Canon EOS-1D Mark II Digial Tips And Techniques - Page 30

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V. SHARPENING METHODS IN

POST-PROCESSING

Adobe Photoshop's

If little or no in-camera sharpening has been applied prior to viewing an EOS-1 class

Unsharp Mask Filter

Digital SLR image at 100% magnification, especially with the EOS-1D Mark II, most

photographers will agree that the image looks soft, even if it has been properly focused

and exposed. This is mostly due to the detail-softening effect of the camera's

anti-aliasing (AA) filter, which is permanently mounted in front of the image sensor. The

AA filter plays an important role in reducing or eliminating false colors and moiré, but

the trade-off is that images must be sharpened either in the camera or in the computer

prior to final usage.

There are dozens of sharpening techniques, but the Unsharp Mask filter in Adobe

Photoshop

is one of the best-known methods. Some photographers prefer to sharpen

only once prior to printing. Others apply Unsharp Mask twice: once to eliminate the

softening effect of the camera's AA filter prior to editing for contrast and color balance,

and again to compensate for the softening effects of various output methods prior to

printing.

Also, many skilled photographers don't sharpen the entire image in post-processing.

Rather, they apply sharpness only to appropriate areas. For example, they might

sharpen the foreground in a landscape photograph and not sharpen the sky. This

selective sharpening technique is easily accomplished with layers or masks.

Unsharp Mask offers 3 settings: Amount, Radius and Threshold. Radius and Threshold

determine which pixels and which areas around them are affected by the Amount

adjustment. As Adobe says, "The effects of the Unsharp Mask filter are more

pronounced on-screen than in high-resolution output. If your final destination is print,

experiment to determine which settings work best for your image." The difference is

attributed to the screen's resolution being different from the printer's resolution.

If you haven't worked with Unsharp Mask, try the following settings as a very rough

guideline for high quality inkjet printed output at A4 or Letter size:

Amount: 300%

Radius: 0.3 pixels

Threshold: 0 pixels

You'll find that small adjustments to Radius and Threshold have a much stronger effect

than small adjustments to Amount. Also, sharpness preferences vary according to

subject matter (human subjects often look better with less sharpening, whereas

V. SHARPENING METHODS IN POST-PROCESSING