Seeking guidance on sharpening

gustafson

Senior Member
I have a BIF pic that turned out pretty low-res after cropping (it was shot in 1.3x crop mode to begin with). When I ran it through my usual sharpening workflow (Clarity and detail enhancement of the RAW in Affinity Photo), the results were rather unsatisfactory to me. I tinkered with Unsharp Mask and High Pass Filter, but seemed to be making things worse. Was wondering if others on here might have some insights on how to better sharpen such an image. Below is a link to the RAW file, and attached is the crop that I was looking to sharpen. Thanks in advance!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/o58nxeyf4e4a10l/DSC_8276.NEF?dl=0

DSC_8276.jpg
 
Last edited:

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Contributor
Did you try Shake Reduction in Photoshop? I didn't do too much in ACR other than 35% sharpening and 40% noise reduction. You have quite a bit of noise in yours. Then I took it to PCC and used Shake Reduction. I also used the clone stamp tool around the edges of the bird to get rid of some of the haloing. That also makes it appear as though the photo is a little sharper. I didn't use any clarity or contrast. Cropped. Then took it back to ACR for a little more sharpening. Then back to PCC to clean up the edges slightly again.

Nikonites NEF.jpg
 

gustafson

Senior Member
Did you try Shake Reduction in Photoshop? I didn't do too much in ACR other than 35% sharpening and 40% noise reduction. You have quite a bit of noise in yours. Then I took it to PCC and used Shake Reduction. I also used the clone stamp tool around the edges of the bird to get rid of some of the haloing. That also makes it appear as though the photo is a little sharper. I didn't use any clarity or contrast. Cropped. Then took it back to ACR for a little more sharpening. Then back to PCC to clean up the edges slightly again.

Thanks for sharing, Cindy! That looks fantastic (compared to mine). I use Affinity Photo for post, which doesn't have a shake reduction feature that I know of. Perhaps that is a reason for me to consider Photoshop. Also, thanks for the tip on the Clone Stamp tool. Affinity has it, but I never thought about using it for this. How exactly does one use it in this situation? Thanks again!
 

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Contributor
Thanks for sharing, Cindy! That looks fantastic (compared to mine). I use Affinity Photo for post, which doesn't have a shake reduction feature that I know of. Perhaps that is a reason for me to consider Photoshop. Also, thanks for the tip on the Clone Stamp tool. Affinity has it, but I never thought about using it for this. How exactly does one use it in this situation? Thanks again!

You're welcome, gustafson. I forgot to mention that after I cropped the image, I enlarged it a little. Here is a Dropbox link if you want the TIF. It has the word NEF in the file name because I changed the original file name but didn't remove the word NEF. :rolleyes:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1i7lmg2cci9wymt/Nikonites NEF.tif?dl=0

As for the clone stamp tool, Lynda.com does a far better job of explaining how it works! ;) Basically it allows you to copy an area. I copied the blue sky and covered over the white haloing effect which smoothed the edges of the bird.

 

gustafson

Senior Member
You're welcome, gustafson. I forgot to mention that after I cropped the image, I enlarged it a little. Here is a Dropbox link if you want the TIF. It has the word NEF in the file name because I changed the original file name but didn't remove the word NEF. :rolleyes:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1i7lmg2cci9wymt/Nikonites NEF.tif?dl=0

As for the clone stamp tool, Lynda.com does a far better job of explaining how it works! ;) Basically it allows you to copy an area. I copied the blue sky and covered over the white haloing effect which smoothed the edges of the bird.


Thank you for all your efforts and input on this. Brilliant idea to use clone stamp to clean up the halo, that would have never occurred to me!! Gracias!


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