Nadrek
05-10-2005, 11:50 PM
Short form:
In selected images, is it natural for the "and Smooth" settings to result in strong halos?
If so, what is the recommended procedure - smoothing in the Creative phase, handling the halos in the sharpening layers and masks, a better choice of Capture settings, or something else?
Long form:
I'm just beginning to use PhotoKit Sharpener, and I have encountered an image that appears to respond very differently to the Capture Mid-Res Digital Sharpen, and the Capture Mid-Res Digital Sharpen and Smooth. I noticed that the Smooth setting smoothed out skin tones fairly nicely, and was hoping to use it in a relatively automated, quick fashion on reasonable numbers of images at a time (40 to 80, in this case). The result was that there are some relatively broad, even "halos" near the model's hair, and lesser versions of the same on the edge of her hands (pale skin against a dark outfit). After some experimentation, it appears the selecting the Smooth variant of the Capture filter is highly correlated with the result, whether or not the Smooth layer is enabled or not once the Capture filter is complete. Varying reasonable edge width did not appear have a significant effect.
The halos are still quite visible after downsizing and an appropriate Output Web sharpening, as a traditional bright halo.
There are three 100% crops attached to this message: One with Medium Edge Sharpen, one with Medium Edge Sharpen and Smooth with the Smooth layer not visible, and one with Medium Edge Sharpen and Smooth with the Smooth layer visible, in that order (top to bottom)
I do realize that the image was captured somewhat suboptimally to begin with - a Nikon 5700 in JPG mode some time ago, lighting was a softbox and an umbrella over strobes, Auto sharpening was on in the camera, ISO 100. NeatImage, a Curves layer to color balance off of a previous grey card shot, and some brightening was applied (somewhat underexposed). PhotoKit Sharpener 1.2.3 was used.
Other images from the burst display slightly lesser versions of this effect. Other images from the shoot, with otherwise identical settings, do not display this effect.
In selected images, is it natural for the "and Smooth" settings to result in strong halos?
If so, what is the recommended procedure - smoothing in the Creative phase, handling the halos in the sharpening layers and masks, a better choice of Capture settings, or something else?
Long form:
I'm just beginning to use PhotoKit Sharpener, and I have encountered an image that appears to respond very differently to the Capture Mid-Res Digital Sharpen, and the Capture Mid-Res Digital Sharpen and Smooth. I noticed that the Smooth setting smoothed out skin tones fairly nicely, and was hoping to use it in a relatively automated, quick fashion on reasonable numbers of images at a time (40 to 80, in this case). The result was that there are some relatively broad, even "halos" near the model's hair, and lesser versions of the same on the edge of her hands (pale skin against a dark outfit). After some experimentation, it appears the selecting the Smooth variant of the Capture filter is highly correlated with the result, whether or not the Smooth layer is enabled or not once the Capture filter is complete. Varying reasonable edge width did not appear have a significant effect.
The halos are still quite visible after downsizing and an appropriate Output Web sharpening, as a traditional bright halo.
There are three 100% crops attached to this message: One with Medium Edge Sharpen, one with Medium Edge Sharpen and Smooth with the Smooth layer not visible, and one with Medium Edge Sharpen and Smooth with the Smooth layer visible, in that order (top to bottom)
I do realize that the image was captured somewhat suboptimally to begin with - a Nikon 5700 in JPG mode some time ago, lighting was a softbox and an umbrella over strobes, Auto sharpening was on in the camera, ISO 100. NeatImage, a Curves layer to color balance off of a previous grey card shot, and some brightening was applied (somewhat underexposed). PhotoKit Sharpener 1.2.3 was used.
Other images from the burst display slightly lesser versions of this effect. Other images from the shoot, with otherwise identical settings, do not display this effect.