[Fenwoodian]

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Yesterday I went out to shoot the autumn colors with my K1 camera and adapted Zeiss Milvus 50mm f/1.4 lens.

It's about one week before the peak colors, so I was unable to capture any good autumn colors photos.

I did see an interesting stream, so I stopped and took some photos of it. Only problem, the wind was blowing so I knew any pixel shifted photos I'd take would not turn out. Having nothing better to do, I went ahead a took some photos anyway. For each scene, I took two images - one in the pixel shift mode, the second was in the regular mode. I used a tripod and 2 second release for all shots.

Today, I reviewed the images. As you would image, the pixel shifted images were sharper than the non-pixel shifted images. But even more important, I found that the pixel shifted images also had better color than the regular images! However, the moving tree leaves in the pixel shifted image were very pixelated and rendered the pixel shifted images unusable.

So, I went into Adobe Photo Shop Elements, and using a layer mask I combined the best of both images with the resulting product being quite acceptable (see below).

Initially, I did the masking quickly, and unfortunately I could see the "transition" areas quite easily. Then I tried again using smaller brushes with lower opacity over these transition areas. Doing it that way I could not see where the transition areas were, even at 100%.

This "combined" image retained all the great color and sharpness of the pixel shifted image, yet the leaves (being from the regular image) were not pixelated at all. When viewed at 100%, the sharpness is terrific (you can easily distinguish each individual grass leaf that's located at the edge of the stream).

While I don't like any of these "test images" enough to print up, I have no doubt that they'd make excellent 24" x 30" inch prints (my preferred size) if I did choose to print them.

While it does take extra time in post to combine PS and non-PS images, for important images I feel that it is definitely worth the effort.
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P.S. The surface of the water in the regular image looked "noisy" to me. While the PS water looked smooth, noiseless, and overall much better. Also, the leaves and individual pine needles floating in the water in the PS image were sharper.
Have any of you also noticed that PS images seem to have less noise in water surfaces (and in the sky too)?
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Last edited by Fenwoodian; 09-26-2017 at 03:40 PM.

[rechmbrs]

.
Yesterday I went out to shoot the autumn colors with my K1 camera and adapted Zeiss Milvus 50mm f/1.4 lens.

It's about one week before the peak colors, so I was unable to capture any good autumn colors photos.

I did see an interesting stream, so I stopped and took some photos of it. Only problem, the wind was blowing so I knew any pixel shifted photos I'd take would not turn out. Having nothing better to do, I went ahead a took some photos anyway. For each scene, I took two images - one in the pixel shift mode, the second was in the regular mode. I used a tripod and 2 second release for all shots.

Today, I reviewed the images. As you would image, the pixel shifted images were sharper than the non-pixel shifted images. But even more important, I found that the pixel shifted images also had better color than the regular images! However, the moving tree leaves in the pixel shifted image were very pixelated and rendered the pixel shifted images unusable.

So, I went into Adobe Photo Shop Elements, and using a layer mask I combined the best of both images with the resulting product being quite acceptable (see below).

Initially, I did the masking quickly, and unfortunately I could see the "transition" areas quite easily. Then I tried again using smaller brushes with lower opacity over these transition areas. Doing it that way I could not see where the transition areas were, even at 100%.

This "combined" image retained all the great color and sharpness of the pixel shifted image, yet the leaves (being from the regular image) were not pixelated at all. When viewed at 100%, the sharpness is terrific (you can easily distinguish each individual grass leaf that's located at the edge of the stream).

While I don't like any of these "test images" enough to print up, I have no doubt that they'd make excellent 24" x 30" inch prints (my preferred size) if I did choose to print them.

While it does take extra time in post to combine PS and non-PS images, for important images I feel that it is definitely worth the effort.
.
P.S. The surface of the water in the regular image looked "noisy" to me. While the PS water looked smooth, noiseless, and overall much better. Also, the leaves and individual pine needles floating in the water in the PS image were sharper.
Have any of you also noticed that PS images seem to have less noise in water surfaces (and in the sky too)?
.

Good looking shot. Pixel Shift data is really special. You should try Rawtherapee for the raw (dng) processing and it is FREE. It is superior to all the other apps for PS. You can also use the one of the PS frames (usually the first shot) as the extra shot for blending if you need it.

The cleaner sky and still water come about because you have recorded all three colors at each pixel whereas with conventional has to be interpolated. Whole new world if you learn what to do.

Good going. Holler if you have PS questions.

RONC