[JohnBee]

DISCLAIMER: The following post contains scenes of a pixel peeping nature. Viewer discretion is advised.

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of investigating the effects of deblurring K-5 II images using Raw Therapee to weigh the overall benefits of the K-5 IIs in terms of IQ. However... I recently took part in a beta testing program for the latest Detail 3 software by Topaz Labs, which turned-out to have one of the best deblurring engines I've used to date. And so, as you can imagine, I couldn't wait to see what results I could from this with camera's like the D800 and K-5 II against their AA'less siblings.

And so without further ado, here are the final samples which are mixed-matched to keep thing interesting .
These were made using Raw Therapee and Topaz Detail 3 and are all 100% crops.



















PS. I tried to avoid areas in the scene where moire was visible to help keep things interesting. Unfortunately... the K-5 IIs has moire in so many areas that it was impossible to avoid it completely.

Enjoy.

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Last edited by JohnBee; 12-05-2012 at 02:32 PM.

[rawr]

These tests could go on forever. Suffice it to say both cameras are doing well.

Out of interest, how does the new Topaz Detail work? Does it do the full gamut of capture sharpening, including deconvolution, as well as USM sharpening?

I got Topaz Detail recently, and to tell the truth find it underwhelming. Ditto with Topaz Denoise, which I also have but find unimpressive and rarely use. I'm rapidly losing interest in Topaz products.

[JohnBee]

Out of interest, how does the new Topaz Detail work? Does it do the full gamut of capture sharpening, including deconvolution, as well as USM sharpening?

The new Topaz detail works in much the same way as the original version did, except that it incorporate many new features that expand on the original mojo that made it so popular. That is to say, a full rack of detail sharpening tool along with a deblur and various other enhancements.

That being said, the deblur tool is based on a deconvolution engine, whereas the detail sharpening tools are based on contrast sharpening. Which is essentially why they don't typically create halo's.

However, new in v3 is where we can no add individual detail sharpening to shadow, mid-tone and highlight area respectively, rather than globally. Likewise... the adjustments can be further refined via the effects mask which comes with a host of features aimed at improving adjustment accuracy etc. etc.

I got Topaz Detail recently, and to tell the truth find it underwhelming. Ditto with Topaz Denoise, which I also have but find unimpressive and rarely use. I'm rapidly losing interest in Topaz products.

I think tools such as Topaz Detail and Denoise are highly dependent on the need. ie. I don't often find myself using Denoise as I used too when I was shooting the K200 and K20D. At which point, I relied greatly on the plugin. Though I must say that Topaz Detail has turned-out to be quite the tool once I got familiar with it's capabilities beyond the presets. That is to say that I have yet to find another other tool that offers spacial detail enhancements anywhere. Which I think contributes greatly to its capabilities.

Hope this helps.

[civiletti]

The ones where I see moire have higher color saturation and more contrast. That's the most I can say from these.

[rawr]

Thanks for the great reply.

Even though I am a bit jaded with Topaz atm, I will download a trial version of Detail v3 when it gets released and see how it works for me.

[Eric Auer]

Hey, everyone needs a hobby....

[pinholecam]

This is nice work, but I'm really apprehensive of the work that needs to be done just to match up the K5IIs o/p.
Can you help to elaborate if this is a fixed setting that I can always apply or a 3-5min per file type thing that I need to do by adjusting parameters for each photo?
Thanks


One more suggestion is that perhaps you can check on this IIs vs II thing in another way.
Say the IIs o/p has saved me 1 step of PP 'mileage' since I don't need sharpening (or can use less strong settings).
So in a real life landscape or other application, I could do WB>tweak exposure>Levels/Curves>shadow recovery> saturation > denoise > sharpen.

How would II and IIs compare in such 'real world' applications where such parameters are often tweaked?
The IIs in theory would be able to be pushed a bit more or end up with less noise since it skipped the sharpening step (or needed less).

[JohnBee]

This is nice work, but I'm really apprehensive of the work that needs to be done just to match up the K5IIs o/p.
Can you help to elaborate if this is a fixed setting that I can always apply or a 3-5min per file type thing that I need to do by adjusting parameters for each photo?

Hi pinholecam,

The only thing I did to the K-5 II image was deblur it. ie. using Topaz Detail takes aprox. 20 seconds start to finish using a preset which I created called "AA Filter deblur". Though if someone were to do this manually, that would involve moving a slider 4 points to the right and pressing apply.

As for Raw Therapee, I didn't do any adjustments whatsoever to either file. I merely used the software to carry over the RAW into Photoshop.

The K-5 IIs image on the other hand, doesn't need any adjustments whatsoever. It's essentially good-to-go straight out of the camera, and so there's that to consider.

Having said that, imo. the K-5 II would have no problems keeping-up with the K-5 IIs with the help of a deblur tool such as the one used here. Though a person might get away with using alternative solutions such as Raw Therapee's deconvoluted sharpening, if they didn't want to invest in added software etc.

One more suggestion is that perhaps you can check on this IIs vs II thing in another way.
Say the IIs o/p has saved me 1 step of PP 'mileage' since I don't need sharpening (or can use less strong settings).
So in a real life landscape or other application, I could do WB>tweak exposure>Levels/Curves>shadow recovery> saturation > denoise > sharpen.

How would II and IIs compare in such 'real world' applications where such parameters are often tweaked?
The IIs in theory would be able to be pushed a bit more or end up with less noise since it skipped the sharpening step (or needed less).

The first thing I'd mention with regards to this workflow is where NR would be better placed first and foremost in your workflow. That is to say, that it's best to apply NR from a neutral file(0,0,0) and proceed to make your adjustments afterward, rather than after the fact. However, I'm going to venture that the K-5 IIs may hold the advantage here given that the files will contain more detail(sharpness) than the K-5 II which inevitably play's a major role in detail recovery. Whereas the K-5 II will likely work in opposition to this. That is to say that the initial detail lost in the AA filter will likely be compounded by the noise reduction process. - Though, I'd also mention that this is entirely theoretical as I haven't tested this myself, and so I could only call it an educated guess at this point.

Hope this helps.

[pinholecam]

Hi pinholecam,

The only thing I did to the K-5 II image was deblur it. ie. using Topaz Detail takes aprox. 20 seconds start to finish using a preset which I created called "AA Filter deblur". Though if someone were to do this manually, that would involve moving a slider 4 points to the right and pressing apply.

As for Raw Therapee, I didn't do any adjustments whatsoever to either file. I merely used the software to carry over the RAW into Photoshop.

The K-5 IIs image on the other hand, doesn't need any adjustments whatsoever. It's essentially good-to-go straight out of the camera, and so there's that to consider.

Having said that, imo. the K-5 II would have no problems keeping-up with the K-5 IIs with the help of a deblur tool such as the one used here. Though a person might get away with using alternative solutions such as Raw Therapee's deconvoluted sharpening, if they didn't want to invest in added software etc.

John, thanks a lot for your insights/info.
I guess its time for me to download Topaz detail to give it a try (if it works on my PC running XP )

(ok.. just checked at their site and it works on XP... great! )

[RonHendriks1966]

Well I first bought K-5 II yesterday and wait for the K-5 IIs Silver Limited Edition. How much interest for this pixelpeeping? Well not to much, since both will give good images.