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USM Tips

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SFishy

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I have often found it difficult to decide on the amount of USM to use when processing a shot. I know the 20D will be a whole new world for me, so I thought I'd ask for some tips that might also benefit others.

For the purpose of this, here's the ideal way to present your tip.

Take the original raw/jpg and make a small crop of the untouched original.
Apply your USM and take note of your settings. Save it to a new file.

Post the original crop of the untouched version as your "before" and post the sharpened one below it as your "after". Include the USM settings you used.

Any other tips you want to include, feel free.

ps. Try to take smallish 100% crops of the focal point of the image so we don't all have to wade through HUGE files to see results.

Amy
--

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.
http://www.something-fishy.com/photography
 
SFishy said:
I have often found it difficult to decide on the amount of USM to
use when processing a shot. I know the 20D will be a whole new
world for me, so I thought I'd ask for some tips that might also
benefit others.
Click to expand...
Canon has some advice in this document:

http://www.photoworkshop.com/canon/EOS_Digital.pdf

starting on page 30. Though the advice is for series 1 DSLRs, the info is equally applicable to the 20D.

Phil
 
Using USM with a large radius is a very powerful technique and cannot be illustrated with small crops. I've described and illustrated a sample workflow in a previous thread here:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1019&message=11816948

Here I describe not just what settings I used but also why. I hope it's helpful.
SFishy said:
I have often found it difficult to decide on the amount of USM to
use when processing a shot. I know the 20D will be a whole new
world for me, so I thought I'd ask for some tips that might also
benefit others.

For the purpose of this, here's the ideal way to present your tip.

Take the original raw/jpg and make a small crop of the untouched
original.
Apply your USM and take note of your settings. Save it to a new file.
Post the original crop of the untouched version as your "before"
and post the sharpened one below it as your "after". Include the
USM settings you used.

Any other tips you want to include, feel free.

ps. Try to take smallish 100% crops of the focal point of the image
so we don't all have to wade through HUGE files to see results.

Amy
--
Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing
which ones to keep.
http://www.something-fishy.com/photography
Click to expand...
--
http://www.pbase.com/victorengel/



Halloween Eclipse, 2004
 
Is to see what USM would look like on a 100% image. Apply the USM first if you like. There are many people who have no idea what a properly USM'ed picture should look like at 100%.

I've been a graphic artist for 15 years, and I know how to apply USM. I could take a guess and probably do a decent job on a fullsize 20D image. What that 100% images will look like when complete, whether it's really the optimal setting, well I have nothing to compare to. These crops are for that frame of reference.

The settings are secondary - an added bonus to gather info.

Amy
Victor Engel said:
Using USM with a large radius is a very powerful technique and
cannot be illustrated with small crops. I've described and
illustrated a sample workflow in a previous thread here:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1019&message=11816948

Here I describe not just what settings I used but also why. I hope
it's helpful.
Click to expand...
 
I think you're missing my point. There are some applications of USM where the radius is large enough that when you see a small crop of the picture, you're not seeing the effect of the USM application. In this case you need to see either the whole picture or a resized version of the whole picture.

As far as optimal settings, the optimal settings are dependent on the content of the picture and the intended output device or media. So I don't know how much useful information you will get from this excercise.
SFishy said:
I've been a graphic artist for 15 years, and I know how to apply
USM. I could take a guess and probably do a decent job on a
fullsize 20D image. What that 100% images will look like when
complete, whether it's really the optimal setting, well I have
nothing to compare to. These crops are for that frame of reference.

The settings are secondary - an added bonus to gather info.

Amy
Victor Engel said:
Using USM with a large radius is a very powerful technique and
cannot be illustrated with small crops. I've described and
illustrated a sample workflow in a previous thread here:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1019&message=11816948

Here I describe not just what settings I used but also why. I hope
it's helpful.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
http://www.pbase.com/victorengel/



Halloween Eclipse, 2004
 
BTW-Victor, I like the popping involving unsharp mask you did on face and flowers in the other thread. It was the best of all the samples show, I thought...

Rather than showing exact unsharp mask technqiues here are some ways to think about the tool:

1) Recover detail in the native full frame image. Small radius, medium to large amounts, no threashold; the goal it to boost the high frequency information (think of equalize) to provide the best apparent high-frequency response; it's about amplifying detail that's subued near the response limits of the lens/sensor. The Canon online literature talks about this in the context of the 1DMKII.

2) Artistic interpretation ala Victor; Making images attractive in terms of overall contrast relatioships. Large radius, small amounts, low but variable thresholds

3) Rendering for a display medium; making a given presentation look good, be it web, or print, or film/video. Values are chosen based on the viewing resolution/distance of the image and the characteristics of the display medium. IMO the threshold value is most about controling amplicaition of noise and most important in display context, where the final jugement of appearance is made.

Some editing techniques can produce an attractive result under a given set of assumptions about rendering/display but effectively destroy the image for other purposes. Unsharp mask is one of these, so it's important to think about the tool in terms of an overall workflow.

The first is oriented towards all purposes.
The second to a vision of the scene
The last to a method of display

None, any, or all may be appropriate.

-wire
 
Wire Moore said:
BTW-Victor, I like the popping involving unsharp mask you did on
face and flowers in the other thread. It was the best of all the
samples show, I thought...

Rather than showing exact unsharp mask technqiues here are some
ways to think about the tool:

1) Recover detail in the native full frame image. Small radius,
medium to large amounts, no threashold; the goal it to boost the
high frequency information (think of equalize) to provide the best
apparent high-frequency response; it's about amplifying detail
that's subued near the response limits of the lens/sensor. The
Canon online literature talks about this in the context of the
1DMKII.

2) Artistic interpretation ala Victor; Making images attractive in
terms of overall contrast relatioships. Large radius, small
amounts, low but variable thresholds

3) Rendering for a display medium; making a given presentation look
good, be it web, or print, or film/video. Values are chosen based
on the viewing resolution/distance of the image and the
characteristics of the display medium. IMO the threshold value is
most about controling amplicaition of noise and most important in
display context, where the final jugement of appearance is made.

Some editing techniques can produce an attractive result under a
given set of assumptions about rendering/display but effectively
destroy the image for other purposes. Unsharp mask is one of these,
so it's important to think about the tool in terms of an overall
workflow.

The first is oriented towards all purposes.
The second to a vision of the scene
The last to a method of display

None, any, or all may be appropriate.

-wire
Click to expand...
 
Victor,

I'm not talking about posting a sample the size of a postage stamp. Big enough to see the effect obviously (duh).

People can LEARN from see real-application examples. Your settings are secondary. From see what out-of-the-camera looks like vs. what USM'ed looks like helps people to know what to shoot for.

I already understand it's subjective. I already understand it varies. This was meant to help newbies to the 20D see what out-of-camera pictures look like when they start, and what a good end result could be using USM. I could show you lots of bad examples of USM, and part of the reason they are bad is because not everyone has a good knowledge of what USM does or even what proper sharpening should look like.

Amy
Victor Engel said:
As far as optimal settings, the optimal settings are dependent on
the content of the picture and the intended output device or media.
So I don't know how much useful information you will get from this
excercise.
SFishy said:
I've been a graphic artist for 15 years, and I know how to apply
USM. I could take a guess and probably do a decent job on a
fullsize 20D image. What that 100% images will look like when
complete, whether it's really the optimal setting, well I have
nothing to compare to. These crops are for that frame of reference.

The settings are secondary - an added bonus to gather info.

Amy
Victor Engel said:
Using USM with a large radius is a very powerful technique and
cannot be illustrated with small crops. I've described and
illustrated a sample workflow in a previous thread here:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1019&message=11816948

Here I describe not just what settings I used but also why. I hope
it's helpful.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
http://www.pbase.com/victorengel/



Halloween Eclipse, 2004
Click to expand...
--

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.
http://www.something-fishy.com/photography
 
I also find it very difficult to know how much usm to apply. Usually, I use the luminance sharpening method described by Michael Reichmann on his site (convert to lab mode, use usm on the luminance layer only, convert back to rgb). Here are two crops, unsharpened and sharpened with 210, 0.9, 0 in Photoshop respectively. I'd like them even sharper but am afraid of overdoing it. These are tif files converted from raw with canon's utility.





-- Erik
 
Erik T. said:
I also find it very difficult to know how much usm to apply.
Usually, I use the luminance sharpening method described by Michael
Reichmann on his site (convert to lab mode, use usm on the
luminance layer only, convert back to rgb). Here are two crops,
unsharpened and sharpened with 210, 0.9, 0 in Photoshop
respectively. I'd like them even sharper but am afraid of overdoing
it. These are tif files converted from raw with canon's utility.
Click to expand...
Do not, do not, do not, ever, ever, ever convert your images to Lab mode as a part of a typical workflow due to the image degratdation any move to Lab causes. Move to Lab is an old-school technique that isn't required any more if you are using Photoshop since I think 5 or 6.

The move to Lab will not ruin the shot at the momet as anyone who's used it can see that it won't. But it has consequences over the life of an image not unlike improper use of JPEG (though you can do a heck of a lot more damage in one save-reedit w/JPEG).

Do an unsharp mask and "Fade..." to "Luminosity" to achieve the same effect with much less degrading consqeuences.

Moving to Lab and back to RGB does significantly degrade the image in a fashion that accumulates errors. Repeated moving to Lab for editing is a disaster for image fidelity. it's even more inappropriate to use the old technqie of blurring the ab channels to control noise because most of the damage caused by moves to Lab and back to RGB are in chroma noise.

Any technique involving a move to Lab and back to RGB should be abandoned in favor of layer blending and Fade... to Luminosity or Color.

-wire
 
You're right. Thanks. I do sharpening as the last step in my workflow and have not noticed any degradation yet, but it does occur. Sadly, since I'm on Photoshop 7, I cannot use the blending layers technique without converting from 16 bit to 8 bit first, which of course causes an even greter degradation of image information. But once you are in 8 bit mode, here is exactly how to do it:
http://www.gbbc.org.uk/crh/sharpeninlummode.htm

-- Erik
 
...that you do some experimenting yourself when you get your 20D?

The degree of sharpening depends on a whole load of things and only you can decide what will work best for you with your particular workflow. Trying to get others to provide you with an online tutorial to save you time will only show their own preferred technique and the result that pleases them. It is also very difficult to assess what works well in a print of a given size from small sections of images displayed on a computer monitor.

David
SFishy said:
I have often found it difficult to decide on the amount of USM to
use when processing a shot. I know the 20D will be a whole new
world for me, so I thought I'd ask for some tips that might also
benefit others.

For the purpose of this, here's the ideal way to present your tip.

Take the original raw/jpg and make a small crop of the untouched
original.
Apply your USM and take note of your settings. Save it to a new file.
Post the original crop of the untouched version as your "before"
and post the sharpened one below it as your "after". Include the
USM settings you used.

Any other tips you want to include, feel free.

ps. Try to take smallish 100% crops of the focal point of the image
so we don't all have to wade through HUGE files to see results.

Amy
--
Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing
which ones to keep.
http://www.something-fishy.com/photography
Click to expand...
 
If you've been a graphic artist for 15 years and know how to apply USM then surely you should be advising us! After all, we've only had our 20D images for a few short months.

We've given you lots of advice through these forums recently - how about giving us some back in return?

David
SFishy said:
I've been a graphic artist for 15 years, and I know how to apply
USM. I could take a guess and probably do a decent job on a
fullsize 20D image. What that 100% images will look like when
complete, whether it's really the optimal setting, well I have
nothing to compare to. These crops are for that frame of reference.

The settings are secondary - an added bonus to gather info.

Amy
Victor Engel said:
Using USM with a large radius is a very powerful technique and
cannot be illustrated with small crops. I've described and
illustrated a sample workflow in a previous thread here:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1019&message=11816948

Here I describe not just what settings I used but also why. I hope
it's helpful.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Once I actually have the 20D in my hands.

There is one thread I contributed to where someone wanted improvements to their picture and I posted my version.

And, I've certainly shared my buying tips for people on a tight budget.

Amy
David R Stout said:
If you've been a graphic artist for 15 years and know how to apply
USM then surely you should be advising us! After all, we've only
had our 20D images for a few short months.

We've given you lots of advice through these forums recently - how
about giving us some back in return?

David
Click to expand...
 
David,

I wasn't looking for an online tutorial. I was looking for a frame of reference that would not only be helpful to myself and others.

Seeing as this is so difficult for others to participate in and provide, lets just skip it rather than engage in arguing about it... it's a waste of bandwidth and time. I'll be happy to provide my own tips and results after my 20D arrives and I start taking photos.

Amy
David R Stout said:
...that you do some experimenting yourself when you get your 20D?

The degree of sharpening depends on a whole load of things and only
you can decide what will work best for you with your particular
workflow. Trying to get others to provide you with an online
tutorial to save you time will only show their own preferred
technique and the result that pleases them. It is also very
difficult to assess what works well in a print of a given size from
small sections of images displayed on a computer monitor.

David
Click to expand...
 
SFishy, I think I understand what you are looking for but I don't know how to provide it. What I think I know has been gleaned from trying things a bunch of ways.

If you weren't already aware of the fact, sharpness and 'pop' are about contrast relationships in the image. This is ultimately subjective, which is why folks are hestitant to give any firm instructions--we do it my eye, and some of the posts here emphasize this point.

The one thing that every prospective 20D user should be aware of is that the camera may look a little soft at full res due to the very conservative amount of default sharpening the designers have provided in this model and also the nature of the sensor design. While out-of-box softness is a common lament, the designers have really done us a favor because if they added more pizazz by default the most capable users would be tripped up by noise and artifacts later that, though appealing to a P&S users, will hinder better results from careful postprocesing work.

This brings us to what I wrote about as point (1) in my first post on this thread: equalization of the high-frequency response of the camera.

If you are working with RAW some sharpening at very low radius and high values, say 0.6,200% will bring important detail out of well-focused, steady shots, and I feel can be used almost regardless of the future purpose of the image.

In this purpose I find the Adobe Camera Raw sharpness control to be inferior to the Photoshop unsharp mask because of the edge artifacts it quickly introduces. 'Same for the in-camera sharpening for JPEG.

Yet the latter two controls still have tremendous value and are quite useful, even necessary, if preferable tools are not available.

And if using ACR, you should become familiar with the "Luninance Smoothing" and "Color Noise Reductuon" tools as they can help you achieve noise control with results very much like the in-camera JPEG processing, should you like, need, or want such for your raw shots.

You will need to try some tools and see what you think. Use restraint in application of sharpening until you get a sense of the implications by trial and error.

-wire
SFishy said:
I wasn't looking for an online tutorial. I was looking for a frame
of reference that would not only be helpful to myself and others.

Seeing as this is so difficult for others to participate in and
provide, lets just skip it rather than engage in arguing about
it... it's a waste of bandwidth and time. I'll be happy to provide
my own tips and results after my 20D arrives and I start taking
photos.

Amy
David R Stout said:
...that you do some experimenting yourself when you get your 20D?

The degree of sharpening depends on a whole load of things and only
you can decide what will work best for you with your particular
workflow. Trying to get others to provide you with an online
tutorial to save you time will only show their own preferred
technique and the result that pleases them. It is also very
difficult to assess what works well in a print of a given size from
small sections of images displayed on a computer monitor.

David
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Wire,

I appreciate your response -- while I was already aware of quite a lot of it, I'm sure other 20D Newbies are not... and they should be (as you said).

And don't worry about me not using restraint -- there is nothing I hate more than an oversharpened image ;)

Amy
Wire Moore said:
SFishy, I think I understand what you are looking for but I don't
know how to provide it. What I think I know has been gleaned from
trying things a bunch of ways.

If you weren't already aware of the fact, sharpness and 'pop' are
about contrast relationships in the image. This is ultimately
subjective, which is why folks are hestitant to give any firm
instructions--we do it my eye, and some of the posts here emphasize
this point.

The one thing that every prospective 20D user should be aware of is
that the camera may look a little soft at full res due to the very
conservative amount of default sharpening the designers have
provided in this model and also the nature of the sensor design.
While out-of-box softness is a common lament, the designers have
really done us a favor because if they added more pizazz by default
the most capable users would be tripped up by noise and artifacts
later that, though appealing to a P&S users, will hinder better
results from careful postprocesing work.

This brings us to what I wrote about as point (1) in my first post
on this thread: equalization of the high-frequency response of the
camera.

If you are working with RAW some sharpening at very low radius and
high values, say 0.6,200% will bring important detail out of
well-focused, steady shots, and I feel can be used almost
regardless of the future purpose of the image.

In this purpose I find the Adobe Camera Raw sharpness control to be
inferior to the Photoshop unsharp mask because of the edge
artifacts it quickly introduces. 'Same for the in-camera sharpening
for JPEG.

Yet the latter two controls still have tremendous value and are
quite useful, even necessary, if preferable tools are not available.

And if using ACR, you should become familiar with the "Luninance
Smoothing" and "Color Noise Reductuon" tools as they can help you
achieve noise control with results very much like the in-camera
JPEG processing, should you like, need, or want such for your raw
shots.

You will need to try some tools and see what you think. Use
restraint in application of sharpening until you get a sense of the
implications by trial and error.

-wire
Click to expand...
 
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