DP2M shot: Which do you prefer?

To be honest - there is so little difference that either is perfectly acceptable.

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definitely second one

I prefer the top one because it's darker.  But then I've been looking at too many DP3M samples lately...

-Scott

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Why?

I prefer the second image. Why? Because the hair on the first image is too well-defined so it makes your dog look lifeless - like it's been stuffed by a taxidermist.  The second image has more 'life' to it.

Well put. The first one is very gritty indeed. It does look more realistic to me though. The second one looks more like a memory: slightly soft.

I prefer the top one. It looks more 'real'. The bottom one looks more like it was taken by a Canon DSLR with a soft lens.

On my good and calibrated monitor, the second one is way better. The fur looks like a dogs fur. Its soft and nice. The first one is by far too contrasty. Might be nice for some other picture, but not for this dog IMHO.

But moving the window to my cheap TN monitor besides the good one, I actually may prefer the first one. The second one then looks flat.

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As a portrait, the second one is more pleasing to my eyes, including the background. The first one looks somewhat "sterile" in comparison. I guess this is a simple matter of preference between naked documentary and appealing rendering. Both version of post processing have different values in my opinion.

Cheers

Richard

The second one, because the background is less obtrusive. In the first one, you can see some somewhat unattractive bokeh back there.

I recommend cloning out that vertical line to the right of the dog's left shoulder, and cropping a little tighter.

In my opinion it is a toss up.  The first one has more definition and the second has more emotion.  So depending upon what you are wanting will determine which one you choose.

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Matt
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Thank you all for the advices and opinions!

The DP2 is an incredible machine but the hair's appearance of my pet is always disappointingly hard and unrealistic (not only the human skin is a victim of the Merril sensor:-)). That is why I decided to do a little experiment with PP.

The first version is exported as tiff with standard settings except sharpness to MINIMUM(-2). Then imported to Photoshop and cropped. No additional PP (original foveon look). The second one adds noise reduction to MAXIMUM (Photoshop, Intensity= 10) and unsharp mask to taste.

In this way I have managed to recover the original hair smoothness.

Cheers

Omar

I guess that the DP2's resolution is not enough to capture the hair nicely.

Maybe the Merrill version will do a better job.

You can test if thats the case by doing a close up. Multiply the distance with 0.6, and you simulate a camera with 3 times the amount of pixels. Dont forget to have a smaller aperture as the DOF might be too shallow.

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EXIF suggests that the images were taken with DP2 Merrill

The bottom one looks a more natural to me.  But I don't like over sharpened images either.

--
Gary Dean Mercer Clark

+1 On my profiled wide-gamut monitor, the second is preferable. The darker and grittier look of the first image makes the out of focus areas harsh and ugly. Neither are particularly flattering of the dog, IMO. It looks as though this might be a significant crop of the original? If so, the image is falling apart and incresing the sharpening doesn't compensate.

Fill us in on you own opinion, other parameters of difference in processing between the two, and what you were hoping to achieve with this image.

Best,

Rand

OK .... hmmmmm .... I am surprised.

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They are different but each of them has its own merits of attraction.

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I've only applied sharpness in the second. The first is a crop exported as tiff from SPP with sharpness= -2.

That is the question, the DP2M images need be softened a bit to retrieve the appearance of some textures such as hair, human skin ...