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Sharpening Methods Compared...

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Andrew Busst

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I have been doing some testing of various sharpening techniques available (and there are a lot out there!)

The following is a 300kb image showing a portion of an image repeated 9 times with various sharpening techniques. Each separate image is labelled "A" to "I". "A" is the original untouched image.



(please note that the image is a scale down from the original but the differences - if viewed at 100% - are negligible)

The portion comes from this total image:-



I would be interested to see which sharpening method i.e "B" to "I" forum members prefer.

Once I have a few replies I will post which image belongs to which technique (I think some of you may be surprised)

Techniques used were (and in no particular order)

Sharpened in Photoshop using Unsharp mask then copies of that layer and made and DARKEN & LIGHTEN blending modes applied the opacity of layer adjusted to suit

Similar to ABOVE technique but image first sharpened using "Sharpen Control" then loaded into Photoshop then duplicate layers with LIGHTEN & DARKEN Blending modes applied

Edge sharpened using "JB Pro Sharpener" action

Fred Miranda's "CSPRO Action" on HIGH

Sharpened using Sharp Control (Settings 0.67 Radius, 1000 Strength, 0 Control, 0 Edge, 1 Iterations)

Same as ABOVE technique but loaded into Photoshop with the original "A" then a mask added to sharpened layer and using a "BLACK" brush on about 30% Opacity brush broad areas where no sharpening is required.

Sharpened using Sharp Control (Settings 0.67 Radius, 1000 Strength, 40 Control, 20 Edge, 1 Iterations)

Fred Miranda's "Intellisharpen" action on Medium

I look forward to seeing your comments.

--
Andrew Busst
Queenstown, New Zealand
http://www.imagescapes.co.nz
 
Thanks for doing this Andrew, it is so hard to work though all of the options out there for sharpening.

I like No E best and H second. E has the best sharpness and focus around and below his sideburn and left cheek.
--
http://www.pbase.com/relate2
 
relate2 said:
Thanks for doing this Andrew, it is so hard to work though all of
the options out there for sharpening.

I like No E best and H second. E has the best sharpness and focus
around and below his sideburn and left cheek.
--
http://www.pbase.com/relate2
Click to expand...
Ditto!
--
Every silver lining has a cloud ;-(

Zenit-E - 6900/602 / Sunpak 144PC / TL-FX9
 
E is the sharpest but I would pick B as the best. E has introduced noise into the bright colours like the blue cup. E is also too sharp for a person's face. A slight colour change seems to be noticable in E. I would want both methods and would pick different methods for different situations.

--
Regards
Gary
 
F, E, I in that order.
It will be interesting to see which ones they are.

Mr. Bill
Andrew Busst said:
I have been doing some testing of various sharpening techniques
available (and there are a lot out there!)

The following is a 300kb image showing a portion of an image
repeated 9 times with various sharpening techniques. Each separate
image is labelled "A" to "I". "A" is the original untouched image.



(please note that the image is a scale down from the original but
the differences - if viewed at 100% - are negligible)

The portion comes from this total image:-



I would be interested to see which sharpening method i.e "B" to "I"
forum members prefer.

Once I have a few replies I will post which image belongs to which
technique (I think some of you may be surprised)

Techniques used were (and in no particular order)

Sharpened in Photoshop using Unsharp mask then copies of that layer
and made and DARKEN & LIGHTEN blending modes applied the opacity of
layer adjusted to suit

Similar to ABOVE technique but image first sharpened using "Sharpen
Control" then loaded into Photoshop then duplicate layers with
LIGHTEN & DARKEN Blending modes applied

Edge sharpened using "JB Pro Sharpener" action

Fred Miranda's "CSPRO Action" on HIGH

Sharpened using Sharp Control (Settings 0.67 Radius, 1000
Strength, 0 Control, 0 Edge, 1 Iterations)

Same as ABOVE technique but loaded into Photoshop with the
original "A" then a mask added to sharpened layer and using a
"BLACK" brush on about 30% Opacity brush broad areas where no
sharpening is required.

Sharpened using Sharp Control (Settings 0.67 Radius, 1000
Strength, 40 Control, 20 Edge, 1 Iterations)

Fred Miranda's "Intellisharpen" action on Medium

I look forward to seeing your comments.

--
Andrew Busst
Queenstown, New Zealand
http://www.imagescapes.co.nz
Click to expand...
 
My picks are right down the middle, B, E, and H. Using a purely qualitative judgement, B just looks 'right.'

Jay B.
 
... I'd really love to see the comparison on some sort of landscape image rather than a person.

--
Mary
 
I am only able to see A, D and G and the full-frame original even with a refresh. Would really like to view them all. Are these available for viewing elsewhere?

Cassandra
Andrew Busst said:
I have been doing some testing of various sharpening techniques
available (and there are a lot out there!)

The following is a 300kb image showing a portion of an image
repeated 9 times with various sharpening techniques. Each separate
image is labelled "A" to "I". "A" is the original untouched image.



(please note that the image is a scale down from the original but
the differences - if viewed at 100% - are negligible)

The portion comes from this total image:-



I would be interested to see which sharpening method i.e "B" to "I"
forum members prefer.

Once I have a few replies I will post which image belongs to which
technique (I think some of you may be surprised)

Techniques used were (and in no particular order)

Sharpened in Photoshop using Unsharp mask then copies of that layer
and made and DARKEN & LIGHTEN blending modes applied the opacity of
layer adjusted to suit

Similar to ABOVE technique but image first sharpened using "Sharpen
Control" then loaded into Photoshop then duplicate layers with
LIGHTEN & DARKEN Blending modes applied

Edge sharpened using "JB Pro Sharpener" action

Fred Miranda's "CSPRO Action" on HIGH

Sharpened using Sharp Control (Settings 0.67 Radius, 1000
Strength, 0 Control, 0 Edge, 1 Iterations)

Same as ABOVE technique but loaded into Photoshop with the
original "A" then a mask added to sharpened layer and using a
"BLACK" brush on about 30% Opacity brush broad areas where no
sharpening is required.

Sharpened using Sharp Control (Settings 0.67 Radius, 1000
Strength, 40 Control, 20 Edge, 1 Iterations)

Fred Miranda's "Intellisharpen" action on Medium

I look forward to seeing your comments.

--
Andrew Busst
Queenstown, New Zealand
http://www.imagescapes.co.nz
Click to expand...
--
http://www.pbase.com/cassandra
 
Cassandra,

Try right clicking to open in a new window...Harvey
Cassandra USA 6900z said:
Cassandra
Andrew Busst said:
I have been doing some testing of various sharpening techniques
available (and there are a lot out there!)

The following is a 300kb image showing a portion of an image
repeated 9 times with various sharpening techniques. Each separate
image is labelled "A" to "I". "A" is the original untouched image.



(please note that the image is a scale down from the original but
the differences - if viewed at 100% - are negligible)

The portion comes from this total image:-



I would be interested to see which sharpening method i.e "B" to "I"
forum members prefer.

Once I have a few replies I will post which image belongs to which
technique (I think some of you may be surprised)

Techniques used were (and in no particular order)

Sharpened in Photoshop using Unsharp mask then copies of that layer
and made and DARKEN & LIGHTEN blending modes applied the opacity of
layer adjusted to suit

Similar to ABOVE technique but image first sharpened using "Sharpen
Control" then loaded into Photoshop then duplicate layers with
LIGHTEN & DARKEN Blending modes applied

Edge sharpened using "JB Pro Sharpener" action

Fred Miranda's "CSPRO Action" on HIGH

Sharpened using Sharp Control (Settings 0.67 Radius, 1000
Strength, 0 Control, 0 Edge, 1 Iterations)

Same as ABOVE technique but loaded into Photoshop with the
original "A" then a mask added to sharpened layer and using a
"BLACK" brush on about 30% Opacity brush broad areas where no
sharpening is required.

Sharpened using Sharp Control (Settings 0.67 Radius, 1000
Strength, 40 Control, 20 Edge, 1 Iterations)

Fred Miranda's "Intellisharpen" action on Medium

I look forward to seeing your comments.

--
Andrew Busst
Queenstown, New Zealand
http://www.imagescapes.co.nz
Click to expand...
--
http://www.pbase.com/cassandra
Click to expand...
 
Not stating a preference, but just trying to establish an order. But definitely not B. I've seen this kind of sharpening in some cameras, and it looks plastic to me. If I saw this result from a film camera, I'd clean my lens!

--
Thomas Niemann
http://epaperpress.com
 
To me, C, D and G are on the soft side but that's not always bad for portraiture. E and H appear medium-sharp by comparison, and F and I are the sharpest but also show more contrast. B is both soft and contrasty. Thanks for sharing this comparison test with us. Looking forward to learning which method was used on each image.

Cassandra
--
http://www.pbase.com/cassandra
 
Andrew Busst wrote:
'......> I would be interested to see which sharpening method i.e "B" to "I"
Andrew Busst said:
forum members prefer.

Once I have a few replies I will post which image belongs to which
technique (I think some of you may be surprised)

Techniques used were (and in no particular order)

Sharpened in Photoshop using Unsharp mask then copies of that layer
and made and DARKEN & LIGHTEN blending modes applied the opacity of
layer adjusted to suit

Similar to ABOVE technique but image first sharpened using "Sharpen
Control" then loaded into Photoshop then duplicate layers with
LIGHTEN & DARKEN Blending modes applied

Edge sharpened using "JB Pro Sharpener" action

Fred Miranda's "CSPRO Action" on HIGH

Sharpened using Sharp Control (Settings 0.67 Radius, 1000
Strength, 0 Control, 0 Edge, 1 Iterations)

Same as ABOVE technique but loaded into Photoshop with the
original "A" then a mask added to sharpened layer and using a
"BLACK" brush on about 30% Opacity brush broad areas where no
sharpening is required.

Sharpened using Sharp Control (Settings 0.67 Radius, 1000
Strength, 40 Control, 20 Edge, 1 Iterations)

Fred Miranda's "Intellisharpen" action on Medium

I look forward to seeing your comments.

--
Andrew Busst
Queenstown, New Zealand
http://www.imagescapes.co.nz
Click to expand...
 
Thank you all for taking the time to have a look at these.

Here are the techniques with there associated image reference:-

A
Original

B

Edge sharpened using "JB Pro Sharpener" action (note action slightly modified to include LAB sharpening)

C
Fred Miranda's "CSPRO Action" on HIGH

D
Fred Miranda's "Intellisharpen" action on Medium

E

Original opened in photoshop, then duplicated to form another layer, duplicate layer then sharpened using Unsharp Mask, blending mode of layer changed to Darken, sharpened layer then duplicated, that duplicate layer then set to blending mode of Lighten. Opacity of DARKEN and LIGHTEN layers then adjusted manually to give desired result. This is not my technique but one I found on this forum "somewhere"

F

Sharpened using Sharp Control (Settings 0.67 Radius, 1000 Strength, 0 Control, 0 Edge, 1 Iterations)

G

Sharpened using Sharp Control (Settings 0.67 Radius, 1000 Strength, 40 Control, 20 Edge, 1 Iterations)

H

Same as "F" but loaded into Photoshop with the original "A" then a mask added to sharpened layer and using a "BLACK" brush paint on about 30% Opacity black out broad areas where no sharpening is required.

I

Similar to "E" but image first sharpened using "Sharpen Control" then loaded into Photoshop then duplicate layers with LIGHTEN & DARKEN Blending modes applied

From your comments the majority went with "E" which employs a sharpening technique not many have probabaly heard of but is really very simple.

I will try and do the same for a Landscape image and post here but won't be for a couple of days.

In the meantime if anybody has any other techniques you can try them out on the original image A available below:- (NOTE: 654Kb)

http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~bussty/untouched.psd

Regards

Andrew Busst
Queenstown, New Zealand
http://www.imagescapes.co.nz
 
I choose "E". Why? Because it is the most please to my less than amature eye! :) Come on with the technique matching! I gotta try this!!

Thank you for posting this test. It's layed out really well and easy to understand. What a great contribution. Thanks again!
Andrew Busst said:
I have been doing some testing of various sharpening techniques
available (and there are a lot out there!)

The following is a 300kb image showing a portion of an image
repeated 9 times with various sharpening techniques. Each separate
image is labelled "A" to "I". "A" is the original untouched image.



(please note that the image is a scale down from the original but
the differences - if viewed at 100% - are negligible)

The portion comes from this total image:-



I would be interested to see which sharpening method i.e "B" to "I"
forum members prefer.

Once I have a few replies I will post which image belongs to which
technique (I think some of you may be surprised)

Techniques used were (and in no particular order)

Sharpened in Photoshop using Unsharp mask then copies of that layer
and made and DARKEN & LIGHTEN blending modes applied the opacity of
layer adjusted to suit

Similar to ABOVE technique but image first sharpened using "Sharpen
Control" then loaded into Photoshop then duplicate layers with
LIGHTEN & DARKEN Blending modes applied

Edge sharpened using "JB Pro Sharpener" action

Fred Miranda's "CSPRO Action" on HIGH

Sharpened using Sharp Control (Settings 0.67 Radius, 1000
Strength, 0 Control, 0 Edge, 1 Iterations)

Same as ABOVE technique but loaded into Photoshop with the
original "A" then a mask added to sharpened layer and using a
"BLACK" brush on about 30% Opacity brush broad areas where no
sharpening is required.

Sharpened using Sharp Control (Settings 0.67 Radius, 1000
Strength, 40 Control, 20 Edge, 1 Iterations)

Fred Miranda's "Intellisharpen" action on Medium

I look forward to seeing your comments.

--
Andrew Busst
Queenstown, New Zealand
http://www.imagescapes.co.nz
Click to expand...
 
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