52 Week Project: Week 7, Creating Sharp Photos

  One of the first disappointments with digital was the apparent lack of sharpness.  The problem is compounded by the fact that I have high resolution eyes.  No, really, I do.  Not quite as good as they used to be but still better than most people with corrected vision.  You combine that with years of using medium and large format film and digital was just a bit lackluster.

  In researching I found I'm not alone.  Apparent sharpness seems to be one of the biggest complaints.  It is also the easiest technique to screw up.  A consumer grade digital SLR should be able to produce images at least as good as a point-n-shoot film camera!

  The reason is due to design requirements.  All digital cameras have what is called an Anti-Aliasing Filter. This filter is required for sampling and causes softness of the image.  The fix is to apply a sharpening filter.  

  When you shoot in jpeg format the camera applies some level of sharpening to the image.  Different companies have their own methods but they are not going to give you the utmost quality.

  Every image editing program comes will several options for doing sharpening and there are a whole slew of plugins each offering to be the best.  The problem is that one solution does not fit all.  Proper sharpening depends on what your display medium will be AND what your subject matter is.  Sharpening for video display and print require different processes.

  Lighting plays a big role in what the eyes perceive as sharp.  A higher contrast image will appear to be sharper than a lower contrast.  Edge lighting also plays a significant role.  Using light to define an edge with a slight shadow is how texture is visualized.  When programs like Photoshop apply a sharpening filter they create light and dark pixels around the edges.  In effect creating edge lighting for pixels.  When an image is over sharpened you get what looks a lot like film grain and a loss of detail.  The contrast is increased and the image can become almost posterized.

  Photoshop has another glitch that it throws into the mix.  It does not reduce large images very well.  I don't know how Gimp compares, but when you do a large reduction in Photoshop it will loose sharpness.  The images that my camera produces are 4272x2848.  When I size them for the web I reduce them down to 1024x682.  That is a pretty significant drop.

  Most people have recommended that editing be done on the full size image then reduced in no more than 40% increments.  A sharpen filter applied before each reduction.  So far I have been happy with that process.  I sharpen, reduce (long side) to 3500, sharpen and reduce to 2500, sharpen and reduce to 1024.

  The images today were taken yesterday during the Northwest Steam Society meet in Tacoma.  While not award winning photos they do show how good clean images can be created with a small amount of editing.  Each image had an adjustment layer added with the blending option set to "Soft Light" and set to 35% opacity.  This was done to bring out the color from the dull day.  Then they were reduced using the method stated above.  That's it.

  I've now saved the actions I used so that it can be automated.  Workflow and organization are going to be more important as I go out and shoot more.