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Sharpening Raw photos

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10D finisher definitely gives very good results for a completely automatic procedure. It should start from a completely unsharpened pictures because it will overdo the sharpening otherwise. I do just a few adjustment to my images (like levels and contrast) and then let 10D finisher "finish" a whole batch of photos at night or during a long break. 10D finisher needs a lot of time for just one image. You don't want to wait for it to finish every single image.
McTheKnife said:
Jeff,

I feel your pain. You know RAW should be better but .jpeg looks
better and it's starting to feel like if you have to spend an hour
on every single picture to get it looking good enough to print. I
was there.

10D finisher has seriously increased my productivity and output.
Raw is now a pleasure. 10D finisher is a set of actions that, well,
just seems to get it done automatically. You run the action on a
picture, it does "a bunch of things" to the picture, and when it's
done, you have a nice sharp picture.

Now, to all you pros out there who are about to tell Jeff why a
cookie cutter aproach will not give him the best results, let me
agree with you right now....I agree with you. I played with, and
read so many tutorials on sharpening (by the way, does anyone agree
on sharpening?) that it seemed that was all I did.

Jeff, if you are like me, and simply want to get satisfactory
results from RAW so that you can use what you know should be better
than .jpeg, give it a shot. I can't seem to remember where I
downloaded it from, but a google search should again, produce
results.

Did I mention it was free? Download it, try it, and spend more time
on pre processing. :-)
Click to expand...
--
former Agfa 1680 owner (was stolen by burglar)
Nikon Coolpix 950 owner (over 10.000 shots)
New Drebel owner (still only around 3.500 shots)
 
I have been using Miranda's 300d CSPro Plug in - seems to work OK

http://www.fredmiranda.com/shopping/300DCSpro
secret1122 said:
I just got my DR a few months ago and essentially am new to
photography. I have been reading these forums on a daily basis for
months now, and have read the advantages of RAW vs. JPEG. I ran a
test with two photos in my house, both on a tripod, both with the
same composition, one JPEG and one RAW. I then went to Photoshop (
I am using the outdated 5.5 version) and put both photos side by
side. I have found that after several hours of work using Unsharp
Mask that I can't make the RAW look nearly as sharp as the JPEG,
especially not without introducing a lot of noise.

Is there a secret to really getting them to look the same? As far
as the rest of the positives for RAW go, I can see how adjusting WB
and EC are beneficial. If I could just get the sharpness identical
to the JPEGs this camera puts out, I'd be all for using RAW.

The second thing I noticed, which is more of a minor problem, is
that when I save my RAW photos and convert them to 16 bit TIFFs, I
can't use Unsharp Mask in Photoshop (the whole "filter" bar is
grayed out). Is this because my version of 5.5 is outdated? If I
save as an 8 bit TIFF, all is well.

Anyway, I have an event I'm shooting on Tuesday, and I would love
to use RAW format if it wasn't for the fact that this camera seems
better than me at shapening photos.

I have learned months, if not years of experience just from reading
these forums, so thanks for the knowledge I've already received,
and for any help you can give on these matters.

Jeff
Click to expand...
 
I am going to get flamed for this but.............Photoshop Elements 2 is a good option for most photographic manipulation and only costs less than £100. I can't see why anyone short of a graphic designer who did image manipulation for their entire living would buy full version Photoshop (unless money was no object).

Robert

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
10,000 strikes on the shutter
 
nothsafoto said:
I am going to get flamed for this but.............Photoshop
Elements 2 is a good option for most photographic manipulation and
only costs less than £100. I can't see why anyone short of a
graphic designer who did image manipulation for their entire living
would buy full version Photoshop (unless money was no object).
Click to expand...
PSE2 comes included with the 300D bundle of software and if you want a less expensive image editing package - Paint Shop Pro 8 is a fabulous tool for a lower price than PS anyway. I'm not sure what the full retail price is, as I've used it from v.4 and only upgraded each issue - but it's well featured and, I think, much easier to use anyway.

I don't use PS at all in my image editing workflow. I don't feel that I'm missing out on anything.

--
So many photos, so little time . . .
http://www.peekaboo.me.uk - general portfolio & tutorials
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk - live music portfolio
http://imageevent.com/boophotos/ - most recent images

Please do not amend and re-post my images unless specifically requested or given permission to do so.
 
Bill:

Thanks for the reply (sorry to get back to you so late - haven't been around a pc for a few hours). I am going to play with your method (I'll experiment with the curves - If I can't get it right, I'll post again asking you to go ahead and send the curves). Thanks again.
Cheers,
AnnT
Bill McKelvie said:
AnnT said:
Bill McKelvie said:
The camera uses linear sharpening, which is the only way to do it
properly. That means that sharpening is applied before gamma
correction. Snce the file you load into Photoshop has been gamma
corrected already, Photoshop necessarily does it wrong, i.e. after
gamma. As you have noticed, linear correction gives superior
sharpness and less noise.
I use a complicated method de-gamma correcting the 16 bit signal,
sharpening it then re-gamma correcting - it is a bit tedious, but
it works.

--
Bill.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
Bill.
Click to expand...
 
RAW images are not sharp, but more importantly they look "flat" an unappealing. It is usually required to apply s-curve to "spice" them up.

Perhaps, your images look "flat" and you are convinced they are not sharp.

Post one of the images as an example.

Hope this helps :)
 
Hi Jeff,

Try this sharpening technique from digital guru Russell Brown of Adobe which many people use:

http://forums.dpreview.com/ ... ... read.asp?forum=1031&message=7038550

There is a Russell Brown site with a demo video showing how to do this but I can't find the URL for it right now...

Hope this helps!

Nicholas
secret1122 said:
I just got my DR a few months ago and essentially am new to
photography. I have been reading these forums on a daily basis for
months now, and have read the advantages of RAW vs. JPEG. I ran a
test with two photos in my house, both on a tripod, both with the
same composition, one JPEG and one RAW. I then went to Photoshop (
I am using the outdated 5.5 version) and put both photos side by
side. I have found that after several hours of work using Unsharp
Mask that I can't make the RAW look nearly as sharp as the JPEG,
especially not without introducing a lot of noise.

Is there a secret to really getting them to look the same? As far
as the rest of the positives for RAW go, I can see how adjusting WB
and EC are beneficial. If I could just get the sharpness identical
to the JPEGs this camera puts out, I'd be all for using RAW.

The second thing I noticed, which is more of a minor problem, is
that when I save my RAW photos and convert them to 16 bit TIFFs, I
can't use Unsharp Mask in Photoshop (the whole "filter" bar is
grayed out). Is this because my version of 5.5 is outdated? If I
save as an 8 bit TIFF, all is well.

Anyway, I have an event I'm shooting on Tuesday, and I would love
to use RAW format if it wasn't for the fact that this camera seems
better than me at shapening photos.

I have learned months, if not years of experience just from reading
these forums, so thanks for the knowledge I've already received,
and for any help you can give on these matters.

Jeff
Click to expand...
 
Like Boo I've used this since the Win 3.1 version, and although I've got PS 7 it's just so much better that I use it all the time. There's a free trial version downlaodable from Jasc.

But at the end of the day if your jpeg pics can be enlarged to 20 X 30 and you're so pleased with them, why bother with RAW?
Boo said:
nothsafoto said:
I am going to get flamed for this but.............Photoshop
Elements 2 is a good option for most photographic manipulation and
only costs less than £100. I can't see why anyone short of a
graphic designer who did image manipulation for their entire living
would buy full version Photoshop (unless money was no object).
Click to expand...
PSE2 comes included with the 300D bundle of software and if you
want a less expensive image editing package - Paint Shop Pro 8 is a
fabulous tool for a lower price than PS anyway. I'm not sure what
the full retail price is, as I've used it from v.4 and only
upgraded each issue - but it's well featured and, I think, much
easier to use anyway.

I don't use PS at all in my image editing workflow. I don't feel
that I'm missing out on anything.

--
So many photos, so little time . . .
http://www.peekaboo.me.uk - general portfolio & tutorials
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk - live music portfolio
http://imageevent.com/boophotos/ - most recent images
Please do not amend and re-post my images unless specifically
requested or given permission to do so.
Click to expand...
--
TonySD
 
secret1122 said:
OK, I got it, but how do I use/activate it once PS (I'm using
Elements 2.0 now) opens up and the picture is ready to be sharpened?
Click to expand...
Not sure if you can use it with Elements but for PS here is what you do. (from the PS help file).

To load a set of actions:
Do one of the following:

Choose Load Actions from the Actions palette menu. Locate and select the action set file, and then click Load. (In Windows, Photoshop action set files have the extension .atn.)
Select an action set from the bottom of the Actions palette menu.

To play an action on a file:
Open the file.
Do one of the following:

To play an entire action, select the action name, and click the Play button in the Actions palette, or choose Play from the palette menu.

If you assigned a key combination to the action, press that combination to play the action automatically.

To play part of an action, select the command from which you want to start playing, and click the Play button in the Actions palette, or choose Play from the palette menu.

To play a single command in an action:
Select the command you want to play.
Do one of the following:

Ctrl-click (Windows) or Command-click (Mac OS) the Play button in the Actions palette.
Press Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac OS), and double-click the command.

To undo an entire action:

Do one of the following:

(Photoshop) Take a snapshot in the History palette before you play an action, and then select the snapshot to undo the action.
(ImageReady) Choose Edit > Undo Action Name.
 
Paul De Bra said:
10D finisher definitely gives very good results for a completely
automatic procedure. It should start from a completely unsharpened
pictures because it will overdo the sharpening otherwise. I do just
a few adjustment to my images (like levels and contrast) and then
let 10D finisher "finish" a whole batch of photos at night or
during a long break. 10D finisher needs a lot of time for just
one image. You don't want to wait for it to finish every single
image.
Click to expand...
Could you tell how you make a batch of photos. I am getting frustrated opening each photo and starting the action. It takes a lot of time, and I would be happy to make a batch to "finish" the whole bunch of photos :)

thanks

--
Dinko Jakovljevic
 
File -> Batch processing (or something like that).

Doesn't work in Elements, but then the 10D Finisher is so slow I wouldn't want to run it in Elements on my laptop anyway.
odin_cro said:
Paul De Bra said:
10D finisher definitely gives very good results for a completely
automatic procedure. It should start from a completely unsharpened
pictures because it will overdo the sharpening otherwise. I do just
a few adjustment to my images (like levels and contrast) and then
let 10D finisher "finish" a whole batch of photos at night or
during a long break. 10D finisher needs a lot of time for just
one image. You don't want to wait for it to finish every single
image.
Click to expand...
Could you tell how you make a batch of photos. I am getting
frustrated opening each photo and starting the action. It takes a
lot of time, and I would be happy to make a batch to "finish" the
whole bunch of photos :)

thanks

--
Dinko Jakovljevic
Click to expand...
--
former Agfa 1680 owner (was stolen by burglar)
Nikon Coolpix 950 owner (over 10.000 shots)
New Drebel owner (still only around 4.000 shots)
 
McTheKnife said:
10D finisher has seriously increased my productivity and output.
Raw is now a pleasure. 10D finisher is a set of actions that, well,
just seems to get it done automatically. You run the action on a
picture, it does "a bunch of things" to the picture, and when it's
done, you have a nice sharp picture.
Click to expand...
Am I just too used to oversharpened images, or do you need to do one final per-taste sharpen on the output of the 10D Finisher action?

I've got three sample raws I'm putting through C1, no sharpening, into PS as a 16 tiff, then running the 10D Finisher on it, and looking at the result (and comparing via history), there is subtle sharpening but nothing exciting?

It also bothers me that it does its work in 8 bit, but perhaps some of the actions it is taking are not available in 16 bit?
 
Well I finally put the $165 down and got PS CS. I really need to have the same version as a lot of the others on here, or I'll never be able to get any help with all my problems. I think it will help me to do better post-proccessing and have a better quality photo in the end.
 
secret1122 said:
Well I finally put the $165 down and got PS CS. I really need to
have the same version as a lot of the others on here, or I'll never
be able to get any help with all my problems.
Click to expand...
I find that comment pretty hurtful and insulting. I don't have PS - well I have PSE that came with the camera but I don't choose to use it - and I still managed to offer you some considerable help. Sorry that you didn't find all the posts people made here trying to help you useful. I wasn't aware we all had to use the same applications in order to offer - or ask for - help. My mistake.

--
So many photos, so little time . . .
http://www.peekaboo.me.uk - general portfolio & tutorials
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk - live music portfolio
http://imageevent.com/boophotos/ - most recent images

Please do not amend and re-post my images unless specifically requested or given permission to do so.
 
Boo said:
I find that comment pretty hurtful and insulting. I don't have PS
  • well I have PSE that came with the camera but I don't choose to
use it - and I still managed to offer you some considerable help.
Sorry that you didn't find all the posts people made here trying to
help you useful. I wasn't aware we all had to use the same
applications in order to offer - or ask for - help. My mistake.
Click to expand...
That wasn't meant to be insulting whatsoever. I was making the point that every time I had questions about post proccessing, the answer was always "that program doesn't work with Photoshop 5.5," and "only the newer versions of Photoshop accept 16 bit files for sharpening." What's the point of shooting RAW if I can't sharpen 16 bit photos using my outdated software? In this thread, you guys were reccommending the 10D finisher program, but then informend me it didn't work on Photoshop 5.5 or Elements 2.0. So I figured I would upgrade to one of the newer versions of a software editing program in order to utilize every program available to edit my photos.

How that is insulting to someone, I don't know. I did find all of the advice given to me excellent. However, what good is advice that says, "use this program or that function... oh, but your outdated software doesn't support it." So now I have the ability to take all of your advice, and actually USE it and see how well it works, rather than wish I could try this wonderful 10D finisher program, and imagine how nice my pictures COULD look.
 
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