Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

Back from disastrous (photographically) visit to The West Country

Now getting down to QUltimate DFS!!

DFS a great addition to the tools, great effect when combined with the tone sharpening.

Two images below - before and after.  The first is a tiff original recovered from corrupted card, so no raw fiddling just editor stuff.

<a href="http://JeffMilan.zenfolio.com/p877799422/e481585aa" title="16orig"><img src="http://jeffmilan.zenfolio.com/img/s4/v10/p1209370026-2.jpg" width="400" height="267" alt="E J Milan: QUltimate &emdash; 16orig" />[/url]

<a href="http://JeffMilan.zenfolio.com/p877799422/e481585e4" title="{Q}16"><img src="http://jeffmilan.zenfolio.com/img/s3/v45/p1209370084-2.jpg" width="400" height="267" alt="E J Milan: QUltimate &emdash; {Q}16" />[/url]

Jeff

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

Jeff

Hi Jeff,
What sharpening values did you use for these images, radius, percent, slider position?
There seems to a difference in exposure too.
Terry

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

I have now tried out DFS on over 100 images. At first it's easy to get carried away with not having halos and other artefacts such that you can enter sharpening numbers that are more than really necessary. A comment about the Learning Video on the Luminous Landscape forum said "He uses too large a radius for my taste, but it does demonstrate the difference with USM nicely." This is exactly right; some of the demonstration images shown so far were to show what the difference is between USM & DFS by making the DFS sharpening values higher than necessary.
I have found that with DFS I will use higher values compared to USM, eg. from 2 radius 80% to 4 radius 100%, that is all. But it does depend on the image and several other factors.
I have made a couple of animated gf images of the editor preview to simulate the Yellow button showing the effect of 2 different sharpening settings.
See attached below for a screen shot of the editor at the lower setting (preferred)
Unfortunately the forum pages do not allow insertion of animated gif images so please click the links here:
DFS at 4 radius-200%                                                                                                               DFS at 4 radius-100%
www.pbase.com/tjm04/image/146863338 (http://www.pbase.com/tjm04/image/146863338)                                                                    http://www.pbase.com/tjm04/image/146863339 (http://www.pbase.com/tjm04/image/146863339)
My taste would be to use the 4-100 setting.
Terry

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
 

 

Fred and Terry,

As you know I am a reprobate and use another (lesser) utility to convert my RAWs.

But I still use Qimage for my printing and rely on the 'smart sharpening' to do things for me - set on the default of 5.

I have never touched the USM sharpening setting.

Now we have the wonders of DFS should I be doing something in that setting?

All Best Wishes (including from HRH for Fred)

Tony

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

Thanks Fred,

My default DFS setting is 0 and 0.

So can I leave it like that all the time and let Sharp Sharpen do what is needed?

Many thanks.

Tony

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