...

If anyone can tell a difference in the focusing of the two, PLEASE HELP ME TO SEE IT!!

THIS is what I need to know to grow as a photographer...having other people teach me what they see that I don't yet....

Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!