Cropping and resizing

**Canada_Rockies** · 09-27-2012, 08:49 AM

Bummer. They claim that it will correct the sensor problems even when the lens is not supported, but I have not found any difference using my M lenses, so I don't bother. Perhaps ask them directly. I'm just a user that appreciates letting the computer do any work for me when it can.

emalvick · 10-03-2012, 11:11 AM - **1 Like**

I think your photos look quite good. I think the key thing missing may be at how good will the images be once printed out. For instance, the images you have posted look fantastic on my monitor and as cropped they are all showing up around the size of an 8 x 10 (of course the exact depends on the H:W ratio). I am saying that they will look good at that size. You'd have to experiment to see how big they could go from where you are at. As far as sharpening and noise goes, I always find that those things look worse on a monitor than they do in print... i.e. you tend to have to over-sharpen a bit to get a nice print, and noise is never as bad on paper as it tends to look on screen. If anything noise is under-appreciated for the the ability to add texture and detail to an image. Removing all the noise tends to look unnatural to me regardless of the final amount of sharpness.

Ultimately, you'll have to decide based on some trials. I would make some test prints before you go spending the money on some of the Resizing software. Photoshop doesn't do too bad at enlarging if you aren't going to large. A friend of mine has shown me decent results running Photoshop's resizing vs. an older Genuine Fractals enlargement. I think he stated that he had to take a bit more care with Photoshop and run multiple enlargements rather than one jump, but they were both older software that he says have improved a bit over time (Genuine Fractals now is the OnOne Resize program... I think). I honestly haven't tried either myself as I find that cutting the ppi down a bit rather than increasing the resolution works for me since I don't usually print too big to begin with and you aren't going to be viewing a large canvas or print up close anyway.

wildman · 10-11-2012, 06:02 PM

Originally posted by emalvick

I think your photos look quite good. I think the key thing missing may be at how good will the images be once printed out. For instance, the images you have posted look fantastic on my monitor and as cropped they are all showing up around the size of an 8 x 10 (of course the exact depends on the H:W ratio). I am saying that they will look good at that size. You'd have to experiment to see how big they could go from where you are at. As far as sharpening and noise goes, I always find that those things look worse on a monitor than they do in print... i.e. you tend to have to over-sharpen a bit to get a nice print, and noise is never as bad on paper as it tends to look on screen. If anything noise is under-appreciated for the the ability to add texture and detail to an image. Removing all the noise tends to look unnatural to me regardless of the final amount of sharpness.

Ultimately, you'll have to decide based on some trials. I would make some test prints before you go spending the money on some of the Resizing software. Photoshop doesn't do too bad at enlarging if you aren't going to large. A friend of mine has shown me decent results running Photoshop's resizing vs. an older Genuine Fractals enlargement. I think he stated that he had to take a bit more care with Photoshop and run multiple enlargements rather than one jump, but they were both older software that he says have improved a bit over time (Genuine Fractals now is the OnOne Resize program... I think). I honestly haven't tried either myself as I find that cutting the ppi down a bit rather than increasing the resolution works for me since I don't usually print too big to begin with and you aren't going to be viewing a large canvas or print up close anyway.

First of all I apologize for getting back here so late - you will have to excuse an old man forgetting which threads he has posted in.

Some good advice here - the perceived difference between the monitor and a finished print is something to keep in mind.

RE: Genuine Fractals now OnOne Perfect Resize 7.0 Professional. I have this and thought I would play with it a bit...

RAW file, All the usual PP in ACR paying special attention to not over sharpen. Then a bit of creative fussing with the light just to make it a bit more interesting. No noise reduction as you suggested. Then I ran it through Perfect Resize and downsized it to fit on this forum. I just accepted the default settings in Perfect Resize.

By the way Perfect Resize is a real resource hog. Could not get it to run properly until I doubled my ram, Swapped out the 2 core CPU for a faster 4 core, installed Win 7 x64, installed PS CS6 x64, and added a dedicated 128gb SSD scratch disk just for PS. But these were all upgrades I was planning on anyway.

Judge for yourself - bare in mind the K20 is at it's limits for quality. It's no K5.

emalvick · 10-12-2012, 11:01 AM

It doesn't look bad at all to me. There seems to be a little CA on the underside of the branch but it is so minimal that I'd guess it wouldn't show up in printing. The bird is what stands out.

Did you run a similar resizing process just using Photoshop? I'd be curious as to how well they compare, if the specialized software made much of a difference to you. I'm sure it is strongly dependent on how much you resize. I'm actually going to look into this a bit to enlarge some crops I made from some of the Solar events this year for a potential canvas.

JinDesu · 10-12-2012, 11:14 AM

That latest crop looks fantastic, in my opinion. Realistic, and doesn't really give away that it's a crop.

wildman · 10-13-2012, 07:13 AM

Originally posted by emalvick

There seems to be a little CA on the underside of the branch

When checked out Perfect Resize carefully I discovered that the default preset introduced a bit of unsharp mask to the resize. Because I gave PR what I considered optimum sharpening that additional bit of sharpening in PR may have pushed it over the edge.

Originally posted by emalvick

Did you run a similar resizing process just using Photoshop? I'd be curious as to how well they compare,

Here you are. Jpg, ISO 400, a bit more extreme crop than the others

1. Full frame - pp for scale only
2. Photoshop
3. Perfect resize
4. Perfect resize + DeNoise. Denoise set for shadow only and then I faded layer back in until it looked best to my eye.

My conclusion - there is not enough difference between any of them to loose sleep over.

However I'm downsizing not blowing up and posting in very small JPG files so any subtle difference may be lost in this process. Also PR has a lot more control over the process than PS which might make a difference I just haven't used them for these posts. Also I'm just not familiar enough with the program yet to get all I could out of it.

Time will tell...

emalvick · 10-15-2012, 08:43 AM

All of the results you posted are fairly impressive. The noise only shows in an area that is easy to eliminate it. The bird looks great in all shots. I've only resized an image once myself, and I've only used PS and was happy enough with the results. I'm not sure I'll ever justify buying the program, but think it comes in more handy when the resizing is very significant. I've heard PR pays off if you are scaling on the order of 500%. I'll wait until I need 500% to worry about buying the program. I think I'd need to be making a very big poster for that to really be needed for me.

10-11-2012, 06:02 PM	#18
wildman Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Flyover America Posts: 4,469 Original Poster	Originally posted by emalvick I think your photos look quite good. I think the key thing missing may be at how good will the images be once printed out. For instance, the images you have posted look fantastic on my monitor and as cropped they are all showing up around the size of an 8 x 10 (of course the exact depends on the H:W ratio). I am saying that they will look good at that size. You'd have to experiment to see how big they could go from where you are at. As far as sharpening and noise goes, I always find that those things look worse on a monitor than they do in print... i.e. you tend to have to over-sharpen a bit to get a nice print, and noise is never as bad on paper as it tends to look on screen. If anything noise is under-appreciated for the the ability to add texture and detail to an image. Removing all the noise tends to look unnatural to me regardless of the final amount of sharpness. Ultimately, you'll have to decide based on some trials. I would make some test prints before you go spending the money on some of the Resizing software. Photoshop doesn't do too bad at enlarging if you aren't going to large. A friend of mine has shown me decent results running Photoshop's resizing vs. an older Genuine Fractals enlargement. I think he stated that he had to take a bit more care with Photoshop and run multiple enlargements rather than one jump, but they were both older software that he says have improved a bit over time (Genuine Fractals now is the OnOne Resize program... I think). I honestly haven't tried either myself as I find that cutting the ppi down a bit rather than increasing the resolution works for me since I don't usually print too big to begin with and you aren't going to be viewing a large canvas or print up close anyway. First of all I apologize for getting back here so late - you will have to excuse an old man forgetting which threads he has posted in. Some good advice here - the perceived difference between the monitor and a finished print is something to keep in mind. RE: Genuine Fractals now OnOne Perfect Resize 7.0 Professional. I have this and thought I would play with it a bit... RAW file, All the usual PP in ACR paying special attention to not over sharpen. Then a bit of creative fussing with the light just to make it a bit more interesting. No noise reduction as you suggested. Then I ran it through Perfect Resize and downsized it to fit on this forum. I just accepted the default settings in Perfect Resize. By the way Perfect Resize is a real resource hog. Could not get it to run properly until I doubled my ram, Swapped out the 2 core CPU for a faster 4 core, installed Win 7 x64, installed PS CS6 x64, and added a dedicated 128gb SSD scratch disk just for PS. But these were all upgrades I was planning on anyway. Judge for yourself - bare in mind the K20 is at it's limits for quality. It's no K5. Last edited by wildman; 11-08-2012 at 12:28 AM.

10-13-2012, 07:13 AM	#21
wildman Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Flyover America Posts: 4,469 Original Poster	Originally posted by emalvick There seems to be a little CA on the underside of the branch When checked out Perfect Resize carefully I discovered that the default preset introduced a bit of unsharp mask to the resize. Because I gave PR what I considered optimum sharpening that additional bit of sharpening in PR may have pushed it over the edge. Originally posted by emalvick Did you run a similar resizing process just using Photoshop? I'd be curious as to how well they compare, Here you are. Jpg, ISO 400, a bit more extreme crop than the others 1. Full frame - pp for scale only 2. Photoshop 3. Perfect resize 4. Perfect resize + DeNoise. Denoise set for shadow only and then I faded layer back in until it looked best to my eye. My conclusion - there is not enough difference between any of them to loose sleep over. However I'm downsizing not blowing up and posting in very small JPG files so any subtle difference may be lost in this process. Also PR has a lot more control over the process than PS which might make a difference I just haven't used them for these posts. Also I'm just not familiar enough with the program yet to get all I could out of it. Time will tell... Last edited by wildman; 11-08-2012 at 12:28 AM.

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09-27-2012, 08:49 AM	#16
Canada_Rockies Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Sparwood, BC, Canada Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 12,384	Bummer. They claim that it will correct the sensor problems even when the lens is not supported, but I have not found any difference using my M lenses, so I don't bother. Perhaps ask them directly. I'm just a user that appreciates letting the computer do any work for me when it can.

10-03-2012, 11:11 AM - 1 Like	#17
emalvick Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Davis, CA Photos: Gallery Posts: 1,642	I think your photos look quite good. I think the key thing missing may be at how good will the images be once printed out. For instance, the images you have posted look fantastic on my monitor and as cropped they are all showing up around the size of an 8 x 10 (of course the exact depends on the H:W ratio). I am saying that they will look good at that size. You'd have to experiment to see how big they could go from where you are at. As far as sharpening and noise goes, I always find that those things look worse on a monitor than they do in print... i.e. you tend to have to over-sharpen a bit to get a nice print, and noise is never as bad on paper as it tends to look on screen. If anything noise is under-appreciated for the the ability to add texture and detail to an image. Removing all the noise tends to look unnatural to me regardless of the final amount of sharpness. Ultimately, you'll have to decide based on some trials. I would make some test prints before you go spending the money on some of the Resizing software. Photoshop doesn't do too bad at enlarging if you aren't going to large. A friend of mine has shown me decent results running Photoshop's resizing vs. an older Genuine Fractals enlargement. I think he stated that he had to take a bit more care with Photoshop and run multiple enlargements rather than one jump, but they were both older software that he says have improved a bit over time (Genuine Fractals now is the OnOne Resize program... I think). I honestly haven't tried either myself as I find that cutting the ppi down a bit rather than increasing the resolution works for me since I don't usually print too big to begin with and you aren't going to be viewing a large canvas or print up close anyway.

10-12-2012, 11:01 AM	#19
emalvick Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Davis, CA Photos: Gallery Posts: 1,642	It doesn't look bad at all to me. There seems to be a little CA on the underside of the branch but it is so minimal that I'd guess it wouldn't show up in printing. The bird is what stands out. Did you run a similar resizing process just using Photoshop? I'd be curious as to how well they compare, if the specialized software made much of a difference to you. I'm sure it is strongly dependent on how much you resize. I'm actually going to look into this a bit to enlarge some crops I made from some of the Solar events this year for a potential canvas.

10-12-2012, 11:14 AM	#20
JinDesu Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2011 Location: New York City Photos: Gallery Posts: 5,632	That latest crop looks fantastic, in my opinion. Realistic, and doesn't really give away that it's a crop.

10-15-2012, 08:43 AM	#22
emalvick Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Davis, CA Photos: Gallery Posts: 1,642	All of the results you posted are fairly impressive. The noise only shows in an area that is easy to eliminate it. The bird looks great in all shots. I've only resized an image once myself, and I've only used PS and was happy enough with the results. I'm not sure I'll ever justify buying the program, but think it comes in more handy when the resizing is very significant. I've heard PR pays off if you are scaling on the order of 500%. I'll wait until I need 500% to worry about buying the program. I think I'd need to be making a very big poster for that to really be needed for me.

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