Hawk's lunch

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Christina,

I feel like we have hijacked Bud's thread and now I'm taking us even more off topic - after this post I'll see if I can snip out this stuff to a new thread.

It's the only thing I use Picasa for... phasing it out gradually

I typically sharpen my images in raw in Lightroom 4.1 or Elements 9 by 25%... I save in my picture files (windows) which automatically puts them in Picasa.. From Picasa I export to a smaller size for posting. Then I open up Elements 9 and apply an un-sharp mask for posting because my understanding is that one loses detail/quality when downsizing a photo.

It sounds like you are using Picasa for the file organising functions, as I used to - i.e. to be able to find pictures easily.

I tried using "Elements 6" Organiser on a previous PC (about 5 years ago now), it kept losing its index on the folders and deleting the database file and having it re-index took all night - I only did that once or twice, it became unusable

The experience was so bad that to this day I haven't trusted an Adobe organiser - I don't use Bridge in CS5 or CS6, perhaps I am missing something(?)

When I moved to a new PC, I decided to use 'flat' folder structure and consistent naming convention for storing images, it is far from perfect as a system, but at least I don't lose indexing*.

I import all my Nikon images using ViewNX, each camera download goes into a new folder numbered and named for the event/location (with a duplicate written onto a completely separate HDD).

So from the root of my (external) HDD, I have a folder called Nikon_Downloads which contains these all in one flat layer, no messing with hierarchies of nested structure that make navigating painful using windows or ViewNX.

When I look for an image, I usually use ViewNX because it gives me the metadata, tags, ratings, RAW thumbnails, etc., but if that messes up its indexing (* occasionally it will display a certain thumbnail but opening the image shows a different picture!), I know I can always find stuff by folder name using windows if need be - and the problem appears to be fixed by just closing and re-opening ViewNX or at worst, by switching PC off and on again - since it is quite rare, it hasn't caused me too much inconvenience (yet).

Having found an image, I can right click Open With from either ViewNX or Windows and choose between Elements, CS5 or CS6 (you can add LR).
It then it opens in ACR, after editing there, it is opened with one button click in the main program of same name, save from there (back into original folder - keeps it all in one place) as psd (if part way through editing) or jpg at whatever size I need (and I suffix the file name appropriately; e.g." _H1000.jpg" for online images, or "_us.jpg" for unsharpened, fullsize images, or sometimes "_p.jpg" for print versions (which would be sharpened more aggressively).


The only problem is I have a RAW shooting Canon S100 camera and ViewNX does not want to import or display them and the Canon importer program is a 'pain in the proverbial' to import and view with compared to ViewNX.

This is one reason why I might give Bridge try soon, so I can do things consistently, regardless of camera.

I can't apply an un-sharp mask in raw in Elements 9, and I don't think this can be done in Lightroom either. Should I be cropping my photos in Adobe raw to the appropriate size for posting? And then apply an unsharp mask on the PSD following your guidelines?

No, I just had a look at the ACR book on CS5, which I believe uses same ACR version as Elements 9, the sharpening in that doesn't work the same way, there's no "Threshold" control to give you the precise control necessary to prevent sharpening of noise (neither the "Detail" nor "Masking" controls do what Threshold does) plus the minimum radius is 0.5, which is too wide You're right; I don't think LR4 is any better in this respect either.

Cheers,

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Bud,

My apologies for hijacking your thread - would you like me to remove some of this chatter between Christina and myself to a new thread, or is it helpful to you too? (in which case I'll leave it here)

Here's another I adjusted slightly with your advice, Dave. It's a Japanese White-eye on a mango outside my window.

This looks pretty good to me, although maybe go a bit easy on threshold? what number did you use?
If it wasn't that, it might be 'over zealousness' with Noise Reduction (if you did any?)

The reason this is important is because it removes feather detail and texture, as we are tending to see here - as I was saying to Christina, I aim to use a threshold of 0 or 1 to get everything I can out of it (but 0 or 1 are not always possible)

However, I see from the png file EXIF, this was edited in Aperture 3.4.3, unfortunately I don't have access to that, so cannot advise you more accurately. All this talk of Threshold might be meaningless in that editor, sorry.


One thing to watch out for is where odd things happen away from the main subject due to a combination of focus distance, sharpening radii and threshold - have a look at the leaves along bottom edge; at 25% and 50% across from left - see what I mean? They are mostly soft and featureless, but with some edges that 'suddenly' become sharp.

When this happens to me, I just run a very localised blur brush over it for small areas, or if it's happening in more than a couple of places, I'd sharpen on a separate layer and mask or erase so the sharpened layer is only applied to the subject.

Cheers,

[Brownbear]

Thank you Dave.

Bud, my apologies for taking the focus off your gorgeous photos with my questions about sharpening.

[kaneohebud]

Dave and Christina:
You did not hijack my thread. This has been a GREAT learning experience for me and those who have checked in. Dave, on the White-eye, I set the threshold at 1. I did get a bit ambitious with Dfine2 in noise reduction. Probably should have left it alone. But thanks for being willing to instruct. I have enjoyed your comments immensely.