Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

Some info on my experimentation with various settings using Deep Focus Sharpening;
•   For me, I found a radius of 2 and strength of and around 85 to be very suitable for landscapes.
•   I set the Final Print Sharpening to the default value of 5. But found when I moved the value to 10 the fine detail in the print improved immensely.
Finally, I would be interested to hear from other users what settings they use but particularly for portraits.
Up to now, I have used various sharpening methods in both CS 6 and Affinity photo, but my best results so far have been with DFS. I know that it’s early days for me yet but I don’t expect to be disappointed.

I tried out zone targeting on the sky to exclude the sharpening as I didn’t want to run the risk introducing noise to my image. It worked fine.
But I still have some difficulty getting my head around using selection options in tone targeting; perhaps somebody with experience here might give me some tips.
For example what if you apply a global sharpening to an image and then you want to apply a targeted sharpening to an area say the grass. Does that mean you are now adding double sharpening to say the grass i.e. the initial sharpen and the targeted sharpening?
Another question; what is meant by a selected RGB colour?
Also, why would one select saturated colours or for that matter neutral greys?

First of all, Bill, you should know that DFS is miles better than USM which other programs use.
Please look at videos below.
Most important is the fact that sharpening is subjective.Each image calls for unique, and special attention. Depends on subject, lighting colors, noise, and therefore no special numbers can apply. You seem to be on the right track with your landscape settings. Again, it depends on how much foliage in the foreground or background. Any water? etc etc etc.  Sometimes I try a 6 / 85 and yellow button check. Oops, it's a bit much. I back the strength  off to 75, 65, 55. checking each level until I can just see it, and where I like it.  SUBJECTIVE. Next image may need different settings.
I would like to call your attention to the forum topic called Qimage Challenges. Specifically, 32A - 32E.
Maybe you will get some ideas there.
Last item to mention that surely will help.   That SLIDER works in two ways. When in EQ mode, slider to OFF left, it acts like a threshold setting.
When you use a different mode, like RGB, Selected Tone, All except..... etc., the slider moves to the right, 100% side. It is now in a different mode, specifically to narrow or widen the color shades being addressed by the Tone sharpening selected.
So, in effect, moving the slider to the left from 100% to 85%, would all the sharpening to not only sharpen the selected blue, but more shades of blue...
In the case of RGB, that becomes even more effective, as you can sharpen a selected tone, plus and minus 5 or plus and minus 10 or more as in RGB slider right _ lets say, 50, 80, 50, can be that plus or minus a wider range.But is is so selective that you can sharpen a face on one side, and leave the wrinkles alone.  Try it.  use 3/300 to start.
Hope something helps, Bill. It is a tough one for all of us to grasp.
Fred

https://www.youtube.com/embed/AiVoXcB1uzk?vq=hd1080
and   https://www.youtube.com/embed/xn7Ipw8IAhQ?vq=hd720

Let me address the questions one at a time.


I would handle that in one pass.  Select the grass (by tone) and add as much sharpening as you want to the grass.  Then slide the targeting slider so that it balances the amount of sharpening you get in the grass versus the rest of the image.  And if you want the grass less sharpened and other colors more sharpened, there is the option to sharpen all tones "except" the selected grass and then adjust the slider.


If you select a tone, let's say the green of grass, it sharpens based on that hue of green so even blades of grass with a bit more or less brightness (which have the same hue green) are sharpened similarly.  When you select RGB, you are saying you want to sharpen that specific color, so if you select a bright green blade of grass, it'll sharpen those bright greens more than the other blades of grass that might not be as well lit but have the same hue (tone).


If you target something like green grass (let's say by tone), you are saying you want to sharpen green.  As the green in the grass fades to neutral, perhaps with a patch of grass that's more "dead", the "green" starts to go away and you start to approach neutral.  In addition, what if you wanted to sharpen a gray sidewalk: those are not red, green, blue, or any "color" so you need a selection that allows you to sharpen only the neutral colors too.  If you select a bright green area of grass and choose to sharpen that tone, the greenest grass will be sharpened the most and as the grass goes to duller green, the sharpening falls off... to the point that when you reach a patch of dead gray grass, that doesn't get sharpened at all because that's closer to neutral than green.  That's how the targeting works.

Regards,
Mike

For portraits, my personal taste for most - but especially women and children - I like the eyes to be sharply defined.  So I will use the dropper to select the facial flesh tone and then Sharpen All Except.  This is of course very subjective, and I sometimes have to fiddle with the actual DFS values and/or slider, especially if the hair gets overdone. 

Thanks for the info. I haven't yet got around to viewing the various challenges but I will. It appears that I have a bit to go yet before I master the intricacies of DFS.
Regards
Bill

This little run has been a most interesting read and a great reminder of what can be done in QI

I have been using QI for many years but it is good to have a detailed refresher now and again. made a special note of this one.

Jeff