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D60 in-camera sharpening pretty good

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Michael Thomas Mitchell

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My first digital camera was the Nikon D1. Terrific machine, but I learned to love raw format with it. In camera JPG wasn't great and in-camera sharpening was AWFUL. When the D30 came along, I went CRW all the way. The problem was that there was no OFF setting for it. To avoid in-camera sharpening, you had to extract large 16-bit linear files and then process them. I came up with some decent sharpening methods (not too disimilar to Pekka's, I recently found out), and like the results. Thankfully, the D60 software allows you to completely disable sharpening during conversion. Unfortunately, the old Photoshop routine doesn't work so well.

It's going to take some time to re-develop a good linear conversion action, and that includes a good sharpening routine. Like the D30, the D60 images are VERY soft. (A good thing... more control later.) In the meantime, I thought, I'll just see how the proprietary sharpening works. So, after taking a very quick and informal portrait (note the visible band-aid), I process the raw file with sharpening on high. Expecting awful results, a'la Nikon D1, I was completely surprised. Not bad. A few little things here and there, but truly not bad. Good enough to use until I come up with something better that doesn't take 300MB or RAM and five minutes to process.

A thumbnail is below. Further down is a 900KB JPG (compression level 10) full size image. The image has had NO COLOR or exposure changes, and is relatively "virgin". The conversion type was 8-bit non-linear with standard settings and HIGH sharpness, directly into Photoshop from the camera. Please don't critique the portrait itself. (Something like this would ultimately be in bw anyway.) This is purely to demonstrate in-camera (well, camera software) sharpening in the D60. Lens was a 50 1.8 at f8.



M

 
Yes - I saw that from the first samples too, a bit more - but better - sharpening on the default setting. Now you show what the SW does on high sharpening, and if this is exactely the same as the in-camera sharpening, I would guess a sharpened JPEG could actually be useful directly out of this camera?
A request: could you save a link to the image with "no sharpening" ?
Michael Thomas Mitchell said:
Click to expand...
D60 delivery: April 2nd
--Magne
 
Michael Thomas Mitchell said:
My first digital camera was the Nikon D1. Terrific machine, but I
learned to love raw format with it. In camera JPG wasn't great and
in-camera sharpening was AWFUL. When the D30 came along, I went CRW
all the way. The problem was that there was no OFF setting for it.
To avoid in-camera sharpening, you had to extract large 16-bit
linear files and then process them. I came up with some decent
sharpening methods (not too disimilar to Pekka's, I recently found
out), and like the results. Thankfully, the D60 software allows you
to completely disable sharpening during conversion. Unfortunately,
the old Photoshop routine doesn't work so well.

It's going to take some time to re-develop a good linear conversion
action, and that includes a good sharpening routine. Like the D30,
the D60 images are VERY soft. (A good thing... more control later.)
In the meantime, I thought, I'll just see how the proprietary
sharpening works. So, after taking a very quick and informal
portrait (note the visible band-aid), I process the raw file with
sharpening on high. Expecting awful results, a'la Nikon D1, I was
completely surprised. Not bad. A few little things here and there,
but truly not bad. Good enough to use until I come up with
something better that doesn't take 300MB or RAM and five minutes to
process.

A thumbnail is below. Further down is a 900KB JPG (compression
level 10) full size image. The image has had NO COLOR or exposure
changes, and is relatively "virgin". The conversion type was 8-bit
non-linear with standard settings and HIGH sharpness, directly into
Photoshop from the camera. Please don't critique the portrait
itself. (Something like this would ultimately be in bw anyway.)
This is purely to demonstrate in-camera (well, camera software)
sharpening in the D60. Lens was a 50 1.8 at f8.



M

Click to expand...
Michael,

I like your image anyways...lighting is pleasing to me.

Question: why does your old sharpening action NOT work with the D60? I do not understand why it wouldn't. Normally I take a CRW and use Photoshop sharpening or use Fred Miranda's actions, I have tried Pekka's actions also. So why wouldn't those work for the D60 CRW?--Home page - http://home.attbi.com/~lozoyad
 
Michael,
What kind of lighting did you use for this shot?
I agree with Paul P. I love the "rushed not very well thoughout portrait"
David Lozoya said:
Michael Thomas Mitchell said:
My first digital camera was the Nikon D1. Terrific machine, but I
learned to love raw format with it. In camera JPG wasn't great and
in-camera sharpening was AWFUL. When the D30 came along, I went CRW
all the way. The problem was that there was no OFF setting for it.
To avoid in-camera sharpening, you had to extract large 16-bit
linear files and then process them. I came up with some decent
sharpening methods (not too disimilar to Pekka's, I recently found
out), and like the results. Thankfully, the D60 software allows you
to completely disable sharpening during conversion. Unfortunately,
the old Photoshop routine doesn't work so well.

It's going to take some time to re-develop a good linear conversion
action, and that includes a good sharpening routine. Like the D30,
the D60 images are VERY soft. (A good thing... more control later.)
In the meantime, I thought, I'll just see how the proprietary
sharpening works. So, after taking a very quick and informal
portrait (note the visible band-aid), I process the raw file with
sharpening on high. Expecting awful results, a'la Nikon D1, I was
completely surprised. Not bad. A few little things here and there,
but truly not bad. Good enough to use until I come up with
something better that doesn't take 300MB or RAM and five minutes to
process.

A thumbnail is below. Further down is a 900KB JPG (compression
level 10) full size image. The image has had NO COLOR or exposure
changes, and is relatively "virgin". The conversion type was 8-bit
non-linear with standard settings and HIGH sharpness, directly into
Photoshop from the camera. Please don't critique the portrait
itself. (Something like this would ultimately be in bw anyway.)
This is purely to demonstrate in-camera (well, camera software)
sharpening in the D60. Lens was a 50 1.8 at f8.



M

Click to expand...
Michael,

I like your image anyways...lighting is pleasing to me.

Question: why does your old sharpening action NOT work with the
D60? I do not understand why it wouldn't. Normally I take a CRW and
use Photoshop sharpening or use Fred Miranda's actions, I have
tried Pekka's actions also. So why wouldn't those work for the D60
CRW?
--
Home page - http://home.attbi.com/~lozoyad
Click to expand...
 
Finally, someone that knows how to take a freakin' picture!!

Looking at all the "I just got my D60, here's a photo" pictures lately, I almost wanted to cancel my pre-order..

Though I knew it was not the equip.

Nice shot. Great skills, great equip.

RM
Michael Thomas Mitchell said:
My first digital camera was the Nikon D1. Terrific machine, but I
learned to love raw format with it. In camera JPG wasn't great and
in-camera sharpening was AWFUL. When the D30 came along, I went CRW
all the way. The problem was that there was no OFF setting for it.
To avoid in-camera sharpening, you had to extract large 16-bit
linear files and then process them. I came up with some decent
sharpening methods (not too disimilar to Pekka's, I recently found
out), and like the results. Thankfully, the D60 software allows you
to completely disable sharpening during conversion. Unfortunately,
the old Photoshop routine doesn't work so well.

It's going to take some time to re-develop a good linear conversion
action, and that includes a good sharpening routine. Like the D30,
the D60 images are VERY soft. (A good thing... more control later.)
In the meantime, I thought, I'll just see how the proprietary
sharpening works. So, after taking a very quick and informal
portrait (note the visible band-aid), I process the raw file with
sharpening on high. Expecting awful results, a'la Nikon D1, I was
completely surprised. Not bad. A few little things here and there,
but truly not bad. Good enough to use until I come up with
something better that doesn't take 300MB or RAM and five minutes to
process.

A thumbnail is below. Further down is a 900KB JPG (compression
level 10) full size image. The image has had NO COLOR or exposure
changes, and is relatively "virgin". The conversion type was 8-bit
non-linear with standard settings and HIGH sharpness, directly into
Photoshop from the camera. Please don't critique the portrait
itself. (Something like this would ultimately be in bw anyway.)
This is purely to demonstrate in-camera (well, camera software)
sharpening in the D60. Lens was a 50 1.8 at f8.



M

Click to expand...
[email protected]
 
Give the man a disposable and he'd still produce an excellent picture.
mccance said:
Finally, someone that knows how to take a freakin' picture!!

Looking at all the "I just got my D60, here's a photo" pictures
lately, I almost wanted to cancel my pre-order..

Though I knew it was not the equip.

Nice shot. Great skills, great equip.

RM
Click to expand...
 
My thanks for the nice comments on the portraits. It was sort of a "sit down and let me grab a quick shot" kind of deal, so I only used one light, a softbox with a single 110ws light. Shot one with a reflector and one without. The reflector took the mood away and filled TOO much. Final verdict: ISO 100 @ f8, one light.

Ok, so here's the samples. I went back and took a crop of 4 images, each with the different sharpening settings. As you see, there's a drammatic difference between Sharpen OFF and Sharpen HIGH. On the old D1, there'd have been a ton of artifacts and the eyelashes would have ended up looking like ice crystals. (Of course, you'd have less than half the resolution, as well.

Why wouldn't my D30 sharpen routine work? Well, mostly because it resamples the orginal about 300%. That's just not practical with a D60 file. Resizing, I found, helped Photoshop find the edges a bit better, and resulted in a pleasing looking final image with less artifacts. I'm sure a good D60 solution can be found, but it might be a bit different. When I DID run my old routine, it took about 4 minutes to sharpen a single image. However, with the conversion (or in-camera) sharpening looking this decent, I may reconsider the need for it. Afterall, the files are big enough and consume plenty of processing power as it is, and I wouldn't mind at all one less thing to do. That said, I am so glad that it's an option to turn sharpening OFF.

In order, OFF, Low, Standard, High. Cropped 1:1 from the original, untouched 8-bit transfer direct to Photoshop.









M
Michael Thomas Mitchell said:
My first digital camera was the Nikon D1. Terrific machine, but I
learned to love raw format with it. In camera JPG wasn't great and
in-camera sharpening was AWFUL. When the D30 came along, I went CRW
all the way. The problem was that there was no OFF setting for it.
To avoid in-camera sharpening, you had to extract large 16-bit
linear files and then process them. I came up with some decent
sharpening methods (not too disimilar to Pekka's, I recently found
out), and like the results. Thankfully, the D60 software allows you
to completely disable sharpening during conversion. Unfortunately,
the old Photoshop routine doesn't work so well.

It's going to take some time to re-develop a good linear conversion
action, and that includes a good sharpening routine. Like the D30,
the D60 images are VERY soft. (A good thing... more control later.)
In the meantime, I thought, I'll just see how the proprietary
sharpening works. So, after taking a very quick and informal
portrait (note the visible band-aid), I process the raw file with
sharpening on high. Expecting awful results, a'la Nikon D1, I was
completely surprised. Not bad. A few little things here and there,
but truly not bad. Good enough to use until I come up with
something better that doesn't take 300MB or RAM and five minutes to
process.

A thumbnail is below. Further down is a 900KB JPG (compression
level 10) full size image. The image has had NO COLOR or exposure
changes, and is relatively "virgin". The conversion type was 8-bit
non-linear with standard settings and HIGH sharpness, directly into
Photoshop from the camera. Please don't critique the portrait
itself. (Something like this would ultimately be in bw anyway.)
This is purely to demonstrate in-camera (well, camera software)
sharpening in the D60. Lens was a 50 1.8 at f8.



M

Click to expand...
 
Yeah, a lot of users here are not pros, some of them are trying to be, some of them are very close. But show the freakin' respect for God sake! People are posting images here ans share them with others for various of reasons - by someones request, just becasuse they are excited about their new toy and just for fun. I assume, that you know better than anybody else how to create a good photo. Sorry, to bother you with our ugly D60 pictures. I guess, you have to find out some other users forum, something like "God like photographers only".
mccance said:
Finally, someone that knows how to take a freakin' picture!!

Looking at all the "I just got my D60, here's a photo" pictures
lately, I almost wanted to cancel my pre-order..

Though I knew it was not the equip.

Nice shot. Great skills, great equip.

RM
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for sharing this, it looks like a jpg workflow with the D60 can produce excellent results.

DJM
Michael Thomas Mitchell said:
My thanks for the nice comments on the portraits. It was sort of a
"sit down and let me grab a quick shot" kind of deal, so I only
used one light, a softbox with a single 110ws light. Shot one with
a reflector and one without. The reflector took the mood away and
filled TOO much. Final verdict: ISO 100 @ f8, one light.

Ok, so here's the samples. I went back and took a crop of 4 images,
each with the different sharpening settings. As you see, there's a
drammatic difference between Sharpen OFF and Sharpen HIGH. On the
old D1, there'd have been a ton of artifacts and the eyelashes
would have ended up looking like ice crystals. (Of course, you'd
have less than half the resolution, as well.

Why wouldn't my D30 sharpen routine work? Well, mostly because it
resamples the orginal about 300%. That's just not practical with a
D60 file. Resizing, I found, helped Photoshop find the edges a bit
better, and resulted in a pleasing looking final image with less
artifacts. I'm sure a good D60 solution can be found, but it might
be a bit different. When I DID run my old routine, it took about 4
minutes to sharpen a single image. However, with the conversion (or
in-camera) sharpening looking this decent, I may reconsider the
need for it. Afterall, the files are big enough and consume plenty
of processing power as it is, and I wouldn't mind at all one less
thing to do. That said, I am so glad that it's an option to turn
sharpening OFF.

In order, OFF, Low, Standard, High. Cropped 1:1 from the original,
untouched 8-bit transfer direct to Photoshop.
Click to expand...
 
Isn't off option for only raw files?

where do you turn off sharpening for jpeg files? I only see low, standard and high.

In the software i see off option , but it's only for raw files.--Bijanwww.pbase.com/bijan
 
Yes, JPG files already have sharpening applied in the camera itself. Only raw files support the option to disable sharpening completely. These images were acquired from the camera's raw files directly into PS in 8-bit format. (TIFF or JPG was irrelevent, since the file was acquired directly without any stage in the middle saving it to disc.)

With the D30, ONLY linear files were free of sharpening. The D60 software supports non-linear conversions from raw files without any sharpening.

M
Bijan said:
Isn't off option for only raw files?
where do you turn off sharpening for jpeg files? I only see low,
standard and high.
In the software i see off option , but it's only for raw files.
--
Bijan
http://www.pbase.com/bijan
Click to expand...
 
What do you mean by turning sharpening off? I see low,med,high but no off?

R] http://www.houseofphotography.com
Michael Thomas Mitchell said:
Ok, so here's the samples. I went back and took a crop of 4 images,
each with the different sharpening settings. As you see, there's a
drammatic difference between Sharpen OFF and Sharpen HIGH. On the
old D1, there'd have been a ton of artifacts and the eyelashes
would have ended up looking like ice crystals. (Of course, you'd
have less than half the resolution, as well.

Why wouldn't my D30 sharpen routine work? Well, mostly because it
resamples the orginal about 300%. That's just not practical with a
D60 file. Resizing, I found, helped Photoshop find the edges a bit
better, and resulted in a pleasing looking final image with less
artifacts. I'm sure a good D60 solution can be found, but it might
be a bit different. When I DID run my old routine, it took about 4
minutes to sharpen a single image. However, with the conversion (or
in-camera) sharpening looking this decent, I may reconsider the
need for it. Afterall, the files are big enough and consume plenty
of processing power as it is, and I wouldn't mind at all one less
thing to do. That said, I am so glad that it's an option to turn
sharpening OFF.

In order, OFF, Low, Standard, High. Cropped 1:1 from the original,
untouched 8-bit transfer direct to Photoshop.









M
Michael Thomas Mitchell said:
My first digital camera was the Nikon D1. Terrific machine, but I
learned to love raw format with it. In camera JPG wasn't great and
in-camera sharpening was AWFUL. When the D30 came along, I went CRW
all the way. The problem was that there was no OFF setting for it.
To avoid in-camera sharpening, you had to extract large 16-bit
linear files and then process them. I came up with some decent
sharpening methods (not too disimilar to Pekka's, I recently found
out), and like the results. Thankfully, the D60 software allows you
to completely disable sharpening during conversion. Unfortunately,
the old Photoshop routine doesn't work so well.

It's going to take some time to re-develop a good linear conversion
action, and that includes a good sharpening routine. Like the D30,
the D60 images are VERY soft. (A good thing... more control later.)
In the meantime, I thought, I'll just see how the proprietary
sharpening works. So, after taking a very quick and informal
portrait (note the visible band-aid), I process the raw file with
sharpening on high. Expecting awful results, a'la Nikon D1, I was
completely surprised. Not bad. A few little things here and there,
but truly not bad. Good enough to use until I come up with
something better that doesn't take 300MB or RAM and five minutes to
process.

A thumbnail is below. Further down is a 900KB JPG (compression
level 10) full size image. The image has had NO COLOR or exposure
changes, and is relatively "virgin". The conversion type was 8-bit
non-linear with standard settings and HIGH sharpness, directly into
Photoshop from the camera. Please don't critique the portrait
itself. (Something like this would ultimately be in bw anyway.)
This is purely to demonstrate in-camera (well, camera software)
sharpening in the D60. Lens was a 50 1.8 at f8.



M

Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Maybe they are referring to the RAW to TIFF conversion?

I haven't yet experimented with this, but I think that the RAW file is unprocessed regardless of the sharpening setting in the camera (which is

-1,0,+1). However, in the Canon RAW converter, there is a setting to use "in camera settings", none, etc. during the process of creating the TIFF.
If this is correct, this is where you might turn it off.
Ron Kramer said:
What do you mean by turning sharpening off? I see low,med,high but
no off?
Click to expand...
 
Hmm, not sure - but I thought the raw file included the sharpness setting that the camera is set up for. Meaning - low, normal or high. The software will allow you to chance the setting after it's taken. But from what I understand there is still 3 settings. (I don't think there is a off) off would simply be using the setting the camera is set up for. (one of the 3 settings).

The sample image was rather pretty, but the hairs in her eyes drove me nuts. So I started tweaking them, before I knew it - 5 miuntes later I had cleaned up the whole image. Here's a touched up vers. I hope the original poster doesn't mind.


Critter1 said:
Maybe they are referring to the RAW to TIFF conversion?
Click to expand...
 
mccance said:
Finally, someone that knows how to take a freakin' picture!!
Click to expand...
Actually - (technically) the hand is very poorly posed. It looks almost deformed. But the light and expression are beautiful. I think it's a nice shot. Certainly better than most I see.
 
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