Excessive Sharpening

[MDM]

 

 

This is probably no help at all, but about three years ago I had an image fail QC due to JPEG (compression) artifacts. They can look like "jaggies" apparently. Might that be the problem?

I can't be sure since I'm not seeing jaggies at 100%.  But somehow I doubt it.  In my experience compression artifacts tend to be posterization and larger blocks rather than pixel level jaggies that others are describing.

Plus, I sent Geoff a jpg to check in photoshop.  The Alamy image was jpg 11, the one on my gallery was jpg 10 and the one to Geoff jpg 8.  Geoff said the jpg 8 in photoshop was better (less obvious jaggies) but still noticeable.  So I don't think it's compression.

 

I'm going to do some testing to see if I can see an effect.  Like Ian said, I'll need to check things at 200% since I don't see issues at 100%.

I've been using Nikon's "clarity" slider since the D810 came out, so I'll test that.  Also I just switched from Nikon Capture NX2 to the Nik Viveza 2 plug-in for PS CC 2015 and using the new "structure" slider.  My sharpening algorithm has been the same for many years.  I may throw up some samples if it looks interesting.

 

 

Bit late getting back to this. I would suspect that it's clarity doing the damage here, it's not a compression issue. The problems look like they are occuring at contrast borders which is where sharpening is most obvious. As I mentioned to Reimar, if I have a slightly less sharp file at 60MB, I just downsize to 50MB or so with bicubic sharper which does the trick. Given the sheer size of a 36mp file, downsizing to 50MB would act as enough of a sharpen (I would guess) to overcome most lens issues.

 

And to echo Edo's post, top marks to the Op for posting this...... I now know for certain that 36mp is the devil

 

 

 

 

I'm not familiar with Structure but Clarity (the Adobe version at least) is a form of sharpening and is probably the culprit. The artifacts are fairly horrendous when you get your eye in. The irony is that it should not be necessary to use any sharpening (capture, clarity or anything else) at all for a picture like this on a D810 with a good lens for submission to Alamy - clearly Reimar's Nikkor 24-70 is not up to the job looking at how soft the edges are at 100%. I normally use primes (good ones) and, properly focused, my pictures are pin sharp edge to edge. As David K once said on this forum, referring to the D800E (predecessor to the D810), the images are eyewateringly sharp. I don't need to apply any capture sharpening even for submission to Alamy. I also have a Tamron 24-70 which rates higher than any of the Nikkor 24-70s for sharpness on dxo but, compared to the primes, the edges are significantly softer and need a bit of downsizing as Geoff suggests.

 

As for being the devil, I think Geoff secretly (perhap unconsciously) would love to try a higher MP camera but the Canons are way oversized at 50MP and he is far too invested in Canon to think about changing to Nikon??? Call into Wex and take a test drive on a D810 with a Zeiss lens on board 

[Reimar]

I'm not familiar with Structure but Clarity (the Adobe version at least) is a form of sharpening and is probably the culprit. The artifacts are fairly horrendous when you get your eye in. The irony is that it should not be necessary to use any sharpening (capture, clarity or anything else) at all for a picture like this on a D810 with a good lens for submission to Alamy - clearly Reimar's Nikkor 24-70 is not up to the job looking at how soft the edges are at 100%. I normally use primes (good ones) and, properly focused, my pictures are pin sharp edge to edge. As David K once said on this forum, referring to the D800E (predecessor to the D810), the images are eyewateringly sharp. I don't need to apply any capture sharpening even for submission to Alamy. I also have a Tamron 24-70 which rates higher than any of the Nikkor 24-70s for sharpness on dxo but, compared to the primes, the edges are significantly softer and need a bit of downsizing as Geoff suggests.

 

As for being the devil, I think Geoff secretly (perhap unconsciously) would love to try a higher MP camera but the Canons are way oversized at 50MP and he is far too invested in Canon to think about changing to Nikon??? Call into Wex and take a test drive on a D810 with a Zeiss lens on board 

 

I agree that the Nikon 24-70 is not as sharp as, say, my Sigma 35 Art lens.  But edge to edge sharpness would not be so bad if I had shot the beach straight on.  What we're seeing in this image is not so much corner softness than a limit in depth of field.  And yes, my testing suggests that I need to be more careful about using clarity, structure and sharpening together, particularly on already sharp images.

[MDM]

 

I'm not familiar with Structure but Clarity (the Adobe version at least) is a form of sharpening and is probably the culprit. The artifacts are fairly horrendous when you get your eye in. The irony is that it should not be necessary to use any sharpening (capture, clarity or anything else) at all for a picture like this on a D810 with a good lens for submission to Alamy - clearly Reimar's Nikkor 24-70 is not up to the job looking at how soft the edges are at 100%. I normally use primes (good ones) and, properly focused, my pictures are pin sharp edge to edge. As David K once said on this forum, referring to the D800E (predecessor to the D810), the images are eyewateringly sharp. I don't need to apply any capture sharpening even for submission to Alamy. I also have a Tamron 24-70 which rates higher than any of the Nikkor 24-70s for sharpness on dxo but, compared to the primes, the edges are significantly softer and need a bit of downsizing as Geoff suggests.

 

As for being the devil, I think Geoff secretly (perhap unconsciously) would love to try a higher MP camera but the Canons are way oversized at 50MP and he is far too invested in Canon to think about changing to Nikon??? Call into Wex and take a test drive on a D810 with a Zeiss lens on board 

 

I agree that the Nikon 24-70 is not as sharp as, say, my Sigma 35 Art lens.  But edge to edge sharpness would not be so bad if I had shot the beach straight on.  What we're seeing in this image is not so much corner softness than a limit in depth of field.  And yes, my testing suggests that I need to be more careful about using clarity, structure and sharpening together, particularly on already sharp images.

 

 

OK -  I didn't think it was a DOF issue as the description with the link says it was shot at 26mm so I would have thought the whole scene would be in focus beyond about 5 metres or so. From my testing, I find that f11 gives optimal edge-to-edge sharpness with most lenses (I've never seen any diffraction problems at f11 on D800 or D810). My only QC failure since going 36MP was shortly after I got my first one in 2012 when I assumed that the hyperfocal distances would be the same as for any camera I had previously used. Some basic testing after the fact showed that I needed to adapt my style but, as Geoff says, downsizing can save the day and is generally better than (over-)sharpening

[Guest]

 

 

 

This is probably no help at all, but about three years ago I had an image fail QC due to JPEG (compression) artifacts. They can look like "jaggies" apparently. Might that be the problem?

I can't be sure since I'm not seeing jaggies at 100%.  But somehow I doubt it.  In my experience compression artifacts tend to be posterization and larger blocks rather than pixel level jaggies that others are describing.

Plus, I sent Geoff a jpg to check in photoshop.  The Alamy image was jpg 11, the one on my gallery was jpg 10 and the one to Geoff jpg 8.  Geoff said the jpg 8 in photoshop was better (less obvious jaggies) but still noticeable.  So I don't think it's compression.

 

I'm going to do some testing to see if I can see an effect.  Like Ian said, I'll need to check things at 200% since I don't see issues at 100%.

I've been using Nikon's "clarity" slider since the D810 came out, so I'll test that.  Also I just switched from Nikon Capture NX2 to the Nik Viveza 2 plug-in for PS CC 2015 and using the new "structure" slider.  My sharpening algorithm has been the same for many years.  I may throw up some samples if it looks interesting.

 

 

Bit late getting back to this. I would suspect that it's clarity doing the damage here, it's not a compression issue. The problems look like they are occuring at contrast borders which is where sharpening is most obvious. As I mentioned to Reimar, if I have a slightly less sharp file at 60MB, I just downsize to 50MB or so with bicubic sharper which does the trick. Given the sheer size of a 36mp file, downsizing to 50MB would act as enough of a sharpen (I would guess) to overcome most lens issues.

 

And to echo Edo's post, top marks to the Op for posting this...... I now know for certain that 36mp is the devil

 

 

 

 

I'm not familiar with Structure but Clarity (the Adobe version at least) is a form of sharpening and is probably the culprit. The artifacts are fairly horrendous when you get your eye in. The irony is that it should not be necessary to use any sharpening (capture, clarity or anything else) at all for a picture like this on a D810 with a good lens for submission to Alamy - clearly Reimar's Nikkor 24-70 is not up to the job looking at how soft the edges are at 100%. I normally use primes (good ones) and, properly focused, my pictures are pin sharp edge to edge. As David K once said on this forum, referring to the D800E (predecessor to the D810), the images are eyewateringly sharp. I don't need to apply any capture sharpening even for submission to Alamy. I also have a Tamron 24-70 which rates higher than any of the Nikkor 24-70s for sharpness on dxo but, compared to the primes, the edges are significantly softer and need a bit of downsizing as Geoff suggests.

 

As for being the devil, I think Geoff secretly (perhap unconsciously) would love to try a higher MP camera but the Canons are way oversized at 50MP and he is far too invested in Canon to think about changing to Nikon??? Call into Wex and take a test drive on a D810 with a Zeiss lens on board 

 

 

It's very practical reasons. One shoot for a client this week produced 1189 images (HDR sequences of 12 partly rack up the numbers) - that was a drop short of 32GB in three hours...... I cannot imagine my workflow/storage etc with 36MP or bigger sensors. For commercial stock I manage to finish sometimes with individual 4GB files, scary to think how much bigger they would get with these monster pixel machines.

 

I'm wedded to Canon tilts, not a big fan of Canon cameras but they do a good enough job. With Magic Lantern added they are pretty decent tools. What does make a difference is that Canon lenses can be used on some flavas of very good video cameras like Black Magic....as good a reason to stick rather than twist.......

 

Nice try though..

 

Also, my  best paying agency (in RPI terms) only wants a max of 50MB files

[Bill Brooks]

Really helpful discussion. Thanks Reimar and Alamy.

 

I have a 50 megapixel Canon 5Ds, shoot at 50 megapixels, and use primes between 18-100mm. I have to look at every image and choose a downsize between 12 to 50 megapixel, depending on all of the parameters, in order to get top quality at 100%. For instance my canon 70-200F4 zoom looses it above 28 megapixels even at F5.6-F11.

 

I will be upgrading to a 5K monitor soon, and all my reading tells me that I will have to adapt my brain/vision to the new monitor when judging quality.

 

Constant struggle, but that is what makes photography interesting.

[MDM]

 

 

 

 

This is probably no help at all, but about three years ago I had an image fail QC due to JPEG (compression) artifacts. They can look like "jaggies" apparently. Might that be the problem?

I can't be sure since I'm not seeing jaggies at 100%.  But somehow I doubt it.  In my experience compression artifacts tend to be posterization and larger blocks rather than pixel level jaggies that others are describing.

Plus, I sent Geoff a jpg to check in photoshop.  The Alamy image was jpg 11, the one on my gallery was jpg 10 and the one to Geoff jpg 8.  Geoff said the jpg 8 in photoshop was better (less obvious jaggies) but still noticeable.  So I don't think it's compression.

 

I'm going to do some testing to see if I can see an effect.  Like Ian said, I'll need to check things at 200% since I don't see issues at 100%.

I've been using Nikon's "clarity" slider since the D810 came out, so I'll test that.  Also I just switched from Nikon Capture NX2 to the Nik Viveza 2 plug-in for PS CC 2015 and using the new "structure" slider.  My sharpening algorithm has been the same for many years.  I may throw up some samples if it looks interesting.

 

 

Bit late getting back to this. I would suspect that it's clarity doing the damage here, it's not a compression issue. The problems look like they are occuring at contrast borders which is where sharpening is most obvious. As I mentioned to Reimar, if I have a slightly less sharp file at 60MB, I just downsize to 50MB or so with bicubic sharper which does the trick. Given the sheer size of a 36mp file, downsizing to 50MB would act as enough of a sharpen (I would guess) to overcome most lens issues.

 

And to echo Edo's post, top marks to the Op for posting this...... I now know for certain that 36mp is the devil

 

 

 

 

I'm not familiar with Structure but Clarity (the Adobe version at least) is a form of sharpening and is probably the culprit. The artifacts are fairly horrendous when you get your eye in. The irony is that it should not be necessary to use any sharpening (capture, clarity or anything else) at all for a picture like this on a D810 with a good lens for submission to Alamy - clearly Reimar's Nikkor 24-70 is not up to the job looking at how soft the edges are at 100%. I normally use primes (good ones) and, properly focused, my pictures are pin sharp edge to edge. As David K once said on this forum, referring to the D800E (predecessor to the D810), the images are eyewateringly sharp. I don't need to apply any capture sharpening even for submission to Alamy. I also have a Tamron 24-70 which rates higher than any of the Nikkor 24-70s for sharpness on dxo but, compared to the primes, the edges are significantly softer and need a bit of downsizing as Geoff suggests.

 

As for being the devil, I think Geoff secretly (perhap unconsciously) would love to try a higher MP camera but the Canons are way oversized at 50MP and he is far too invested in Canon to think about changing to Nikon??? Call into Wex and take a test drive on a D810 with a Zeiss lens on board 

 

 

It's very practical reasons. One shoot for a client this week produced 1189 images (HDR sequences of 12 partly rack up the numbers) -

 

 

However, with the truly amazing dynamic range of the D810, you might not need so many images for the HDR or might not need HDR at all in fact?

[hdh]

 

 

OK, I do see jaggies everywhere at or above 200% in photoshop.  But that's the case in all images, with or without sharpening.  I'm not sure why I can't see that at 100% in this image, when others can.

I'll take off any sharpening and see if that goes through QC.

The reason is that you've said you're using a 4k monitor. Because of the pixel density, you need to view at 200% to get the equivalent of 100% on a standard monitor.

 

Hope this helps

 

Ian D

 

That would be a frightening prospect for me.  I think images look horrid at 200%.

If there were underlying jaggies, wouldn't the higher res screen show them up even more?

I must say, that 32" 4K screen has been a mixed blessing.

 

I can see your point now, my 4k Monitor has arrived today, and I can barely see the excessive sharpening in your picture on the new monitor.

Only when I move the window over to the old 2K Monitor, it becomes obvious again. 

So for QA it seems I will have to stick to the old 2K Monitor .

 

Thank you very much for sharing this, really appreciate and as it helped me to  evaluate the QA-capabilities with 4K.

 

Other than that, the 4K Monitor is really great and the pictures look approximately a zillion times better on it.  

[Alberto]

 

 

 

OK, I do see jaggies everywhere at or above 200% in photoshop.  But that's the case in all images, with or without sharpening.  I'm not sure why I can't see that at 100% in this image, when others can.

I'll take off any sharpening and see if that goes through QC.

The reason is that you've said you're using a 4k monitor. Because of the pixel density, you need to view at 200% to get the equivalent of 100% on a standard monitor.

 

Hope this helps

 

Ian D

 

That would be a frightening prospect for me.  I think images look horrid at 200%.

If there were underlying jaggies, wouldn't the higher res screen show them up even more?

I must say, that 32" 4K screen has been a mixed blessing.

 

I can see your point now, my 4k Monitor has arrived today, and I can barely see the excessive sharpening in your picture on the new monitor.

Only when I move the window over to the old 2K Monitor, it becomes obvious again. 

So for QA it seems I will have to stick to the old 2K Monitor .

 

Thank you very much for sharing this, really appreciate and as it helped me to  evaluate the QA-capabilities with 4K.

 

Other than that, the 4K Monitor is really great and the pictures look approximately a zillion times better on it.  

 

Why You want avoid the 4K monitorfor QA? At 200% which is the problem? Open the images and check with this zoom ratio. Some years ago viewing a photo at 100% with lower resolutions it was in some cases useless... There are other reason? If the monitor show correctly the photo, all that you need is to see the photo at 200%. I'm missing something else? Thanks.

[M.Chapman]

 

 

 

 

OK, I do see jaggies everywhere at or above 200% in photoshop.  But that's the case in all images, with or without sharpening.  I'm not sure why I can't see that at 100% in this image, when others can.

I'll take off any sharpening and see if that goes through QC.

The reason is that you've said you're using a 4k monitor. Because of the pixel density, you need to view at 200% to get the equivalent of 100% on a standard monitor.

 

Hope this helps

 

Ian D

 

That would be a frightening prospect for me.  I think images look horrid at 200%.

If there were underlying jaggies, wouldn't the higher res screen show them up even more?

I must say, that 32" 4K screen has been a mixed blessing.

 

I can see your point now, my 4k Monitor has arrived today, and I can barely see the excessive sharpening in your picture on the new monitor.

Only when I move the window over to the old 2K Monitor, it becomes obvious again. 

So for QA it seems I will have to stick to the old 2K Monitor .

 

Thank you very much for sharing this, really appreciate and as it helped me to  evaluate the QA-capabilities with 4K.

 

Other than that, the 4K Monitor is really great and the pictures look approximately a zillion times better on it.

 

Why You want avoid the 4K monitorfor QA? At 200% which is the problem? Open the images and check with this zoom ratio. Some years ago viewing a photo at 100% with lower resolutions it was in some cases useless... There are other reason? If the monitor show correctly the photo, all that you need is to see the photo at 200%. I'm missing something else? Thanks.

 

+1

[JohnB]

I've learned something from this. The image looked fine to me. I then put my reading glasses on and looked closer. I hadn't realised my unaided eyesight was so bad for this kind of work.

[hdh]

 

 

 

 

OK, I do see jaggies everywhere at or above 200% in photoshop.  But that's the case in all images, with or without sharpening.  I'm not sure why I can't see that at 100% in this image, when others can.

I'll take off any sharpening and see if that goes through QC.

The reason is that you've said you're using a 4k monitor. Because of the pixel density, you need to view at 200% to get the equivalent of 100% on a standard monitor.

 

Hope this helps

 

Ian D

 

That would be a frightening prospect for me.  I think images look horrid at 200%.

If there were underlying jaggies, wouldn't the higher res screen show them up even more?

I must say, that 32" 4K screen has been a mixed blessing.

 

I can see your point now, my 4k Monitor has arrived today, and I can barely see the excessive sharpening in your picture on the new monitor.

Only when I move the window over to the old 2K Monitor, it becomes obvious again. 

So for QA it seems I will have to stick to the old 2K Monitor .

 

Thank you very much for sharing this, really appreciate and as it helped me to  evaluate the QA-capabilities with 4K.

 

Other than that, the 4K Monitor is really great and the pictures look approximately a zillion times better on it.  

 

Why You want avoid the 4K monitorfor QA? At 200% which is the problem? Open the images and check with this zoom ratio. Some years ago viewing a photo at 100% with lower resolutions it was in some cases useless... There are other reason? If the monitor show correctly the photo, all that you need is to see the photo at 200%. I'm missing something else? Thanks.

 

What is the difference between looking at a 2K Monitor @ 100% and a 4K Monitor @ 200%? 

As I have a dual Monitor setup , I plan to continue looking at my pictures at 100%, thats it. 

 

For all other stuff, but QA, the 4K monitor is just great, I love it!

[Martin P Wilson]

It could indeed be the 4K Monitor, because the pixels are so small that everything looks sharp. 

I recently started a thread about 4K Monitors, to find out about others experiences.

 

I have one ordered a large 32" Monitor and hope I can still do QA work on it, despite the smaller pixels. 

If not, I have a dual monitor setup with my old HD Monitor@1920x1200 as second screen, which I could revert to for QA. 

I came to the same conclusion and wrote it up for my blog: M-dash.com

 

I am about to replace my 24in 1920x1200 monitors and realised at 4K on 27in I would not see individual pixels unless very close up. So I will go 2560x1440 and will save a fair bit of cash!

 

[Duncan_Andison]

 

It could indeed be the 4K Monitor, because the pixels are so small that everything looks sharp. 

I recently started a thread about 4K Monitors, to find out about others experiences.

 

I have one ordered a large 32" Monitor and hope I can still do QA work on it, despite the smaller pixels. 

If not, I have a dual monitor setup with my old HD Monitor@1920x1200 as second screen, which I could revert to for QA. 

I came to the same conclusion and wrote it up for my blog: M-dash.com

 

I am about to replace my 24in 1920x1200 monitors and realised at 4K on 27in I would not see individual pixels unless very close up. So I will go 2560x1440 and will save a fair bit of cash!

 

 

 

Best way. I've tried the increase to 150-200% on high density pixel screens but it never looks the same as 100% on a standard pixel density screen. It just looks enlarged and not that pleasant. I'd always run a dual screen system in any case so it would be easy enough to have a 4k and a 2560x1440 screen but, I prefer to work on the images and see them the same way the majority of my clients will see them. Maybe in 2-5 years time when everyone is using them but for now, 2560x1440 is enough for work.

[MDM]

I agree with Duncan. Viewing at 200% on a high density screen is not the same as 100% on a normal screen. Also I get eye strain looking at a retina screen for too long regardless of what I am doing on it. A wide gamut 27 inch trumps a 4K screen at any size currently availabkle every time in my opinion. 

[hdh]

 

 

It could indeed be the 4K Monitor, because the pixels are so small that everything looks sharp. 

I recently started a thread about 4K Monitors, to find out about others experiences.

 

I have one ordered a large 32" Monitor and hope I can still do QA work on it, despite the smaller pixels. 

If not, I have a dual monitor setup with my old HD Monitor@1920x1200 as second screen, which I could revert to for QA. 

I came to the same conclusion and wrote it up for my blog: M-dash.com

 

I am about to replace my 24in 1920x1200 monitors and realised at 4K on 27in I would not see individual pixels unless very close up. So I will go 2560x1440 and will save a fair bit of cash!

 

 

 

Best way. I've tried the increase to 150-200% on high density pixel screens but it never looks the same as 100% on a standard pixel density screen. It just looks enlarged and not that pleasant. I'd always run a dual screen system in any case so it would be easy enough to have a 4k and a 2560x1440 screen but, I prefer to work on the images and see them the same way the majority of my clients will see them. Maybe in 2-5 years time when everyone is using them but for now, 2560x1440 is enough for work.

 

+1

This is exactly my conclusion 200% on 4K looks very different to 100% @ 2K.

Further concluded for me that 200%@4K is not adequate for QA work, so I stay with the 2K monitor for QA at 100%. 

 

Also, the 4K Monitor is much better to evaluate the overall picture and its sharpness when the image is fits the screen, hence displayed at ~50% on 4K.

So for QA work I will probably be using a combination of the two monitors.

[Allan Bell]

I for one am sticking with my 27" 2560 x 1440 resolution iMac screen for all my photography work. The resolution is fine for QC and it gives excellent reproduction of colours/colors and brightness is fine.

 

Allan

[Betty LaRue]

I for one am sticking with my 27" 2560 x 1440 resolution iMac screen for all my photography work. The resolution is fine for QC and it gives excellent reproduction of colours/colors and brightness is fine.

 

Allan

Same here.