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Sharpening pixel-shift images in Piccure+

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DavidWright2010

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I had previous had a short-lived enthusiasm for Piccure+ until I noticed that it would leave a (very faint) pattern in clear sky, or other areas of uniform color.

But I thought to try it again, as there are just too many parameters in RawTherapee for easy use.

Here's a thumb version of a PS image (K-70, Sigma 17-70 mm lens):

76f08e0745a64d69afdcec7e084d9964.jpg

What follows are 200% crops of the PS output from DCU 5.6 on the left, and the image further processed in Piccure+ (max quality) on the right. After the DCU output, I did some manual fixing of motion errors.

1fcf5c04bf694cb7ad0ff526b13861d3.jpg



79e6ec2be8fa4ae18010df85b26488df.jpg



31638cff88374722b4199a30dd6e38f4.jpg

So the P+ results might be a bit too much sharpening (there are only 3 settings), but I like it. And if the pattern added to the sky is a problem ( you have to jack the contrast way up in this image to see it), it can be fixed by pasting in the original sky.

But the unfortunate thing is that Piccure+ is no longer offered for sale, even though you can still download and try the demo.

David
 
I too used P+ for a while.

About half the time I'd use it my modern, high-end computer would crash.

I believe that the reason it's shut down is that it's a memory hog and that they were unable to get the bugs out of it.

Plenty of other excellent sharpening options out there for me to fool with such "buggy" software any longer...
 
Fenwoodian said:
I too used P+ for a while.

About half the time I'd use it my modern, high-end computer would crash.

I believe that the reason it's shut down is that it's a memory hog and that they were unable to get the bugs out of it.

Plenty of other excellent sharpening options out there for me to fool with such "buggy" software any longer...
Click to expand...
That hasn’t been my experience, but who knows?

maybe you could mention the sharpening tools you like?

David
 
Definitely jaggies and artifacts in the sharpened version, sometimes unavoidable but IMO over sharpened, however the originals were under sharp so try to find a balance if you can or try a different sharpening technique
 
MightyMike said:
Definitely jaggies and artifacts in the sharpened version, sometimes unavoidable but IMO over sharpened, however the originals were under sharp so try to find a balance if you can or try a different sharpening technique
Click to expand...
It looks like the artefacts are already in the original photo but stressed by P+

I use P+, too and I found that it is a good idea to smooth the photo a little before doing sharpening with deconvolution methods.

P+ also has a powerful de-noise engine. Not fast but very effective. The problem with this program is for me that you have to try first to get the best setting and that you not simply have to move a slider to see hat you will get but have to let the program do a test run which is a time consuming job.

P+ is only needed where high end is the target. And like every technique that has "sharp" tools, you have to be very carefully to not overcook your photo.
MightyMike said:
--
Mike from Canada
"I am not a great photographer! God is a great creator! All I do is capture His creation with the tools He has provided me."
'I like to think so far outside the box that it would require a telephoto lens just to see the box!' ~ 'My Quote :)'
http://www.michaelfastphotography.com/galleries/VP-BDI_3a.jpg
http://www.airliners.net/search/[email protected]&thumbnails=
Click to expand...
 
Curious as to why you want to sharpen a pixel-shift image (which is, I suppose by definition, as sharp and detailed as the camera is capable of producing). I can think of two reasons:
  • correcting for a soft lens
  • deliberately obtaining an over-sharpened, somewhat artificial look
Jaggies or induced pattern artifacts probably not wanted in either case, but still wondered what it is you were really trying to do.

bob5050
 
bob5050 said:
Curious as to why you want to sharpen a pixel-shift image (which is, I suppose by definition, as sharp and detailed as the camera is capable of producing). I can think of two reasons:
  • correcting for a soft lens
  • deliberately obtaining an over-sharpened, somewhat artificial look
Jaggies or induced pattern artifacts probably not wanted in either case, but still wondered what it is you were really trying to do.

bob5050
Click to expand...
If shooting RAW you should always sharpen your images to improve it (PS or not)... nothing to do with soft lenses or over sharpening.
 
bob5050 said:
Curious as to why you want to sharpen a pixel-shift image (which is, I suppose by definition, as sharp and detailed as the camera is capable of producing). I can think of two reasons:
  • correcting for a soft lens
  • deliberately obtaining an over-sharpened, somewhat artificial look
Jaggies or induced pattern artifacts probably not wanted in either case, but still wondered what it is you were really trying to do.

bob5050
Click to expand...
Yeah, I should have been more clear. I've written about a dozen posts on this topic, but I shouldn't assume that everyone has read them...

Consider two current approaches to getting full color at every pixel: Sigma/Foveon, and pixel-shift (shift of a full pixel, as implemented by Pentax). All things being equal, they should give comparable results, right?

It's very hard to get 'all other things equal'. (There's someone posting on the SIgma forum right now who is trying to do just that)

So I'm just doing the best I can, with the cameras on hand. The Sigma DP3M, with it's fixed 50 mm lens, is widely considered to be 'as good as it gets' for image quality. Careful tests with a target convinced me that my K-70 with a Sigma 17-70 mm (C) lens also gives very good results. But it didn't have the enhanced micro-contrast of the Sigma. Why not?

Recently someone on the Sigma forum showed that Sigma does some sort of micro-contrast enhancement before we ever get a chance to edit the image processing parameters. I'm just trying to replicate that.

This enhanced micro-contrast will not be suitable for all applications (e.g.portraits), but I'd just like to have a tool that lets me add as much as I'd like.

Piccure+ seems to do that, with minimal sharpening artifacts.

BTW, I'm not sure what you and Mike are talking about as 'jaggies'. Do you mean the stair-stepping that occurs when a rectangular array of sensors image a diagonal line? My efforts are to enhance that. One can always lessen that effect by up-rezzing, such as the example below - right side is out of Piccure+, left side is the right-side image up-rezzed in ON1 Resize (400% view):

abead78f6ce14b3a97093bf0f65dce52.jpg



David
 
Holger Bargen said:
It looks like the artefacts are already in the original photo but stressed by P+

P+ is only needed where high end is the target. And like every technique that has "sharp" tools, you have to be very carefully to not overcook your photo.
Click to expand...
 
Fenwoodian said:
I too used P+ for a while.

About half the time I'd use it my modern, high-end computer would crash.

I believe that the reason it's shut down is that it's a memory hog and that they were unable to get the bugs out of it.

Plenty of other excellent sharpening options out there for me to fool with such "buggy" software any longer...
Click to expand...
You may be right about bugs, but I didn't encounter any in the sharpening functionality (all that I ever used).

But I think you are wrong about why Piccure+ failed. Consider Microsoft Windows before NT 3.51 : it had all the problems you mentioned, but in spades. And when Windows crashed, you didn't just lose the processing changes you made in a single file, you lost everything in every app that was open. But Microsoft didn't abandon Windows, because they were selling millions of copies.

So I think the developers of Piccure+ (who are professors at a university) decided that the money made was not worth the effort.

Or they may have had legal issues with an existing patent on image processing.

David
 
DavidWright2010 said:
bob5050 said:
Curious as to why you want to sharpen a pixel-shift image (which is, I suppose by definition, as sharp and detailed as the camera is capable of producing). I can think of two reasons:
  • correcting for a soft lens
  • deliberately obtaining an over-sharpened, somewhat artificial look
Jaggies or induced pattern artifacts probably not wanted in either case, but still wondered what it is you were really trying to do.

bob5050
Click to expand...
Yeah, I should have been more clear. I've written about a dozen posts on this topic, but I shouldn't assume that everyone has read them...

Consider two current approaches to getting full color at every pixel: Sigma/Foveon, and pixel-shift (shift of a full pixel, as implemented by Pentax). All things being equal, they should give comparable results, right?

It's very hard to get 'all other things equal'. (There's someone posting on the SIgma forum right now who is trying to do just that)

So I'm just doing the best I can, with the cameras on hand. The Sigma DP3M, with it's fixed 50 mm lens, is widely considered to be 'as good as it gets' for image quality. Careful tests with a target convinced me that my K-70 with a Sigma 17-70 mm (C) lens also gives very good results. But it didn't have the enhanced micro-contrast of the Sigma. Why not?

Recently someone on the Sigma forum showed that Sigma does some sort of micro-contrast enhancement before we ever get a chance to edit the image processing parameters. I'm just trying to replicate that.

This enhanced micro-contrast will not be suitable for all applications (e.g.portraits), but I'd just like to have a tool that lets me add as much as I'd like.

Piccure+ seems to do that, with minimal sharpening artifacts.

BTW, I'm not sure what you and Mike are talking about as 'jaggies'. Do you mean the stair-stepping that occurs when a rectangular array of sensors image a diagonal line? My efforts are to enhance that. One can always lessen that effect by up-rezzing, such as the example below - right side is out of Piccure+, left side is the right-side image up-rezzed in ON1 Resize (400% view):

abead78f6ce14b3a97093bf0f65dce52.jpg

David
Click to expand...
Dear David,

adding micro-contrast is not a technique that can be used to improve sharpness in a photo. But it adds an impression of sharpness.

I liked to use the micro-contrast slider at DxO which did the work very well.

Now, I start working with ON1 and they have great tools to adjust contrast. You can add micro-contrast or contrast at three size levels. I liked this effect so much that I decided to buy the software after I made first experience with it. It not just adds an impression of sharpness but a 3D effect we know from some of our Pentax lenses as an effect of rendering of contrast of that lens. In ON1 you can fine-tune this effect and, yes, photos also look more sharp than before.

There are several techniques to add some sharpness to a photo:

The most common one is unsharp masking which is a tool to safe some photos where the focus is not exactly where you want it. Lightroom is the program which gives the best solution for this technique I have seen so far as you can see the effect of each setting you need for the technique in a B&W photo or a channel which shows the direct effect of the setting if you press ALT while you move the slider. The settings are: sharpness, detail, radius, masking.

I also know highpass-sharpening (which is a true sharpening method) and tone mapping which seems to add an impression of sharpness as techniques.

The method Piccure+ offers is deconvolution. This is a technique that is useful if your sharpness is caused by a problem of your optical system. It can make look a photo taken from a mediocre lens like if it was taken by a high end Zeiss lens. The worse the lens the more room for improvement is in P+.

I like to use P+ for my macro work:

I often take photos of insects and DOF is always a problem. I close the apperture nearly to minimum opening (most time one step below minimum) and add some distance rings which adds extra aperture with impact on DOF but also diffraction.

I end up with photos that have enough DOF for my object (which I could as an alternative approach reach with focus stacking) but it is not very sharp due to diffraction effects. These effects can be perfectly repaired by P+.

P+ also has a technique on board to repair blurr caused by movement of the camera during exposure. But I hardly need this feature.

Best regards

Holger
 
Thanks Holger.

I will look at DxO.

I might also try ON1, but I just bought the 2017 version of Resize, and while the algorithm still works, the UI seems counter-intuitive to me. For example, the processed file when exported is always named 'xxx- copy', where 'xxx' is the original file name?

But I do like what Resize does for features that are only a few pixels in size, such as the smallest leaves (left is the 100% view after resizing the right-side image crop by 2.5x):

25807a2a8fe14f0c975cb934309aad6e.jpg

In a print, I suppose the printer would do something similar, but this is handy for a web display of a panorama where one can zoom in to examine detail.

David
 
Thank you for your good work, David. This is interesting stuff.

I agree that Rawtherapee is a bit too complicated software, although effective (if able to use it well enough).

It's a shame that Pentax DCU it's so clumsy to use.

I recommend you try (there is free 30 days trial - click) Silkypix DS 8. It support Pentax Pixel shift too. And has better UI than DCU, also works a bit faster. I think it makes excellent job with Pentax pixel shift RAWs!



Ari

DavidWright2010 said:
I had previous had a short-lived enthusiasm for Piccure+ until I noticed that it would leave a (very faint) pattern in clear sky, or other areas of uniform color.

But I thought to try it again, as there are just too many parameters in RawTherapee for easy use.

Here's a thumb version of a PS image (K-70, Sigma 17-70 mm lens):

76f08e0745a64d69afdcec7e084d9964.jpg

What follows are 200% crops of the PS output from DCU 5.6 on the left, and the image further processed in Piccure+ (max quality) on the right. After the DCU output, I did some manual fixing of motion errors.

1fcf5c04bf694cb7ad0ff526b13861d3.jpg

79e6ec2be8fa4ae18010df85b26488df.jpg

31638cff88374722b4199a30dd6e38f4.jpg

So the P+ results might be a bit too much sharpening (there are only 3 settings), but I like it. And if the pattern added to the sky is a problem ( you have to jack the contrast way up in this image to see it), it can be fixed by pasting in the original sky.

But the unfortunate thing is that Piccure+ is no longer offered for sale, even though you can still download and try the demo.

David
Click to expand...
--
- Ari Aikomus -
'Why should I feel lonely ? is not our planet in the Milky way?'
 
Ari Aikomus said:
Thank you for your good work, David. This is interesting stuff.

I agree that Rawtherapee is a bit too complicated software, although effective (if able to use it well enough).

It's a shame that Pentax DCU it's so clumsy to use.

I recommend you try (there is free 30 days trial - click) Silkypix DS 8. It support Pentax Pixel shift too. And has better UI than DCU, also works a bit faster. I think it makes excellent job with Pentax pixel shift RAWs!
Click to expand...
Hi again!

I tried these 3 different RAW converters: Pentax DCU, Silkypix DS 8 and Rawtherapee.

This kind of Pixel shift image (Pentax K-70 & Sigma 17-70/2.8-4 C)

(click Original to see full size image)

bdc39087df17401abe839d20ceb3e3c6.jpg

And here are 100% crops:

b49aa5b1370841dd9eb02567a6d44ad2.jpg

I think all three software did pretty good job, but user interface & speed of Silkypix DS 8 is easily best of them.

Ari



--
- Ari Aikomus -
'Why should I feel lonely ? is not our planet in the Milky way?'
 
DavidWright2010 said:
Ari Aikomus said:
DavidWright2010 said:
id pretty good job, but user interface & speed of Silkypix DS 8 is easily best of them.
Click to expand...
Ari

--
- Ari Aikomus -
'Why should I feel lonely ? is not our planet in the Milky way?'
Click to expand...
Maybe. It appears you have saved these images with high compression (maybe level 8?) so there are jpeg artifacts mixed in with the motion artifacts.

Memory is cheap, bandwidth is cheap - I never save at less than level 12.

David
Click to expand...
This my scene was pretty difficult for Pixel shift technology, anyway here is Silkypix version at level 12 compression:

f71b2124eec24c639a4716ca1fdcad7a.jpg

Yes, there are motion artifacts, but I didn't think this as motion correction test (I think DCU and Rawtherapee makes motion correction a bit better). For me this was like overall Pixel shift converter usability test in relation to the output picture quality.

...I would hope that Adobe would spend a little more their (huge) resources for the decent Pixel shift conversion...At present it is just inadequate.

Ari

--
- Ari Aikomus -
'Why should I feel lonely ? is not our planet in the Milky way?'
 
Last edited:
Ari Aikomus said:
DavidWright2010 said:
Ari Aikomus said:
Ari Aikomus said:
id pretty good job, but user interface & speed of Silkypix DS 8 is easily best of them.
Click to expand...
Ari

--
- Ari Aikomus -
'Why should I feel lonely ? is not our planet in the Milky way?'
Click to expand...
Maybe. It appears you have saved these images with high compression (maybe level 8?) so there are jpeg artifacts mixed in with the motion artifacts.

Memory is cheap, bandwidth is cheap - I never save at less than level 12.

David
Click to expand...
This my scene was pretty difficult for Pixel shift technology, anyway here is Silkypix version at level 12 compression:

f71b2124eec24c639a4716ca1fdcad7a.jpg

Yes, there are motion artifacts, but I didn't think this as motion correction test (I think DCU and Rawtherapee makes motion correction a bit better). For me this was like overall Pixel shift converter usability test in relation to the output picture quality.

...I would hope that Adobe would spend a little more their (huge) resources for the decent Pixel shift conversion...At present it is just inadequate.

Ari

--
- Ari Aikomus -
'Why should I feel lonely ? is not our planet in the Milky way?'
Click to expand...
Thanks for the higher quality image.

I thought you were pretty optimistic to try a scene with running water, but it came out pretty well.

I did just now downloaded silkypix 8, and, at least with the default parameters, the PS result looks better than DCU 5.6. I will need to look into it more. It appears that sp8 applies more sharpening as the default, from first examination of the differences.

DCU 5.6 on left, SP 8 on right, 400% crop:

db23bdfd573943ac8cc179233031b1e4.jpg

David
 
DavidWright2010 said:
Ari Aikomus said:
DavidWright2010 said:
Ari Aikomus said:
DavidWright2010 said:
id pretty good job, but user interface & speed of Silkypix DS 8 is easily best of them.
Click to expand...
Ari

--
- Ari Aikomus -
'Why should I feel lonely ? is not our planet in the Milky way?'
Click to expand...
Maybe. It appears you have saved these images with high compression (maybe level 8?) so there are jpeg artifacts mixed in with the motion artifacts.

Memory is cheap, bandwidth is cheap - I never save at less than level 12.

David
Click to expand...
This my scene was pretty difficult for Pixel shift technology, anyway here is Silkypix version at level 12 compression:

f71b2124eec24c639a4716ca1fdcad7a.jpg

Yes, there are motion artifacts, but I didn't think this as motion correction test (I think DCU and Rawtherapee makes motion correction a bit better). For me this was like overall Pixel shift converter usability test in relation to the output picture quality.

...I would hope that Adobe would spend a little more their (huge) resources for the decent Pixel shift conversion...At present it is just inadequate.

Ari

--
- Ari Aikomus -
'Why should I feel lonely ? is not our planet in the Milky way?'
Click to expand...
Thanks for the higher quality image.

I thought you were pretty optimistic to try a scene with running water, but it came out pretty well.
Click to expand...
I know, I like to stretch to the extremes ;-)
DavidWright2010 said:
I did just now downloaded silkypix 8, and, at least with the default parameters, the PS result looks better than DCU 5.6. I will need to look into it more. It appears that sp8 applies more sharpening as the default, from first examination of the differences.
Click to expand...
This is encouraging to hear and support my findings - so far.

I like that Silkypix DS 8 is more user friendly, and maybe produce a better quality , more easily...

cheers,



Ari

DavidWright2010 said:
DCU 5.6 on left, SP 8 on right, 400% crop:

db23bdfd573943ac8cc179233031b1e4.jpg

David
Click to expand...
--
- Ari Aikomus -
'Why should I feel lonely ? is not our planet in the Milky way?'
 
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