Soft sharpness setting REALY soften images

My thought about sharpness setting in D7/D7i is bad. I supposed that sharpness setting SOFT= NO SHARPNESS. Bad, very bad. SOFT setting REALY blurring image. Proof is here. I took one raw image and convert it with SOFT, NORMAL, HARD sharpness setting and with OFF setting (in RAW conversion dialog press Ctrl and click OK button).

First image is combo from these 4 images,



Second image also, but 200% resize.



JK

Jiri

I understand that most digital cameras have their built-in amount of in-camera sharpening applied before output. In cameras like ours where you can choose to output without in-camera sharpening, a setting many of us use, one often has to apply sharpening in an editor which is more flexible and hopefully at a higher quality level. For screen viewing, I like using USM(LAB mode) in PS at around 120%, 1.5 radius, threshold 3. For printing via my inkjet, heavier dosage at about 180% seems nice for most shots for me. Alternatively, if the picture has noise (like yours, prob shot with flash and ISO200?), you can try running the file through Neat Image with default sharpening, and say 70% noise reduction to get a VERY sharp and clean looking image.

On another thread, you asked about linear gamma output from RAW. Have you tried processing the 'linear TIFF' file and assigning in PS the MltDim7r profile itself or the various modified profiles (available at arnason.com). There is one with iTRC curve removed and gamma set to 1. A lot of work involving applying curve(s) and fine adjustment on colour hues needs to be done but the result is better than straight DIVU/DIVUfix output with CM on.

Gordon Chau

For postprocessing i prefer minimum in camera sharpening. For this reason i decided set sharpen on SOFT. Experiment with raw conversion change my previous decision. I'd like to convert raw images with OFF sharpenig (ctrl+ok button), but this procedure is not acceptable for bunch of .mrw files in batch conversion. Now i don't know, what is better.Sharpen on SOFT destroy detail in image, sharpen on Normal increase noise and sharpen artefacts. (

(For an example Nikon CP5700 offer image sharpening on - Auto, High, Normal, Low and OFF !!)

jk

Gordon Chau said:

Jiri

I understand that most digital cameras have their built-in amount
of in-camera sharpening applied before output. In cameras like ours
where you can choose to output without in-camera sharpening, a
setting many of us use, one often has to apply sharpening in an
editor which is more flexible and hopefully at a higher quality
level. For screen viewing, I like using USM(LAB mode) in PS at
around 120%, 1.5 radius, threshold 3. For printing via my inkjet,
heavier dosage at about 180% seems nice for most shots for me.
Alternatively, if the picture has noise (like yours, prob shot with
flash and ISO200?), you can try running the file through Neat Image
with default sharpening, and say 70% noise reduction to get a VERY
sharp and clean looking image.

On another thread, you asked about linear gamma output from RAW.
Have you tried processing the 'linear TIFF' file and assigning in
PS the MltDim7r profile itself or the various modified profiles
(available at arnason.com). There is one with iTRC curve removed
and gamma set to 1. A lot of work involving applying curve(s) and
fine adjustment on colour hues needs to be done but the result is
better than straight DIVU/DIVUfix output with CM on.

Gordon Chau

Click to expand...

In the manual it implies that the "Normal" setting means that no filter is applied. Can this be correct? Is the sharpness filter applied after the raw image is taken with an option to actually soften it?

Jiri Kozubik said:

(For an example Nikon CP5700 offer image sharpening on - Auto,
High, Normal, Low and OFF !!)

jk

Gordon Chau said:

Jiri

I understand that most digital cameras have their built-in amount
of in-camera sharpening applied before output. In cameras like ours
where you can choose to output without in-camera sharpening, a
setting many of us use, one often has to apply sharpening in an
editor which is more flexible and hopefully at a higher quality
level. For screen viewing, I like using USM(LAB mode) in PS at
around 120%, 1.5 radius, threshold 3. For printing via my inkjet,
heavier dosage at about 180% seems nice for most shots for me.
Alternatively, if the picture has noise (like yours, prob shot with
flash and ISO200?), you can try running the file through Neat Image
with default sharpening, and say 70% noise reduction to get a VERY
sharp and clean looking image.

On another thread, you asked about linear gamma output from RAW.
Have you tried processing the 'linear TIFF' file and assigning in
PS the MltDim7r profile itself or the various modified profiles
(available at arnason.com). There is one with iTRC curve removed
and gamma set to 1. A lot of work involving applying curve(s) and
fine adjustment on colour hues needs to be done but the result is
better than straight DIVU/DIVUfix output with CM on.

Gordon Chau

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
Steve

I agree. I find "soft" sharpening to be disastrous - it renders some detail irretrievable with post-processing (i.e. sharpening in Photoshop). I shot 300 pix one day like this, before getting home to find out how bad it is - regretted it quite a lot.

BUT there's a big but here. That's my experience when using JPEG Fine.

What's interesting about the D7 is that a TIFF image with normal sharpening shows less sharpening than a JPEG Fine (this is because some JPEG artefacts look like sharpening artefacts). Weird but true. Further a RAW image converted by DIVU with sharpening set to Normal shows even less sharpening than the TIFF - it kinda looks un-sharpened, in fact...

It's worth pointing out that if you look closely at fine detail in a RAW image and a TIFF image they differ. For some reason RAW images have a kinda "spotty" effect on very fine lines in the image (e.g. a distant rope, or a fine strand of hair) which isn't present in the TIFF. I actually think TIFF images look better in terms of fine detail and sharpening than RAW images.

So in many ways a TIFF out of the camera shows the best fine detail and sharpening. But in practicality a JPEG Fine meets my standards.

I haven't got much of a feel for the D7i, yet. Overall it definitely produces better images than the D7 - the noise character is significantly less intrusive and the images it produces seem to have more "lattitude" for adjustment.

Jawed

Again, this is just my assumption: 'normal' means what Minolta thinks is the correct level of in-camera sharpening. 'Soft' means a smaller dose of in-camera sharpening. In the manual, as Jiri pointed out, it says 'no sharpening' is applied in Raw using the Ctrl+OK command or the Crtl+shift+OK command.

Jawed's observations are interesting. He knows a great deal about these machines and it is nice to have him contributing again after 6 months of absence. Jawed, you must have bought a D7i.

Gordon Chau

Steve Jacob said:

Jiri Kozubik said:

(For an example Nikon CP5700 offer image sharpening on - Auto,
High, Normal, Low and OFF !!)

jk

Gordon Chau said:

Jiri

I understand that most digital cameras have their built-in amount
of in-camera sharpening applied before output. In cameras like ours
where you can choose to output without in-camera sharpening, a
setting many of us use, one often has to apply sharpening in an
editor which is more flexible and hopefully at a higher quality
level. For screen viewing, I like using USM(LAB mode) in PS at
around 120%, 1.5 radius, threshold 3. For printing via my inkjet,
heavier dosage at about 180% seems nice for most shots for me.
Alternatively, if the picture has noise (like yours, prob shot with
flash and ISO200?), you can try running the file through Neat Image
with default sharpening, and say 70% noise reduction to get a VERY
sharp and clean looking image.

On another thread, you asked about linear gamma output from RAW.
Have you tried processing the 'linear TIFF' file and assigning in
PS the MltDim7r profile itself or the various modified profiles
(available at arnason.com). There is one with iTRC curve removed
and gamma set to 1. A lot of work involving applying curve(s) and
fine adjustment on colour hues needs to be done but the result is
better than straight DIVU/DIVUfix output with CM on.

Gordon Chau

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
Steve

Click to expand...

Gordon Chau said:

Jawed's observations are interesting. He knows a great deal about
these machines and it is nice to have him contributing again after
6 months of absence. Jawed, you must have bought a D7i.

Click to expand...

Erm, no. I will be getting a D7i. But I have to find a job first (it's a way of motivating me to get a job, otherwise I'll take another 6 months off work...)

Jawed

Jawed said:

It's worth pointing out that if you look closely at fine detail in
a RAW image and a TIFF image they differ. For some reason RAW
images have a kinda "spotty" effect on very fine lines in the image
(e.g. a distant rope, or a fine strand of hair) which isn't present
in the TIFF. I actually think TIFF images look better in terms of
fine detail and sharpening than RAW images.

Click to expand...

Jawed, what do you mean 'spotty' feel? I can not quite understand this part of your post and it seems to have all the essense.

--
Pabletto

http://www.pbase.com/pabletto
(samples taken with the MINOLTA DiMAGE 7)
Last update 26 February 2002 (MORE food photos)

Pabletto said:

Jawed, what do you mean 'spotty' feel? I can not quite understand
this part of your post and it seems to have all the essense.

Click to expand...

Instead of a fine line in the picture appearing as a fine line (e.g. a rope in the distance appears as a very narrow vertical strip of grey pixels, with some fuzzyness either side) it is made up of vertically aligned pixels that seem "separate" from each other. Viewed normally they merge into a line.

But since everyone round here views their images at 200%, I just thought I'd point out that RAW images sometimes look a little weird.

Jawed

Jawed49152 said:

Jawed49152 said:

Jawed, what do you mean 'spotty' feel? I can not quite understand
this part of your post and it seems to have all the essense.

Click to expand...

Instead of a fine line in the picture appearing as a fine line
(e.g. a rope in the distance appears as a very narrow vertical
strip of grey pixels, with some fuzzyness either side) it is made
up of vertically aligned pixels that seem "separate" from each
other. Viewed normally they merge into a line.

Click to expand...

I've seen the same problem. IMHO it makes RAW unusable - at least when RAW is converted to TIFF using DIVU. It's almost like I could see the Bayer battern; thin, coloured lines appear as dotted lines. Now that's what I call a lousy interpolation algorithm.

It also proves the lens is much sharper than it appears. Unfortunately the interpolation and sharpening algorithms are from this millennium.

Marko

Jawed said:

Jawed49152 said:

Jawed, what do you mean 'spotty' feel? I can not quite understand
this part of your post and it seems to have all the essense.

Click to expand...

Instead of a fine line in the picture appearing as a fine line
(e.g. a rope in the distance appears as a very narrow vertical
strip of grey pixels, with some fuzzyness either side) it is made
up of vertically aligned pixels that seem "separate" from each
other. Viewed normally they merge into a line.

But since everyone round here views their images at 200%, I just
thought I'd point out that RAW images sometimes look a little weird.

Jawed

Click to expand...

Thanks for the calrification Jawed. Could this be due to the non-interpolation of the RAW files?

--
Pabletto

http://www.pbase.com/pabletto
(samples taken with the MINOLTA DiMAGE 7)
Last update 26 February 2002 (MORE food photos)

Pabletto said:

Thanks for the calrification Jawed. Could this be due to the
non-interpolation of the RAW files?

Click to expand...

No idea. It's just software (that does interpolation, or converts RAW into TIFF) in the end...

Jawed

Well I have seen some strange results while converting
in Divu. There was random pixels spread around some objects.
But this was in Divu 1.1.0 only the version 1.1.1 didn't show that
artifacts.

Dalibor

Dalibor Jelinek said:

Well I have seen some strange results while converting
in Divu. There was random pixels spread around some objects.
But this was in Divu 1.1.0 only the version 1.1.1 didn't show that
artifacts.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip. Looks like I have to give DIVU another try... as well as I have to try other programs. That has also been on my to do list for several months.

Marko