[Simon]

Here's a short article that might indirectly help us to understand where Pentax is coming from with their K10D sharpening strategy:

Quick Tip: Use 'Low Sharpening'

Simon

[roy]

i've always had sharpening on my DS set to 0 and have never had a problem. i think i'll set it to the lowest setting and shoot some to see if there is a difference in diff sizes prints.

[NLAlston]

Here's a short article that might indirectly help us to understand where Pentax is coming from with their K10D sharpening strategy:

Quick Tip: Use 'Low Sharpening'

Simon

Hey Simon,

This was a very informative (and quite helpful) read for me, and I appreciate your posting the link. Thanks much.

[Pants]

To my eyes the bigger problem with most digital cameras is heavy-handed noise reduction that can't be disabled. My old Kodak Z740 lost a lot of detail to noise reduction that could never be recovered, even at ISO 100. I am a big fan of Pentax's minimalist approach to noise reduction, not that much is needed on an APS-C sensor.

The most egregious in my opinion is Panasonic's Venus III engine, which is a shame since their cameras generally have good optics. My wife's DMC-TZ1 is a fun little compact camera, but some of the shots look like watercolors when printed bigger than 5x7 or even 4x6.

[Cideway]

I find that i have better sharpening technique in PS and shooting raw i always make sure that ACR doesn't sharpen the image either, hopefully the madness will end soon.

[roentarre]

I find that i have better sharpening technique in PS and shooting raw i always make sure that ACR doesn't sharpen the image either, hopefully the madness will end soon.

I second that. Shoot neutral in Raw and then cook the dish the way you like it

[roscot]

I like this quote:
"Sharpening the image in the camera gives it more impact, and impresses camera reviewers."

[Simon]

I like this quote:
"Sharpening the image in the camera gives it more impact, and impresses camera reviewers."

I thought someone might pick up on that - it's a good one

Simon

[pentaxkat]

This thread is interesting. I wonder if I could get some advice.

I have a DS and I will admit, I hate post-processing. I have no problem with other people doing it, I just really don't enjoy it myself. I like cameras and lenses. As you have probably guessed, I shoot JPEGs, even though this has been suggested to be a bad option on a DS. For reference, I used to shoot with Provia slide film and have never used a digital compact.

Most of my shots have been taken with sharpening set to 0, and more recently some with sharpening set to 1. I got the ones set to 0 printed by a semi-pro lab (Peak Imaging) at 7.5x5 and they looked lovely, really film like. I was very impressed. However, looking at my images on my (very very uncalibrated about to die) laptop screen, they don't seem to have quite as much kick as other peoples. I don't mind this for my own prints but I don't want my pictures to look soft on the web compared with others (and I use nice sharp lenses like A 50mm and 21mm limited).

I hate photoshop. I know most people like it, but I can't stand it. Its too complicated. I have recently been enjoying faststone for resizing images. They have a sharpening tool, but it is a bit too simple. Is there any software that will batch re-size and sharpen (with some control) photos and keep the EXIF intact. Anyone tried the QImage mentioned in the article cited above?

Please don't tell me learn photoshop, I'm not against it but I want something really really simple and stressfree; photography for me is about an escape from techy stuff. I love the in-camera controls, and cameras seem to be going more in this direction; the new Nikon D40 has some interesting looking controls (although it sounds like they need a lot of refinement!).

[jbarnhart]

I've been a Qimage user for years. Absolutely the best photo printing program I've ever used. The author keeps it up to date, too. It's a fantastic bargain and I can't recommend it highly enough. I have Adobe PS2 and I still use Qimage to print.

[pentaxkat]

A bit of further investigation has shown this sounds like just the program I need, but it is nice to have a recommendation from someone who's actually used it!

[pentaxkat]

Out of interest, I took out my prints from DS jpegs (with in camera sharpening set at zero and no additional sharpening done) and compared them with the same size prints done on my old super A with fuji provia 100.

My subjective impressions are:-

The DS photos are noticeably softer (but still don't look that bad) so a bit of sharpening would definately bring out more 'pop' in them a bit. I think I will try QImage for this.

The provia photos are very rich looking; they have a very different look to them, mainly due to the different colour rendering. I prefer this look for some types of photo but not others. e.g. my landscape and some of my travel photos look nicer with provia, but I like the more colour neutral (almost creamy soft, kind of hard to explain) look with my wildlife (+1 saturation) and macro (0 saturation) photos. I do use the DS on natural mode and suspect I could get quite a different look on bright, although I don't like oversaturated colours; I've always preferred provia to velvia for example.

You can tell what lenses I have used even on the unsharpened JPEGs. The 100-300 shots are noticeably softer (except a couple of shots stopped down in very nice light) than my 50mm shots and my 100mm f4 macro shots aren't that sharp but have absolutely beautiful bokeh so I like the look. The 21mm shots have the highest contrast and look sharper.

All in all I think it is the images that count the most, but a bit of sharpening would definately help so I think I'll add this into my routine.

That article really got me thinking!

[button]

I've been a Qimage user for years. Absolutely the best photo printing program I've ever used. The author keeps it up to date, too. It's a fantastic bargain and I can't recommend it highly enough. I have Adobe PS2 and I still use Qimage to print.

Qimage does look like a great bargain, but I wonder if there are any freeware programs out there that will sharpen an image as well as a commercial grade product can. I rarely shoot RAW, but when I do, it's with the intention of printing something out at 8x10 inch size or larger (recently, I had a 24x36 inch print made). I always convert my RAW files with UFRAW, an excellent program that uses dcraw, which now supports k10d PEF files. I don't know much about sharpening, other that what I've read- keep it low radius, and don't do it until the end. Could anyone point me in the right direction?

Thanks,
John

[slip]

Are they refering to the jpg sharpening in camera, or the sharpening that can be put on with ACR to the raw image?
does ACR sharpen only the edges?
when I boost the sharpening with ACR it might show up in large prints?

confused....

thanks

randy

[Simon]

Are they refering to the jpg sharpening in camera, or the sharpening that can be put on with ACR to the raw image?
does ACR sharpen only the edges?
when I boost the sharpening with ACR it might show up in large prints?

The article was talking about in-camera sharpening of jpegs. It was targetted mainly at users of P&S cameras, but I was extending it's meaning to the current debate around C/N sharpening and Pentax.

When you apply sharpening (say unsharp mask for the sake of argument) it increases contrast on any "edge" it can find. Without judicious use of "clipping" that can mean that texture is "enhanced" as well as edges, or worse, it may find edges where you don't even want texture. The quick way of getting round this is to increase "clipping" until only the edges are picked up.

A more advanced way is to create a mask layer based on finding edges in the original image (you'll need to increase its contrast of the mask, touch out any "edges" you don't want sharpening, and blur it to produce a more natural effect), then apply sharpening to the masked image and it will only be applied to the edges you want sharpening.

That was a very abbreviated description of the process. I hope it makes sense.

Simon