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I've seen many references to downsizing to increase visible sharpness in a questionable image. I've never done this, but the time has come to incorporate it into my workflow--only when necessary, of course. I'm currently tossing away some images that I think can be saved. There are countless 'methods' described on the web for doing this, some quite complicated. Would appreciate a description of your preferred technique for downsizing. Is it simply opening in PS and reducing the pixel dimensions of the image, or is there more to it than that? Shooting with a Canon 5D mark 4 most of the time, which yields 6720 X 4480. Thanks, Michael

I'm reminded of some questions I've had while processing photos of a granddaughter's graduation in a large hall. I've shot images in generally dark locations, and of other granddaughters in figure skating shows, etc, and used different techniques. I've decided that--"it depends". For just generally dark locations, I've just cranked up the ISO. For the figure skating shows, what seems to work best is manual control, for exposing the best-lit areas (shows with spotlights and other concentrated lighting). For yesterday's graduation in the DC-area classic graduation setting (DAR Constitution Hall), with pretty good general house lighting and a spot-lit stage, I decided to go with ISO 6400, -1.0 exposure control, and Program mode, to account for the variations in lighting and the overall general darkness. For post-processing, I get the exposure to what looks good to me, then do noise reduction and sharpness. I'm satisfied with the results from the graduation (using a Sony a6300 and 18-105mm f4). I should say that I sometimes use negative EV in these situations so that the camera doesn't try to make the scene look like daylight. Questions: What are your general techniques for dark venues? When noise reduction will be required, what's your sequence of Clarity and Sharpening vs NR? thanks Bill

Hi I'm new to Alamy having sold work through exhibitions, retail outlets and print requests for a number of years. I am finally getting round to putting up a different selection of my images here, however, I have to admit I am feeling very apprehensive about submitting that first test batch of images that undergoes close scrutiny. There are two areas I am mainly concerned with: Sharpening - this seems to be quite an issue and having searched the forums here and on google there seems to be two trains of thought...a) that absolutely no sharpening is allowed by Alamy or that it is output sharpening that should be avoided and that a very small amount of sharpening is ok at the Raw file stage in ACR. I really just want to know if there is an up to date definitive answer to this one as I have always in the past applies a small amount of sharpening to my files in ACR (as well as using a tripod when capturing an image) generally using the following settings - amount 25, radius 1, detail 25, masking 0. Is this ok, does anyone have any recommendations re lower settings or is it an absolute no-no? Size - matters! I just want to clarify that I've got it right in my mind on this one. My understanding is that the uncompressed image size has to be +17mb. I found a calculation on the forums that says that if you take your 8bit, 300dpi image dimensions and multiply them together, multiply that figure by 3 and then divide by one million you get the uncompressed file size. As an example taking one of my old images taken on a 40D this would be 3888 X 2592 X 3 divided by one million = 30.23mb uncompressed file size. Am I on the right lines here or should I be upsizing the file when it is a tif? The reason I ask is because the actual 8bit, 300dpi jpeg I would upload to Alamy works out to be only 4.59mb compressed - is this ok? My cameras used are a Canon 40D, a 5D Mk 2 and now a Fuji Xpro-1. Any advice, guidance or recommendations would be really appreciated - I am a newbie so please be gentle with me Many thanks Lin

Interesting post being pointed to in other Fuji forums. Not tried it yet myself but have a look. http://petebridgwood.com.gridhosted.co.uk/wp/2014/10/x-trans-sharpening/

When I've tried out the Camera Shake function in Photoshop, it looks to me like it oversharpens the image. I've seen halos around parts of the image. I really don't know how to use this function as far as what the sliders do. I just tried it at the native settings. Should one not use this for Alamy contributions? Or....is this function "not sharpening" and OK? Betty

Hello, I'm Mike. I have a number of .JPGs I'd like to use for my initial upload, but they fall well foul of the requirements on sharpening. If I track down the original .RAW to rework the images, will the in-camera sharpening have done the dirty deed to the extent that they are also affected? It's my understanding that .RAWs have bipassed the process, therefore this will be possible... Advice gratefully received.

Yesterday I received the latest newsletter/catalogue from Rohan, the outdoor & travel clothing company. All the main images were significantly oversharpened to the extent that they had pronounced edge artifacts and they looked grainy, especially in the shadows and the out of focus areas. The theme was North Africa and the pictures were also well saturated (overly so?). I wondered if the intent was to make them look as though taken under harsh African light but the main shadows were very soft. Or it may have been to get the cameraphone look. The pictures were large, up to about 11inches (29cm) square. My reaction was that we would never get those pictures through Alamy QC. Anybody noticed it elsewhere, is it a trend, a current fashion?