Sorry made a mess of that, you will have to click the link, or just not bother.

Jeff

I Purloined a copy of Jeff's picture from his post.
Even though it is only 1024 pixels wide, I thought that Jeff's attempt was a bit over the top. He, like a lot of us, me included, like to show "Look Ma, No Halos".

So I attempted to sharpen that scene so it fit my taste.
( I wish I was good enough to shoot a picture like that!)

I tweaked the contrast and brightness a bit using CURVES; you can do it using a variety of tools.
Then to sharpen, I used TTS Tone Targeted sharpening because sharp edges sharpen too much and too fast, so I had to tame the foreground grass.
I Told TTS, Sharpen all except, and I selected the tan/brown grass with the eye dropper.
With some trial and error in the numbers game, I settled on a 5 radius and a 95 strength.
I like to keep the strength down as it adds to much "push", (contrast to the edges) when large radius is selected.

OK Looking good except that there was no sharpening to the BROWN grass in the foreground at all.
Well what did I expect.?  I Told TTS not to sharpen it.... but I have that mysterious EQ slider. Now is teh time to use it!
I back that off slowly to the left until the grass began to show a touch of sharpening (about the 45% mark).
What the EQ is doing in that instance was loosening the NO BROWN restriction.

I had to compress the JPG a lot, so I might have compromised the quality a bit.. I had to make it fit here!

So have fun!
This is a great tool.

Fred
Click on the image to enlarge

Terry should be along soon with a different approach
Stay tuned

Right Chaps,
Thanks for comments.
Sorry if I am debasing the Forum with my crap images, it would have probably been better not to post this one, it was after all a recovery job.

The adjustments I made are:
 
Shallow 'S' curve
Levels M .95
Fill Light +6 (no raw file to adjust)
Contrast +5
Brightness +2
Tone sharpened on Brown Grasses in F'ground,  Slider at 30%,  Rad 8  %200

On my screen within Qimage that does not look all that bad, yes sharpening a bit over the top.
When looked at it full screen at Zenfolio it is well over sharpened.

I Selected the Brown Grasses to bring out the peaty browns, which is how I generally like my Scottish scenes to look. 30% seems to be best slider position to make the land edge on the left stand off from the cloudy sky (pic is taken from the base of the Cullins of Skye at the head of Loch Scavaig, looking back to Elgol with Rum on the horizon) 

I have tried various adjustments of the sharpening and settled on Rad 8 %100 and again in Qimage it looks ok

Changed to photo on zenfolio link now

http://JeffMilan.zenfolio.com/p877799422/e48366446

Jeff
 

 

Hi Tony,
You tell HRH that she looked super sweet in those hats she wore recently on the television! Tell her that Fred represents 300 million Americans, and we all say, "She looked Smashing"

On the Smart Sharpen question, especially if you aren't using any USM or DFS, the only time that would really activate would be if your ppi dipped below 200 or lower.
Then it would try to sharpen you a bit if the print was big.
With that in mind, I would set Smart Sharpen to the DFS setting which will make the red ball turn blue, and because I believe Mike optimized Fusion to the Smart Sharpen DFS.
So if DFS is in the dialogue box instead of USM, then I would keep Smart Sharpen as DFS to match.

Fred

Yes! you can leave that as above.
But it is time to ask you why?
This new DFS system is as close to "ground breaking" as we will see in digital imaging anymore.
This is not hyperbole.... try it!
The word is spreading all throughout DPreview and you know that's playing to a tough audience.

So I ask again. Why? Why don't you at least try it on a folder of images, a duplicate folder so you can sharpen one folder using DFS and the other folder using USM (from your "other" utility.
If you still cannot be convinced, then so be it.

All the best!

Fred