Studio Shot Comparison Tool Fujifilm X-H2S

Erik Baumgartner wrote:

Morris0 wrote:

Kaoticphoto wrote:

Send me the raw i will process it.

Otherwise i am sorry but i don't shoot birds.

You can see something from me here www.kaotic.it

I've sent you a PM with the link to the RAW file. It will be fun to see what you can get not only in detail, also doing the same crop and getting the color correct.

Have fun,

Morris

HI Morris, thanks for sending me your RAW file as well. My idea was to do it purely with LR only, but I had to use IXT as my old Windows 7 computer (yes, I'm working on that), can't open the X-H2s files (though I don't think the end result would be much different). No A.I. anywhere here, only plain old LR sharpening and NR. I don't think it looks any better than yours or Kaoticphoto's versions, but it isn't too far off. Frankly, while Topaz's A.I. sharpening certainly "organizes" the soft detail into something sharper looking, to my my eye, it does sometimes look a bit homogeneous when you look closely - not quite natural to have sharpness where there ought to be out of focus softness. I think Kaoticphoto's DxO PureRaW version does a good job of producing clean, natural looking detail without looking obviously "A.I.ed". If PureRaw3 offers the same fine-tuning capability you get with PL5/6, I may go that route in the future if Adobe doesn't come up with some good A.I. processing of their own by then.

Not sure where you got the extra headroom for your crop, but I cropped mine to present the bird at around the same scale.

Lightroom/IXT

Hi Erik,

Looks good and now we have three approach's with similar results for feather detail.  You did a great job of recovering the red crown yet it's a little orange and you probably don't know what the kinglet should look like.  The space on the top was created using canvas expansion.  I agree, sometimes Topaz AI creates artifacts and it can sharpen what should be out of focus.  I use it in layers to sharpen the areas I want to reveal sharpness in.  I also leave it's sharpening a bit light and do a final pass with high value USM.

I feel we have shown that people should use the software that they are formula with as it will do the job.  Will it stop the long threads?  Probably not.

Morris