Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

My Photographic Club had its Nature competition last night, I didn't win but both prints were highly commended. The judge commented on their sharpness and the way the main subject "popped" on the print.
One of the images is shown below, before and after the application of TTS. The image was taken with a Canon EOS 350D, 60 mm EF-S macro lens,    1/200 sec, f/11, ISO 800 and hand held.
The important thing to note are the TTS settings:
3 rad, -300% strength, 100% selection, TONE+ on green background on LHS. IE. The green background was set to be blurred and everything else sharpened.
Normal USM would have increased the noise in the out-of-focus background; using the negative percentage with that area selected blurred it a little more and prevented extra noise.

Before TTS. just raw processing (QU) USM
(http://www.pbase.com/tjm04/image/139190373/original.jpg)

TTS Applied
(http://www.pbase.com/tjm04/image/139190372/original.jpg)

Terry

That's a HONEY of a picture, Terry!

Fred,
Thank you but actually it's not a honey bee but a Buff Tailed Bumble Bee or Bombus terrestris.  ::)  ;D
Terry

Well!   Excuuuuuse! Me!!
You probably had to "COMB" the encyclopedia for that one. I didn't realize my quip would *sting* you so badly.

Really, I am happy that you corrected me. Until now, I thought apes lived in an Apiary!

... and honey gives me "hives"

Fred

If anyone enjoys Qimage Ultimate as much as I do, you might like the subtlety of what Tone Targeted Sharpening can do
Here are two images; a before and an after!
The third is a sample of using the RGB selection

IMHO, nothing looks worse than oversharpened water, grass and trees.

So here's a sample image where I wanted to enhance the depth of focus by sharpening the buildings on the horizon, *ONLY*.

I selected from the TTS menu, Target everything EXCEPT the eye dropper selected blue.
The result was to get the buildings on the horizon sharper and leave the water and sky alone.

To understand why "Target everything except" was selected instead of Target the white building only, you must accept the fact that the water is loaded with tiny "white caps" embedded in the blue water of the bay.
If I use target the white, expecting to sharpen the building only, it will also sharpen the white in the water area and the effect will be to over sharpen the water.
The color is broader using selection one.

The third attachment is an example of Tone selection that is so very tight that the shades of tan and brown are easily selectable.
This is Target RGB and eye dropper selected a single tone from the railing on the right side.
The Radius us set at 7 and the Strength is 5000.... As you can easily see or not see, only that single shade of tan was sharpened.
Now, follow the scheme. If I wanted to add more shades of tan to the 7/5000 Sharpen instruction, all I have to do is move that slider bar from 100% to 95 or 90 % and recheck what is showing as being sharpened.
You will begin to see the rest of the railing get sharpened and the tan colored marble in the floor.
Got it?

Have fun

Fred

Just to whet your appetite to experiment and get some extraordinary results from an ordinary shot, here are two sample images.

The object here is to show you that Qimage Ultimate also has a "Clarify" slider as many Editors have.
The only thing is, that is doesn't say CLARIFY, and it doesn't slide.

It is simply an interesting application of the USM, the Unsharp Mask tool in Qimage Ultimate.

There are two images below.
One shows a very ordinary shot of statue (It might be Terry, not sure.)
The other image is the same but with a value of USM which does the same as a Clarify slider.
I selected a 5 Radius and a 75 strength. It depends a lot on the subject material. Look at the marble base for effect.

Just like a slider, the numbers are variable.
You can even use the USM Equalizer slider to temper the sharpening, and ease up on edges while maintaining sharpening on soft parts.
  
Have fun.

Fred

PS Please excuse the poor jpg quality. I had to use 30% quality to make the file size fit in here.

These occasional posts with howto/howdone are always interesting and instructive - to me anyway.

I had a bit of messing about with this image on the sharpening front.

First note - shot at f4 which is not the best for the lens in use so pic a little soft.

QI did a good job at default the only tweaking I did was 5+ contrast and

Tone+ on Black Belt / soften non target 2/400

What do you experts think?  Title by the way is 'it's the way she tells them'

This is the best I can get - 500x768 to give good size for viewing

http://jeffmilan.zenfolio.com/img/s11/v28/p387897558.jpg (http://jeffmilan.zenfolio.com/img/s11/v28/p387897558.jpg)

Jeff

Made a pigs bottom of that image post

Try again (http://jeffmilan.zenfolio.com/img/s11/v28/p387897558.jpg)

Don't claim to be an expert, just an ongoing learner.  ;)
Looks ok to me initially but I did notice that the image viewed by the link in your 1st post looks crisper that the one showing in the 2nd post.
I'm not sure soften on non targeted area is a good thing with the black selected, that means the faces & clothes will get softened.
How about selecting a tone from the building in the background and using Except. There's a slight risk of t e grass becoming over done but try it. Or use except on the grass tone.
Terry

That's interesting - it is different, but, it is the same link in both cases!  very funny.

I have tried -300 on background but did not think it was an improvement.

I will try a few more variations later.

Jeff 

 

They look different because of the background colour of the window - the images are identical. I think you either need to crop it close to the people, or more or less completely remove the background building. The building shadow lines are too distracting. Perhaps you can select it and blur and fade the colours. This is where you need photoshop, or a more comprehensive specialist image editor, and some skill and time. I think the composition wrt the couple and the lamp-post, even the fence, is fine, it's just a shame about the building.

If you don't want to carry out some 'extreme editing' on the photo, then maybe return to the location, but this time take some dynamite with you  ;)

Best wishes,

Ray

They are both white here  ::)
EDIT: actually, if I right click on image in reply #7 and select View Image (Firefox), both look the same. So is the forum web site doing something to display the image that makes it look less sharp?
I've just looked at my bee image and compared in the same way and can see a difference there too.  :o
Terry

I forgot - I use a firefox add-on - 'ImageTweak'  (http://cafxx.strayorange.com/ImageTweak) and have the background colour set to dark grey, imho a better background colour for viewing images. That is what happens automatically when I click on http://jeffmilan.zenfolio.com/img/s11/v28/p387897558.jpg - the image embedded in the forum remains on the pale blue? background - but otherwise identical.

Now this is getting 'funny'

I have just revisited the two images and can see no difference, there was this morning!

Also I have saved the two images to a folder and opened them in Fastone and there is no difference.

I know we are all getting old but this is ridiculous :)

Jeff

PS I don't think the Dean would like me taking explosives to Lincoln Cathedral :) :)  any way I like the building.

Jeff,
I would expect them to look the same in that situation, they are the same image after all.
What I was saying is the image in the forum web page was lees sharp than when viewed directly from your gallery.
I asked Fred to look and he agrees too! Maybe different monitors/resolution give a different appearance.
Anyway, this is now getting off-topic. Let us know how you get on with trying different TTS parameters.
Terry

Hi Jeff,


Well, tell the Dean it's about time they cleaned the masonry :D

Best wishes,

Ray

Ray,
He already has months ago - see attached below from when I was there in June, you can just see the Dean at the top scaffold.  ;D
Terry