Sharpness

[robh1920]

I am having problems making my photos pop. They all seem a little soft or just slightly off in one way or another. I am going to try to post a photo of a Buffalo that was taken with the camera steady on a fence. the photo was shot at 400mm and it was shot at 5.6 . This photo has been through photoshop and was sharpened. I shot it with a sigma 70-200 with a 2x teleconverter. It just does not seem to have the detail I see in other wildlife shots. Any help would be appreciated.

[robh1920]

it appears my file is not big enough. I will try the posting again.

[robh1920]

Ok the second one is more of what the original looks like. Thanks in advance for any input.

[JamesB]

depending on the 2x teleconverter it may be losing some quality there. I know the canon lenses play real nice with the canon TC's but not sure about the sigma lenses. I know my 50-500 does not really do well with my tamron 2x TC

it could also be a little camera shake or slightly out of focus

James

[robh1920]

I have a sigma tc for the sigma lens. I had the camera on a pipe fence on top of a bean bag. It seemed steady but.....

This was the only time out of the bunch that one of them actually took there head out of the grass to look at me. I snapped about 4 photos and only two are worth messing with, they seem identical to my eye. the other two I must have moved or focused on something other than the head.

The out of focus is a possibility. I have got to start manually focusing. I do not think that sigma focuses right. Just my opinion buy I dont seem to have this issue with my Canon lenses. I love the lens other than I think it has issues settling on a focus point.

[iCe]

Is this any better? When you shoot animals try to get the eyes in focus.

[robh1920]

Uh....Yeah. What did u do and how do you do with CS3. I obviously do not understand the capabilities of CS3.

I understand the eyes. Learned that on my last shot of horses with it at f2.8. This guy raised his head and I just started snapping because it was what I was looking for but not getting . He then went back to eating before I could even think.

Ok, I played around with the sharpening. I increased the radius and it made a difference. I need to get a book...LOL thanks for any input.

[iCe]

Two things. Nope... three actually...

(1) Opened in Noise Ninja (not for noise though), clicked the second tab, slide contrast up to 14. I do this out of habit and it helps a little but I think a contrast mask would do as well.

(2) Applied an action by Kubota called Daily Multivitamin. It's a curves tweak among other things. If you don't have this action just create a contrast layer and slide contrast up to around 30 ish for this image. It will be pretty close (but not the same)

(3) After you downsize the image and save it as a JPG (DON'T use save for the web.) to upload here open it back up, Filter-->Sharpen -->Unsharp Mask --> these settings 50,1,0. I use this one so often I created an action for Save L10 JPG that saves the file and then applies the USM and saves it again. I start in RAW, then save as TIF, and then save as JPG for posting. That's why I made an action.

Here it is with just a contrast mask and USM applied. Not quite as good as with the Kubota action but not bad

[lscottpht]

Wow, great job, Michael! I need to see if I have that Kubota action. Is it in the latest pack? That's the set I have. I really need this cuz I have to edit someones pics for them, and I think they primarily want sharpening done to them.

[iCe]

Thanks Leslie. I bought the action packs a few months ago but I think that Daily Multivitamin has been around a while. I use it a lot It's a good contrast booster and that seems to help with perceived sharpness. It's in Artistic Actions Volume II.

If I can figure out how to extract my Save as level 10 JPG action I would post it. It's not hard to create.

Purge All
Convert to Profile (in case I've been playing in LAB or some other colorspace like ProPhoto)
Convert Mode (for when the image is a 16 bit TiF file)
Purge All
Flatten Image
Save (Level 10 JPG)
Unsharp Mask (settings = 50,1,0)
Set File Info of Current Document (this puts all the Copyright and contact info in my Exif data)
Purge All
Save
Close

I don't have the close checked. That lets me do an Image Size tweak. If I am in the mood to upload hear I'll set the longest side to 900 px and then run the action on the smaller file to sharpen it up. Otherwise I just hit Ctrl-W and close it. The purges release memory. The action seems to run faster in Batch mode.

[lscottpht]

Cool, thanks! I really need to learn Photoshop!! I will look to see if I have that Kubota action. Hopefully, so.

[iCe]

Originally Posted by lscottpht

Cool, thanks! I really need to learn Photoshop!! I will look to see if I have that Kubota action. Hopefully, so.

Yeah tell me about it. Kevin Kubota puts on workshops throughout the year. I want to go to one of his workshops. Last May he had a killer deal on a workshop in Italy. That would have been awesome.

I think the biggest surprise for me about switching to digital was the fact that I also had to learn image processing. I did not expect that. I kind of like it though. It adds a new and FRUSTRATING dimension to being a photographer.

[lscottpht]

Hahaha, yes it does! I used to be a slide person, so I had to get it right in the camera, without even viewing the image. I am getting a little better with photoshop, but I still don't have a clue how to use layers, curves and masks. I just do the basics and sometimes use an action. And yeah, learning photoshop in Italy would certainly be nice!

[iCe]

Yeah... I was a "slider" too... Still would be if digital hadn't snagged me

Are you using CS2 or CS3? Both version of Scott Kelby's CSx for Digital Photographers is a great book for either CS2 or CS3...

His Italy deal was killer. I can't remember the details but it was a full week and in the Tuscany area... and relatively cheap too.

His next one is here: LINK

[kenmyers70]

There are a bunch of excellent tutorials available at Luminous Landscape which discuss the differences between digital and film and the necessary post processing.
Here is one example, you can browse the site for more.
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/es...polaroid.shtml
Enjoy!