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Elderly Aunt
- Thread starter StuartRae
- Start date
Nill Toulme
New member
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Interesting bout sharpening with pictures of old ladies. One thing these ladies do before visitors come, is to have their hair done! So one is presented with a coiffed head of hair which glistens form hair spray. It is like a badge of being ready for visitors!
So I'd go for a little more than usual judgment would dictate, just in the hair, My general approach is to dull and arken the b.g. where it can work and get it out of focus and non-distracting, unless its part of planned composotion.
The red face, if its rea,l can relate to her sun-exposure an say someting about her. However, I wonder whether or not, a B&W version might have something to show us that was different and compelling too.
Asher
So I'd go for a little more than usual judgment would dictate, just in the hair, My general approach is to dull and arken the b.g. where it can work and get it out of focus and non-distracting, unless its part of planned composotion.
The red face, if its rea,l can relate to her sun-exposure an say someting about her. However, I wonder whether or not, a B&W version might have something to show us that was different and compelling too.
Asher
Sean DeMerchant
Inactive
Asher Kelman said:
With people (especially ladies) I sharpen the eyes, lips, at times eyebrows, glasses frames if present, elements of outfits, jewelry, and hair. Or I simply do not sharpen. What I do not do is sharpen skin which tends to highlight wrinkles, blackheads, and other imperfections of skin. I will clone out the occassional blemish as they are impermanent features.
But my goal is crafting flattering images rather than images that show "character".
my $0.02,
Sean
Hi Sean,
Thanks for the advice re sharpening.
It depends to a certain extent on the purpose of the picture. In this case I wanted to show "character", and knowing this lady as well as I do (she was a second mother to me when I was a child) I'm sure she wouldn't want to be "flattered" in this way. I love every little wrinkle!
Regards,
Stuart
Thanks for the advice re sharpening.
It depends to a certain extent on the purpose of the picture. In this case I wanted to show "character", and knowing this lady as well as I do (she was a second mother to me when I was a child) I'm sure she wouldn't want to be "flattered" in this way. I love every little wrinkle!
Regards,
Stuart
Sean DeMerchant
Inactive
StuartRae said:
Hi Stuart, <smile>
In this case I would then suggest exploring wide radius sharpening to create depth and character rather than narrow radius sharpening. The first boosts localized contrast while the latter sharpens edges (they are the same thing, but the look differs).
To make it easy you can try the following Action:
http://www.envisagement.com/opf/Wide_Sharpen.zip (may be CS 2 only)
This type of sharpening is very CPU intensive (wide radius work). I would seriously suggest this type of sharpening for landscapes and cityscapes.
enjoy,
Sean
Hi Sean,
I'd heard of wide radius sharpening, but never really tried it.
Since I've only got PSE3 the action won't work for me (but thanks anyway), so applying irrefutable logic I reasoned that 100px was pretty wide.
The results are quite amazing, although I need to play with the settings a bit more.
I used:
Narrow - A 70%; R 1.5; T 2
Wide - A 70%; R 100; T 10 (2 was just too much OTT).
No other processing involved.
Narrow Radius
Wide Radius
It's also interesting that the wide radius JPG is larger than the narrow radius one, implying more detail.
Regards,
Stuart
I'd heard of wide radius sharpening, but never really tried it.
Since I've only got PSE3 the action won't work for me (but thanks anyway), so applying irrefutable logic I reasoned that 100px was pretty wide.
The results are quite amazing, although I need to play with the settings a bit more.
I used:
Narrow - A 70%; R 1.5; T 2
Wide - A 70%; R 100; T 10 (2 was just too much OTT).
No other processing involved.
Narrow Radius
Wide Radius
It's also interesting that the wide radius JPG is larger than the narrow radius one, implying more detail.
Regards,
Stuart
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Sometimes the "Truth" hurts!
Sean, I meant more sharpening in the hair more than usual!
I have a blurred layer, a wide radius sharpen, a line sharpen and blend them quite like your intructions too.
Now look at Don Lashier's unasharpened scan of his old film image. It's in the Rangefinder, M8 and RD-1 Forum and see the immediate magic there!
For character, it's hard to beat film!
Still there's the issue of cosmetic issues, as you pointed out, which for ladies especially may not be flattering. A great shot can be like staring rudely at someone's skin from 4", LOL!
I'll look at your action to see what magic I'll find!!
Asher
Asher Kelman said:
Sean, I meant more sharpening in the hair more than usual!
I have a blurred layer, a wide radius sharpen, a line sharpen and blend them quite like your intructions too.
Now look at Don Lashier's unasharpened scan of his old film image. It's in the Rangefinder, M8 and RD-1 Forum and see the immediate magic there!
For character, it's hard to beat film!
Still there's the issue of cosmetic issues, as you pointed out, which for ladies especially may not be flattering. A great shot can be like staring rudely at someone's skin from 4", LOL!
I'll look at your action to see what magic I'll find!!
Asher
Sean DeMerchant
Inactive
Hi Stuart,
What follows is what I use. And sometimes I run it twice. It is basically 3 passes:
amount, radius
3%, 30px
5%, 15px
10%, 7.5px
I tend to favor Smart Sharpen over the standard Unsharp Mask filter but it gets very CPU intensive on 16-bit images using the Lens Blur method at wider settings.
The Action In Detail
I would suggest exploring few things here.
1) Using lesser amounts on the wide sharpen sharpening pass. As little at 2% may be appropriate.
2) Try using even smaller radiuses like 0.3-0.7 for edge sharpening. You may be able to take those up well past 150%.
3) Use multiple passes. Try sharpening at 0.5, 10, 20, and 30 pixels radiuses or whatever. Each affects a different frequency so the best choice is always image dependent and there is no magic right answer.
JPEG compression works by throwing away high frequency details. As the wide sharpen introduces more lower frequency details it almost sounds rational. But at a different compression setting the results could vary wildly.
In the end, the goal is always to craft an image you like. This software stuff is just tools (hence my using canned settings quite often as I just hit F3 and let it run for a minute).
enjoy,
Sean <smile>
StuartRae said:
What follows is what I use. And sometimes I run it twice. It is basically 3 passes:
amount, radius
3%, 30px
5%, 15px
10%, 7.5px
I tend to favor Smart Sharpen over the standard Unsharp Mask filter but it gets very CPU intensive on 16-bit images using the Lens Blur method at wider settings.
The Action In Detail
StuartRae said:
I would suggest exploring few things here.
1) Using lesser amounts on the wide sharpen sharpening pass. As little at 2% may be appropriate.
2) Try using even smaller radiuses like 0.3-0.7 for edge sharpening. You may be able to take those up well past 150%.
3) Use multiple passes. Try sharpening at 0.5, 10, 20, and 30 pixels radiuses or whatever. Each affects a different frequency so the best choice is always image dependent and there is no magic right answer.
StuartRae said:
JPEG compression works by throwing away high frequency details. As the wide sharpen introduces more lower frequency details it almost sounds rational. But at a different compression setting the results could vary wildly.
In the end, the goal is always to craft an image you like. This software stuff is just tools (hence my using canned settings quite often as I just hit F3 and let it run for a minute).
enjoy,
Sean <smile>
Sean DeMerchant
Inactive
Hi Asher,Asher Kelman said:
My main worry with sharpening hair is artifacting (halos or enhancing aliasing) and I would express that caution should be used there. But then, when I am in a hurry or do not feel up to the effort I simply do not sharpen (albeit, ISO 1600, 1/30@f/1.4 handheld is rarely sharp anyway and composition matters more).
I do like the look of Tri-X for people and all that noise looks fine and hides skin flaws very effectively.Asher Kelman said:
No magic. Just a relatively mild moderately wide tri-radius sharpen that does not generate excessive artifacts while enhancing local contrast. I can be more agressive if need be, but I like to start with by hitting F3, browsing the web for a minute (8 MP@16-bit on a dual core system takes a bit to compute), and then having a reasonable result. I usually run it on a new layer and often reduce the opacity a touch to make the sharpening subtle.Asher Kelman said:
enjoy,
Sean