sharpness question

[marc]

the photos thmself don't have an interest by itself, apart maybe for having such a pretty model as son, but no merit from my part here.
I get results a lot by chance and very few by understanding, so I would like to know better to be able to do things again. When I took this picture, I had the impression the photo had a definition I never achieve.
Maybe this created by light conditions, background contrast etc, but I guess settings or the way I metter play more a role.




The sharpness I normally get would be something like this, which is not bad but nothing so satisfactory as above. First one was jpg, second dng.



Maybe it is an impossible question or has no answer other than "go and take some photography classes", but any impressions would be so apreciated.

 

[odklizec]

Hi Marc,

The main difference between JPEG and RAW is that there is no image processing applied in RAW. It also means no additional sharpening. The sharpness you see in RAW is delivered by lens. So when you process the RAW, don't forget to increase the sharpness a bit. Probably the best (but somewhat tricky to use) solution for sharpness is Unsharp Mask (also called USM). Most of good image and raw editor have some sort of USM implemented in their tool box. What RAW processing tool do you use?

 

[marc]

thank you Pavel,
the only edition I use, if any, is some experimentations with lightroom. Both photographs here are direct from camera, just a little bit cropped.
So I understand that raw could benefit some extra sharpening?

Apart from this, in the camera menu there is this image setting (contrast/sharpness/color depth) that I do not know very well how to balance and if it is worth

More generally I am not obsessed by sharpness, maybe I expressed it wrong because of general ignorance, I think it was the same between the 2 photographies. What I would like to say is that there is something related with the 2nd picture (and a lot of others) that make them less natural, more flat than I would wish. Apart from sun direction which bursted colors, of course. In the 1st one the subject really pops up.
Another example, maybe more comparable. (promised this is the last one, myself I found them 100% uninteresting )





Excuse me for expressing in such a confusing way.

 

[odklizec]

Marc, there is nothing "uninteresting" on these photos. Even the kids photos are photos and the first one is excellent in my opinion. Second is a bit overexposed, but since you have it in RAW, I'm pretty sure it can be saved. The last one is nice too, pity there is some rubbish behind your son. I'm not a big fan of image manipulation, but I would probably wipe out the pole growing from your son's shoulder

Anyway, back to the main subject of this discussion. RAW is usually slightly less sharp than JPEG, so yes, you should sharpen it in postprocessing. Another thing to keep in mind is, that scalling the picture down makes the resultant photo a bit soft. The amount of softness depends on used scaling algorithm. For example, Bilinear resampling produces much softer images than Lanczos and needs some additional sharpening after rescaling the picture. So if you don't plan to print large photos and you want sharp images for web, it's better to sharpen the images as the very last thing during the image processing (before saving the image to file).

If you are about to start with RAW processing, i would suggest you to try Rawtherapee. It's free of charge and provides very good toolset, including very good sharpening tools. A bit expensive but very good (my personal favorite for Ricoh RAWs) is Silkypix. Most of my photos are edited in this RAW editor. Their latest SP PRO (currently in public beta stage) is very fast and full of nice features. Help is a bit quirky, but there is a very good ebook about SP (see the SP section on this forum).

Feel free to ask if you need some more help

 

[marc]

I learned a lot with this exchange, thank you Pavel.
I will try to explore your suggestions, altough I do not dare to insist with Silkypix. After installing it I was quickly convinced that it was a test from the little green men from Ganymedes to see if we could use their technology and interfaces :mrgreen: (no doubt, people from Red Dwarf like you are compatible... :mrgreen: )

Anyhow, I will keep on posting some results and a lot of doubts!

 

[gsaronni]

I like your shots. I recommend always shot RAW+JPG, in case you ovexpose your shot, it can be repaired with a RAW tool

I use Adobe camera RAW and I made the sharpenning thing with Foucus Magic, a nice plugin for Photoshop. Sometimes JPG is enough, but it is good to learn to work with DNG files

It is a pitty Asturias is so distant from Irun, the GX100/200 is a rare camera here and it would be nice to see other Ricoh users

Un saludo