Picasa Sharpening?

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kuzano

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I am a limited user of Photoshop, using CS3 and trying to learn. I know I'm a hardhead, and am struggling with the sharpening in CS3.

Then, a couple of days ago, I had to download Picasa (free from Google) and use it a bit so I could show one of my computer customers how it works. (Duh, photoshop ain't for everyone folks $$$)

So, I pulled on of my digital pics in from a folder and went to the effects tab. It was a pic of a White lilly. I used the "sharpen" pane and was awed. Picasa sharpening literally kicks A__ on CS3 at this stage of my evolution. That said, I may choose not to evolve.

Anyone know a really good tutorial on Sharpening in CS3
 
New age of enlightenment

New age of enlightenment

kuzano said:
That said, I may choose not to evolve.

Anyone know a really good tutorial on Sharpening in CS3
Click to expand...

Welcome to the new age of enlightenment. Just last night I was reading how the CAD industry is in for a big flip flop. The few giants that have held their clients hostage for so many years are in trouble. There are lowcost, even shareware programs that, in some applications, blow the big boys out of the water. Picasa is a God-send for the poor photographer that cannot shell out $600+ dollars every time the people at Adobe need to boost their earnings. I too have found that clicking on "are you feeling lucky" gives some amazing results. Too bad that I didn't find Picasa before I spent the bucks for PSP!

About sharpening in CS3, someone else will have to help you. When I tried the demo version, I don't think that I was ever able to even load an image. Forget working on it! I have a freebie 2D CAD that does everything that I need and it only took a few weeks to learn versus the years that it takes to learn Autocad! Nope, let those that need the big guns spend the bucks. Picasa works for me.

Life is uncertain, eat deseert first. :bang:
 
I'm not at all interested in Photoshop manipulations. I have PS Elements, Paint Shop Pro (old edition), all the Canon software for their DSLRs and Picasa 2. After playing around with RAW and messing with Elements and PSP manipulations, I became very bored. I really don't need a lot of manipulations to get what I want from a picture. About all I need is an occasional adjustment in the shadows and a bit more sharpening than the software in the camera does with a JPG. I now pretty much use Picasa for everything. It's simple, quick and 8x10s look great. YMMV.
 
I find that Picasa2 which I use as a organizer (and like because sometimes I don't have to go any further than Picasa2) over sharpens for my taste. But the best sharpening is a function of the actual size of the image that you are going to use as your final image. That is you would use different sharpening numbers for an image that would be put on RFF Gallery at 875 pixels than you would if you were sending the same image for an eight by ten print. You should try to use your PhotoShop or PSE unmasked sharpening sliders to get an ideal what you like. I start with 95-.8-0 and then work from there. But I hate sharpening so there are probably more astute people on the this forum with a much more complete explanation.

To make it even more confusing people that know much more than you or I have PhotoShop numbers for sharpening for every genre (landscape, portrait, nature). I have some of these numbers if you are interested.
 
I am glad to see that people are discovering Picasa. I mention it often here, usually to deafening silence. Perhaps it's not manly enough for those heavily invested in post processing. Picasa is the model to me of what post processing should be: One or two intuitive clicks and you are done. And don't forget that Picasa handles many RAW formats as well, so it's not just for jpgs. It's incredibly fast, totally intuitive, and free. It does 95% of what I want. For the rest Iedit in PSE 5 or sometimes CS3, just to be able to use the occassional plug-in or clone out some dust or scratches. Three cheers for Picasa!!!

/T
 
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I don't know Picasa, but the best plug in for PS sharpening is the Photo Kit Sharpner - it divides the job in input and output sharpening (both may vary according to the subject type and output size). You can find an overview here:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/software/pk-sharpener.shtml
The drawback it had in CS2, was that it only worked with RGB files, and since I shoot 98% B&W I do not use it so much recently.
 
Yes... The RAW handling surprised me as well....

Yes... The RAW handling surprised me as well....

Tuolumne said:
I am glad to see that people are discovering Picasa. I mention it often here, usually to deafening silence. Perhaps it's not manly enough for those heavily invested in post processing. Picasa is the model to me of what post processing should be: One or two intuitive clicks and you are done. And don't forget that Picasa handles many RAW formats as well, so it's not just for jpgs. It's incredibly fast, totally intuitive, and free. It does 95% of what I want. For the rest Iedit in PSE 5 or sometimes CS3, just to be able to use the occassional plug-in or clone out some dust or scratches. Three cheers for Picasa!!!

/T
Click to expand...

I have an Olympus DSLR (thanks to 4/3rds allowing small camera bodies) and was absolutely amazed when Picasa opened and edited the ORF (Olympus RAW Format) file and actually saved the changes in the ORF format. I am a long term Olympus user.

I think the problem with most people is the perception that free software is worthless. Frankly, if I had not been gifted CS3 and Lightroom, I would not have them. I have been in the computer service industry for years and have a strong respect for what we used to call ShareWare-software in the public domain. It still exists, and I can always find a free or public domain program to fill every need. As a matter of fact, if you break the chores down, I am beginning to believe that there are no functions of Photoshop that you can't get done by building a library of public domain or low cost programs. I realize that for most people, the easiest thing to do is fork over the $600 for Photoshop and spend months learning how to use it effectively. That's just not my style.

And as you mention, some people just have to get over themselves and look at the programs that are less expensive that will do everything they will ever use, like Photoshop Elements for 1/5th the price.
 
I have been using Picasa a little and generally like what it does. I do find that with some images it does seem to over sharpen. I think it works well on the whole and am using it in conjunction with PS Elements 2.0.

Bob
 
I love it, but agree that some of the controls aren't flexible enough, like sharpening, it's too much most of the time.
 
i use gimp and i sharpen photos with unsharp mask. it is much better for sharpening than simple sharp. you just need to experiment with settings a bit.
 
I love my Picassa, it can mange all my photos with almost no overhead. Thing lets me get a gallery view of a years worth of photos with no speed issues. The editing is just fine for about 80% of what I do. Then a few clicks, and they are web pages. Picissa deals w/ NEF raw just fine!

For the other 80% I have capture NX and PSE. Just a few clicks to configure Picissa/Windows, and I get a right clik open inside Picissa.

For cleaning up scaned negatives, Picissa misses a few features, but hey, it was free.

Dave
 
kuzano said:
I have an Olympus DSLR (thanks to 4/3rds allowing small camera bodies) and was absolutely amazed when Picasa opened and edited the ORF (Olympus RAW Format) file and actually saved the changes in the ORF format. I am a long term Olympus user.

And as you mention, some people just have to get over themselves and look at the programs that are less expensive that will do everything they will ever use, like Photoshop Elements for 1/5th the price.
Click to expand...

Don't overlook the new Corel PaintShopPro X2.
It's still the powerful Paint Shop Pro at heart, Corel bought the original company JASC. At $90 or even less if you upgrade, this tool allows photographers to do most editing that you want to do with Photoshop.

I am a long time PaintShopPro user and I think I'm going to spring for an update. I use this when Picasa isn't enough.

boy, do I sound like a commercial ;)
 
Have used PSP...

Have used PSP...

It's been a long time, but Paint Shop Pro was always hard on the heels of Photoshop. Have to take another look at it. Unfortunately Photoshop is the standard for professionals.

My ongoing reaction to Photoshop is that since so many free or low cost plugins are written for Photoshop, one actually pays the $600 for Photoshop, less for what it will do, than to get a bridge to the plug-ins for sharpening, noise reduction, up-resing, etc. There is a pretty vast list of plugins in the market place that only work if you run them through Photoshop.
 
kuzano said:
It's been a long time, but Paint Shop Pro was always hard on the heels of Photoshop. Have to take another look at it. Unfortunately Photoshop is the standard for professionals.

My ongoing reaction to Photoshop is that since so many free or low cost plugins are written for Photoshop, one actually pays the $600 for Photoshop, less for what it will do, than to get a bridge to the plug-ins for sharpening, noise reduction, up-resing, etc. There is a pretty vast list of plugins in the market place that only work if you run them through Photoshop.
Click to expand...

Many plugins for photoshop works for PSP.
 
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