5D Sharpen settings

I am using Adobe PS CS2 (+testing CS3) and primarily 5D body

Are there any recommendations by Canon or others for sharpen settings in Smart Sharpen and/or USM as a base sharpen to counter the Anti-Alias filter on the 5D ?

Harvey Moore said:

I am using Adobe PS CS2 (+testing CS3) and primarily 5D body

Are there any recommendations by Canon or others for sharpen settings in Smart Sharpen and/or USM as a base sharpen to counter the Anti-Alias filter on the 5D ?

Click to expand...

Hi Harvey,

Here's some to try:

Smart Sharpen Filter
Sharpen Tab: Amount = 100, Radius = 0.9 (or try 0.6)
Shadow Tab: Fade Amount = 100%, Tone Width = 30, Radius = 1
Highlight Tab: Fade Amount = 100%, Tone Width = 65, Radius = 1

Reduce Noise Filter
All sliders to 0 except Sharpen Detail = ~60

You can find lots of variations on this if you do a Google search.

Later,
Johnny

Thanks Johnny, I'll expriment with your parameters.

I have been using smart sharpen:
Basic Mode
Amt 200-300%
Rad .3-.6
Remove Lens blur

Canon in one of their tech papers had USM recommendations for the 20D, but I have not been able to find anything for the 5D.

The settings I describe in this post seem to work well after post steps ie curves, levels etc etc. for basic sharpen.

After resize for web, prints, etc I do another sharpen to fine tune for the end use. I need to learn more about the advanced mode as you describe.

I am starting to do some more high ISO work in night and indoor work, just purchased 50L and 35L a few months ago to this end, and Reduce noise will sometimes be required.

Thanks again

harvey

I find smartsharpen not intuitively obvious and combinations are obscure.

There is no paradign that clicks for me at least. Sure it may be smart but it's also obscure.

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

I find smartsharpen not intuitively obvious and combinations are obscure.

There is no paradign that clicks for me at least. Sure it may be smart but it's also obscure.

Asher

Click to expand...

Asher, Maybe it is in actuality a test for "Smarts"

Even the guys at NAPP seem to have a problem with it in their tutorials.

I've bought Fred Miranda's Custom Sharpen Pro actions for every digital camera I've owned, & am very happy with them. I'm sure the Nik Sharpener works well, but Fred's actions are only $20. It takes a bit of work to get it to batch the way you want it, but it's no big deal if you're accustomed to batching.

http://www.fredmiranda.com/software/

Yes, I agree with Don. I have Fred Miranda's sharpening action too and find it excellent.
I have the 5D specific one.

If you like using Java Scripts in PS CS/CS2 etc you can get free scripts from here for sharpening.
http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com/TLRProfessionalSharpeningToolkit.htm
I've not tried them, so can't comment on how they work.

There's plenty of others there on his site which he offers freely to people to download and use.

I find though, that the files that come straight from the 5D are pretty sharp anyway, I usually don't have to do a lot of work on them.

regards,
Sue

I have the Fred Miranda sharpen tool for 5D, use mostly for output sharpening, it does a good job.

What I am looking for is some settings to counteract the Anti-Alias Filter only prior to editing, crop, etc.

Harvey Moore said:

What I am looking for is some settings to counteract the Anti-Alias Filter only prior to editing, crop, etc.

Click to expand...

The solution, while slightly more involved than selecting 'some' parameters for 'some' sharpening method, is not too difficult.

In essence 'the' solution can be approximated by starting with imaging a "slanted edge". When imaging a sharp edge (most important visual clue for the impression of sharpness/resolution), the result will be a slightly gradual transition from dark to bright (or vice versa).

By either empirical or mathematical derivation of the amount of blur introduced by the imaging chain, i.e. lens aberrations + AA-filter + sampling density, one can seek settings that will counteract that blur, without creating new artifacts like halo or ripple.

Once you can determine the settings that recreate a sharp edge transition without the introduction of visually detracting artifacts, the mission is accomplished.

In more technical terms, the imaging chain will introduce blur that can be characterized by a Point Spread Function (PSF). Once that PSF is known, it can be mathematically removed from the image data, in theory (due to imperfections in our source data).

More background reading and a good tool for quantification can be found at Norman Koren's Imatest site.

Bart

In Canon's 1D series White Paper published not long after the 1D Mark II came out, it suggests these starting points for USM in CS:

300% for strength.
.3 for radius.
0 for threshold.

Don't freak at the 300%....this parameter is not what gets you into Halo land...it is the radius actually.

I use this starting point with my 1D Mark II and 5D images and I find it works great.

I start with the starting point above, then tweek the radius up or down in 0.1 increments to taste, and for human skin I increase the threshold to taste.

For sharpening I use a layer and mask and do it selectively, surgically.

I never archive sharpened images....doing this will paint one into a corner...once saved one cannot undo USM application. And another reason is that one uses different USM values for different media to publish to, and for the resulting size of the print or presentation on the web.

I have found that using specialty sharpening plug-ins and products gives me nothing over using the sharpening options already available in CS/CS2/CS3...and using these already supplied options with layers and masks for selective application, one finds they have all they need. I once had several specialty sharpening programs, but I found over time they gave me nothing more then the already supplied functions in PhotoShop.

Canon and Other Camera Workflow

This is the workflow I generally use and have been published with when using the Canon 1D Mkll, 1Ds Mkll, Canon 20D and 350D that has worked quite well. You may play around a bit with this for variations.

First of all, you need to convert your PEF or DNG without any sharpening and export it to Photoshop (or save as TIFF or PSD to load it to Photoshop later). If you shoot in JPEG directly, use Neutral settings, but shooting RAW will give you much better results. Load your PSD or TIFF into Photoshop and apply Unsharp Mask (USM) filter with the following settings:

Amount: from 240 to 330 percent
Radius: 0.3 pixels
Threshold: 0 level

After that repeat Unsharp Mask with the Amount from 10 to 15 percent and Radius from 40 to 60 pixels (Threshold still at 0 level) .

Then you should duplicate layer and decide for yourself whether you want to emphasize blacks or colors and shadows. In first case you need to desaturate new layer, in the second - leave it as is.

Go to the Layers window and apply Soft Light blending mode to the duplicated layer. Then reduce it’s opacity to 50 - 80 percent at your taste. That’s all, flatten image “and ‘Voila’ a medium format film look in digital”.

ADDENDUM:

If you want to really pump up the colors, do not desaturate, just produce the layer as above, go to layer menu choose Soft Light reduce to about 50 to 80 percent for fill and opacity. Flatten after done.

You may view some samples here:

http://anashcreation.com/thenashgallery/BenjaminKanarek

Just leave the in camera setting on standard (that's 3 I think), that gives me nice and sharp files, without introducing artefacts.

Benjamin,

Thanks for posting this method.

I tried this technique on several images. The results on screen are impressive but I am unsure how to make adjustments as a function of DPI. For example, with my 5D @ 240 DPI I get about 11 x 17 inch print size; while @ 360 the print size is smaller. Do you have a rule of thumb for final print adjustments?