richard_l
Well-known
Why do people over sharpen in post processing? It looks bad, and it doesn't prove anything. I have a little P&S that takes razor sharp images, but it isn't my best camera by any means.
Over Sharpening
- Thread starter richard_l
- Start date
- Latest activity Latest activity:
- Replies 48
- Views 5K
Keith
The best camera is one that still works!
Over use of sharpening not to mention the clarity slider has become more apparent to my eyes of late. And then there's HDR! 😱
x-ray
Veteran
It the mark of the amateur IMO. Read any photo forum or magazine about lenses and you'll discover most people judge lenses by how sharp the are. Oversharpened prints are just a carryover of this thinking. Over sharpened, clarity, over saturated and over editing is what I think of as the digital look.
IMO the beauty of film was partly due to the subtle transitions of tones and natural, not artificially sharpened, detail. The first I was awake of this was in the early 80's when drum scanners started appearing. One separation house we used started over sharpening to the point details had lines around them if viewed closeup. Fortunately it didn't take long to get that stopped.
It seems like HDR is less popular thank goodness.
IMO the beauty of film was partly due to the subtle transitions of tones and natural, not artificially sharpened, detail. The first I was awake of this was in the early 80's when drum scanners started appearing. One separation house we used started over sharpening to the point details had lines around them if viewed closeup. Fortunately it didn't take long to get that stopped.
It seems like HDR is less popular thank goodness.
Richard G
Veteran
One of the remarkable things I took from the Cartier-Bresson exhibition in Paris last year was how unsharp most of his photographs seemed to have been. Even Edward Steichen had a soft, merciful touch, with the sharpest image I can recall of his being of Charlie Chaplin and the lace veil over the face of Gloria Swanson. Slow shutter speeds may have contributed to some of this. I suppose people want sharp as a badge of quality of their equipment perhaps. A lot of people fiddle with the sliders in their software without a clear purpose. Tossed out phrases like sharpening for the web only add to their confusion.
Bill Clark
Veteran
With people photography I would do the reverse as the title of this thread suggests.
Used layers to work my mojo, then erase parts of the image on the work layer with a layer mask. Could reduce opacity to tone down the entire layer, if I thought it was necessary.
I suppose some buy a program like portrait professional or others that could possibly work.
I enjoyed processing the image as I thought it should look.
But I do agree with the OP in that I do see quite a number of over sharpened photos and other over done stuff.
One piece of the solution is to start with a good image in the first place. A good image is determined by learning the basics that forms the foundation of photography.
Used layers to work my mojo, then erase parts of the image on the work layer with a layer mask. Could reduce opacity to tone down the entire layer, if I thought it was necessary.
I suppose some buy a program like portrait professional or others that could possibly work.
I enjoyed processing the image as I thought it should look.
But I do agree with the OP in that I do see quite a number of over sharpened photos and other over done stuff.
One piece of the solution is to start with a good image in the first place. A good image is determined by learning the basics that forms the foundation of photography.
Pfreddee
Well-known
^^^^ What he said.
With best regards,
Pfreddee(Stephen)
With best regards,
Pfreddee(Stephen)
peterm1
Veteran
I have done it myself in the past and learned quickly to regret it and avoid it. Sharpening should also be done selectively. Some parts of an image are just not meant to be too sharp, let alone over sharp. BTW if you do over do it and realise this too late to use the undo button (and do not preserve your adjustment layers) you can improve the result after the fact by applying some blur / glow to the image which softens the effect. This of course too can be overdone too easily. So care and experience is needed. an over sharpened image always looks poor quality as you will realise instantly when you see it.
It is now a part of my post processing routine that I go through a number of initial PP steps - digital noise reduction (if needed) tonal adjustment, color adjustment and moderate sharpening if required. The result becomes my base image which I save for future use if needed. I can then make multiple interpretations.
Then having done that I will often selectively undo it by apply other corrections including selective ones to produce a final interpretation of that image that I like the most. I save this as a separate file. Often the final interpretations I like best are the ones which a lot of what could be said to be technical flaws including vignettes, some blur and lack of sharpness. But this depends also on subject matter. If shooting a city scape or landscape with lots of detail more sharpness generally works.
It is now a part of my post processing routine that I go through a number of initial PP steps - digital noise reduction (if needed) tonal adjustment, color adjustment and moderate sharpening if required. The result becomes my base image which I save for future use if needed. I can then make multiple interpretations.
Then having done that I will often selectively undo it by apply other corrections including selective ones to produce a final interpretation of that image that I like the most. I save this as a separate file. Often the final interpretations I like best are the ones which a lot of what could be said to be technical flaws including vignettes, some blur and lack of sharpness. But this depends also on subject matter. If shooting a city scape or landscape with lots of detail more sharpness generally works.
Rob-F
Likes Leicas
When I first started using Aperture I used both the sharpening and edge sharpening sliders on most pictures. At some point I noticed something artificial--the false edges, similar to what X-ray mentioned.
Well, live and learn, and a good thing about Aperture is that it never destroys the original file. I have it in mind to go back and unclick the edge sharpening, or reduce the intensity of it on many of my shots.
Well, live and learn, and a good thing about Aperture is that it never destroys the original file. I have it in mind to go back and unclick the edge sharpening, or reduce the intensity of it on many of my shots.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Sharpening is something that is hard for most people to understand. The process is not intuituve. First, its called "Unsharp Masking." The name comes from a process used in the film darkroom, but most digital photographers don't know that. Second there's those cryptically named sliders. Amount, Radius, Threshold, Detail. Amount seems self-explanatory, but then there's "Detail." Isn't that what Amount does? What's Radius and Threshold? The whole process is opaque and puzzling.
That difficulty is one of the reasons many oversharpen.
That difficulty is one of the reasons many oversharpen.
Monochrom
Well-known
😀
You are so right!
They use that tool so much that even OFA´s are "in focus"!
I think they try to show their gear is as sharp as the best lenses around.
It´s very pathetic!
You are so right!
They use that tool so much that even OFA´s are "in focus"!
I think they try to show their gear is as sharp as the best lenses around.
It´s very pathetic!
adamjohari
Established
one famous blogger comes to mind...
Ronald M
Veteran
They over sharpen because they were never darkroom trained to know what a good print is supposed to look like.
Generally speaking, if one can tell photoshop is done , I will not like it.
There can be serious problems with cheap monitors also. Mine costs as much as a pro camera.
Generally speaking, if one can tell photoshop is done , I will not like it.
There can be serious problems with cheap monitors also. Mine costs as much as a pro camera.
thegman
Veteran
I kind of agree with you about Photoshop, but I think generally a good print is supposed to look like what you want. Ansel Adams certainly had a distinctive look in printing, but it's not for everyone. The use of large format will make small prints look extremely sharp too.
I think in general, most effects in photography can be used poorly and look awful, or used well and look great. Sharpening can work well sometimes, less so others. Some people take it too far of course, but we've probably all been there, in one way or another. I probably over-used long exposures and saturated slide film, others will over use bokeh or sharpening.
nongfuspring
Well-known
Because some people can't separate apparent quality of gear vs. apparent quality of image.
Let's steer clear of the digital vs film debate, darkroom printing has its fair share of unflattering cliches also.
Let's steer clear of the digital vs film debate, darkroom printing has its fair share of unflattering cliches also.
thereabouts
Established
I agree with much of the above. But, at the same time, I wonder if it's always as cut and dried as we might think?
I think that one of the reasons that people may over-sharpen, is that much of the literature on sharpening comes from the days of CRT monitors and commercial printing, when you had to somewhat guess at the result of a sharpened image. In those days, we always tended to sharpen just a little bit more than the on-screen appearance, just to make sure. With LCD monitors sharpness is less of an issue and what you see is closer to what you get.
Also, when dealing with scans of films or printed positives, it is generally necessary to sharpen more than from a digital camera file (for commercial printing anyway).
The amount and type of sharpening depends not only on the type of image, but also where it is being reproduced. A file that looks oversharpened as a web JPEG may only look like that because, at 1024 x 768 pixels, some types of image appear to have a kind of 'halo' around them. I've seem this on the fine branches of trees, for example. When printed at full resolution, those images might look perfect (whatever that is). I know that I can rarely be bothered to re-purpose my photos when I post them online.
But, leaving the technology aside, sharpening isn't an absolute science. Some people like their images to look 'oversharp' (which is only a subjective term anyway). It's a bit like arguments about bokeh, or high contrast. Are Daido Moriyama's photos worse than Ansel Adams'?
I think that one of the reasons that people may over-sharpen, is that much of the literature on sharpening comes from the days of CRT monitors and commercial printing, when you had to somewhat guess at the result of a sharpened image. In those days, we always tended to sharpen just a little bit more than the on-screen appearance, just to make sure. With LCD monitors sharpness is less of an issue and what you see is closer to what you get.
Also, when dealing with scans of films or printed positives, it is generally necessary to sharpen more than from a digital camera file (for commercial printing anyway).
The amount and type of sharpening depends not only on the type of image, but also where it is being reproduced. A file that looks oversharpened as a web JPEG may only look like that because, at 1024 x 768 pixels, some types of image appear to have a kind of 'halo' around them. I've seem this on the fine branches of trees, for example. When printed at full resolution, those images might look perfect (whatever that is). I know that I can rarely be bothered to re-purpose my photos when I post them online.
But, leaving the technology aside, sharpening isn't an absolute science. Some people like their images to look 'oversharp' (which is only a subjective term anyway). It's a bit like arguments about bokeh, or high contrast. Are Daido Moriyama's photos worse than Ansel Adams'?
Sparrow
Veteran
Ha! ... I knew you'd eventually say something I agreed with ........ 🙂 ... what ned said! ...
... and one has to remember if one uses Flicker they will exercise their special aestheticism and sharpen anything you put on their site will have variable over-sharpening applied at random ... naturally those of us blessed with the gift of sight stopped using using flicker when they made it look so ugly
yanchep_mike
Always Trying
What is not sharp in the beginning is not getting better by edge sharpness.
kuuan
loves old lenses
In our modern world everybody is bombarded with often striking visuals in commercials, ads, magazines, movies asf. asf. and most images are sharp with highly saturated colors asf. The normal viewer simply has become used to see images of with these qualities and to identify them as 'good images'.
Then there are those who look for something different. Often enough I have seen that an image is specially noted and celebrated just because it has colors that are or are made to look like 'old film' colors, are washed out, and there is little sharpness, pretty much regardless if it was a good photo otherwise.
Then there are those who look for something different. Often enough I have seen that an image is specially noted and celebrated just because it has colors that are or are made to look like 'old film' colors, are washed out, and there is little sharpness, pretty much regardless if it was a good photo otherwise.
Sparrow
Veteran
Yes, that's a good point
My daughter found studying paintings in a gallery difficult because the colours looked wrong when compared to the same painting on the interweb.
peterm1
Veteran
Incidentally for those circumstances where sharpening is needed but I do not wish to use much or any unsharp mask I like to use a tool in the Nik Color Efex suite called Tonal Contrast. This little tool allows you to selectively adjust micro contrast in each of the highlight, midtone and shadow areas of an image. It increases apparent sharpening without any of the unpleasant side effects of the unsharp mask. Like all such tools it is easy to over do however (the default settings are far too high producing something that can look rather like a bad HDR photo) but if used carefully and in moderation it can be very useful in improving apparent sharpness as well as tonal quality. It can for example also pull detail back in from blow highlights or lost in too dark shadows. For those of you who have access to this suite try this tool if you have not already. I use this a lot myself, usually with a small amount of unsharp mask in those circumstances where a sharp image is needed by the assignment. If I happen to overdo it and want to back off a little its easy enough to apply a tiny amount of blur or glow (both options in Color Efex) which will soften out any excessive artifacts.
