Acheiving Sharpness - hmmmm

[mikew09]

Hmm - been doing some testing and I dont see any real evident of front focus. Lens looks to be pretty good actually.

[fillum]

I use lightroom 3.x to process but noticed if I apply some high pass layer adjustments in PSE 9 it improves the sharpness but still does not seem to get that razor edge finish.

Hi Mike. I'm finding that I can't get images as sharp as I want out of LR3 (but that could be due to incompetence ) and often have to pull them into PSE to give an additional sharpen.

To me, the bub's face here looks plenty sharp, but think it could be sharpened further. When I sharpen in PSE I generally use UnSharp-Mask (USM) - I only use a High-Pass layer if I want to bring out some texture detail. I wonder if in your image above the high-pass layer has accentuated the texture in the toy giving the impression that it is sharper than the baby's face (which would be comparatively smooth) ? Perhaps try to select only the baby's face (just roughly with the elliptical marque with a bit of feathering will do) and apply some USM in PSE (maybe 80% / 1.1 / 0) and see how it looks.

In PSE I generally select the subject (roughly) and only apply sharpening to the subject area. (After all, if you've gone to the trouble of blurring the background you don't want to sharpen it again in PP). Sometimes if required I'll do a second selection around the eyes only and apply a bit more sharpening to that area.

Hope this helps...



Cheers.

[mikew09]

Hi Mike. I'm finding that I can't get images as sharp as I want out of LR3 (but that could be due to incompetence ) and often have to pull them into PSE to give an additional sharpen.

To me, the bub's face here looks plenty sharp, but think it could be sharpened further. When I sharpen in PSE I generally use UnSharp-Mask (USM) - I only use a High-Pass layer if I want to bring out some texture detail. I wonder if in your image above the high-pass layer has accentuated the texture in the toy giving the impression that it is sharper than the baby's face (which would be comparatively smooth) ? Perhaps try to select only the baby's face (just roughly with the elliptical marque with a bit of feathering will do) and apply some USM in PSE (maybe 80% / 1.1 / 0) and see how it looks.

In PSE I generally select the subject (roughly) and only apply sharpening to the subject area. (After all, if you've gone to the trouble of blurring the background you don't want to sharpen it again in PP). Sometimes if required I'll do a second selection around the eyes only and apply a bit more sharpening to that area.

Hope this helps...


Cheers.

Thanks Phil, It is interesting you say that about LR3 as I have thought that a few times when reviewing photo but I have a pretty strong graduated refraction on my glasses so thought it may just be me (hence I rarely manual focus and even people with good eyesight) but it is interesting to hear someone else have a similar comment. I am going to try sharping the same image in PSE tonight to see what the difference is - thanks,

Mike

[mikew09]

OK, as Phil suggested - processed in LR3 but sharpened in PSE as well as I understand USharp in PSE and then saved to jpeg in PSE - seems to me it is a sharper image - thoughts. I have suspected my images are sharpen in PSE than light room but like I said, I have strongly refracted graduated glasses and thought it may just be me. But the final image does seem better sharpened in PSE. ??

Orig Post - sharpened in LR3



Processed in LR, sharpened and saved in PSE

[mikew09]

And this is a combination of both

[Mary Anne]

Mike your little Granddaughter is so cute, I love this portrait

[mikew09]

Thanks Mary, yep she is a cutie. 2nd granddaughter of my other Little darling Maddie is almost three now but suffers Rets and was not in the mood for sharing the frame on this day. Very proud of my too grand girls.

Thanks