Saxperience - Citroen Saxo Forum - View Single Post - In camera sharpening vs sharpening in post production

Barry123 · 3rd April 2009, 16:22

funnily enough Jim, I was having palpitations last night about my current nightclub stuff and my previous nightclub stuff - my older stuff was much sharper, and contrasty and colourful

First I thought maybe the lens was shagged, did a back-to-back test against the 10D and the 40D... fine. Then I realised I'd had the 40D sent for repair back in august, the buggers had reset all my parameters.

on the 10D... I have the following settings

Sharpness +2
Contast 0
Colour Tone +1
Saturation +1

I lower the sharpness to +1 if I'm shooting high ISO else the grain is very pronounced. If I'm shooting Jpg I much prefer the sharpening by the camera algorithms rather than by an external software. If it's RAW then you haven't got a choice other than to do it externally.

I rarely shoot RAW unless is studio or 'arty' kind of stuff where I know I'll end up PP'ing to hell and back. The nightclub or the motorsport stuff I never bother.

Simply doing a USM I'm not convinced is the way forward either (I don't), it's great if the image is fairly sharp already, but if you have a shallow DoF it really messes up the out of focus parts, looking more like one of those heavily compressed Jpegs. Similarly if it's graining it can look horrendous. So I'd suggest being selective about it. Use the magic wand or similar to select the subject or area you want sharpening then sharpen just that. leave OOF bits well alone

it's a bit like HDR though, people will think 'yeahhhhh MAX settingssssss' and it looks poop but for some reason people will love it. so just go easy it'll never save an unsharp to start with photo, but it can really enhance a good photo.

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3rd April 2009, 16:22	#4
Barry123 Saxperience Hardcore! Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Aycliffe Posts: 32,205 Car(s): Saxo VTS iTrader Score: 7 (100%)	funnily enough Jim, I was having palpitations last night about my current nightclub stuff and my previous nightclub stuff - my older stuff was much sharper, and contrasty and colourful First I thought maybe the lens was shagged, did a back-to-back test against the 10D and the 40D... fine. Then I realised I'd had the 40D sent for repair back in august, the buggers had reset all my parameters. on the 10D... I have the following settings Sharpness +2 Contast 0 Colour Tone +1 Saturation +1 I lower the sharpness to +1 if I'm shooting high ISO else the grain is very pronounced. If I'm shooting Jpg I much prefer the sharpening by the camera algorithms rather than by an external software. If it's RAW then you haven't got a choice other than to do it externally. I rarely shoot RAW unless is studio or 'arty' kind of stuff where I know I'll end up PP'ing to hell and back. The nightclub or the motorsport stuff I never bother. Simply doing a USM I'm not convinced is the way forward either (I don't), it's great if the image is fairly sharp already, but if you have a shallow DoF it really messes up the out of focus parts, looking more like one of those heavily compressed Jpegs. Similarly if it's graining it can look horrendous. So I'd suggest being selective about it. Use the magic wand or similar to select the subject or area you want sharpening then sharpen just that. leave OOF bits well alone it's a bit like HDR though, people will think 'yeahhhhh MAX settingssssss' and it looks poop but for some reason people will love it. so just go easy it'll never save an unsharp to start with photo, but it can really enhance a good photo. ads Last edited by Barry123; 3rd April 2009 at 16:24.