More Birds _ Halo Check

[ScoutR]

I did some global sharpening and Local Contrast Enhance (just the birds) on these. I never trust my screen or eyes to pick up on halos. I think I see a bit on each one and am wondering how they look on other screens.

The Cardinal is from a previous post, I changed the crop a bit and did not do the slight rotation. If there are no halos (or if the halos are not too bad), I think I'll be happy with these. I can't do much more until I do some studying and learn a lot more in Elements.


Nikon D3000:18-200mm: 1/250s: f5.6: ISO 200: 200mm


Nikon D3000:18-200mm: 1/125s: f5.6: ISO 200: 200mm

Thanks in advance for any feedback or suggestions
Wendy

[arith]

Can't see any on my monitor Wendy

[Shadowman]

Wendy,

Is it possible that you are seeing a halo effect from the movement of the bird?

I did some global sharpening and Local Contrast Enhance (just the birds) on these. I never trust my screen or eyes to pick up on halos. I think I see a bit on each one and am wondering how they look on other screens.

The Cardinal is from a previous post, I changed the crop a bit and did not do the slight rotation. If there are no halos (or if the halos are not too bad), I think I'll be happy with these. I can't do much more until I do some studying and learn a lot more in Elements.


Nikon D3000:18-200mm: 1/250s: f5.6: ISO 200: 200mm


Nikon D3000:18-200mm: 1/125s: f5.6: ISO 200: 200mm

Thanks in advance for any feedback or suggestions
Wendy

[David]

Wendy - I think that I can see edge artefacts in both, particularly along the back of the blackcap(?). The problem is not that bad and on casual viewing would not really be seen, but then on this forum we perhaps look more closely. I'm going to have a look at some shots that I've taken to see if I can think of any more ideas.

David

[arith]

Cor, I can't see any halo's but the bottom bird looks a little two dimensional and I think this could be cured if need be because images are not really high definition here but could be cured by lowering brightness in the background.

[ScoutR]

Wendy,

Is it possible that you are seeing a halo effect from the movement of the bird?

That is quite possible. The Cardinal was pretty still, but was moving his head around, the chickadees flit around quickly, so movement is a very strong possibility. I think next time I will try 400 ISO to get a faster shutter speed and see how that works out.

[ScoutR]

Wendy - I think that I can see edge artefacts in both, particularly along the back of the blackcap(?). The problem is not that bad and on casual viewing would not really be seen, but then on this forum we perhaps look more closely. I'm going to have a look at some shots that I've taken to see if I can think of any more ideas.

David

Thanks David: The more I look the more I see it too. Like you say it's not something that jumps out, and I'm pretty happy with these, but the point is to get better, so I want the microscope approach. I may not be able to fix it at this point, but I will be working on it. If you think of anything else let me know.

Wendy

[ScoutR]

Cor, I can't see any halo's but the bottom bird looks a little two dimensional and I think this could be cured if need be because images are not really high definition here but could be cured by lowering brightness in the background.

Thanks Arith: I see what you mean, the chickadee does look a bit like a cut out. I will keep this in mind when I go back to work on them.

Wendy

[Dave Humphries]

Halo Wendy,

Yes, I see halos, not huge or bad though.

What sharpening settings did you use at each stage? (and what was the picture size at the time?)

Cheers,

[ScoutR]

Halo Wendy,

Yes, I see halos, not huge or bad though.

What sharpening settings did you use at each stage? (and what was the picture size at the time?)

Cheers,

Hi Dave: OMG you want me to remember the settings? Is it possible to look them up?

Ever since we did that rework on Pops Finch, I have been generally following the process set out in that experiment. (not exactly, but close, it’s a little different all the time, depending on the shot, and my mood)

I do all RAW processing including noise reduction but NOT sharpening in LR. Depending on the shot I might do NR again as first step in Elements

When I bring the full size shot into Elements as a PSD file. I play a bit with the levels till it looks right to me, and recently tend to adjust a bit on the light side, as I find the LCE seems to darken things up.

Then I do what I think is referred to as Capture Sharpening with a High Amount (150 – 300) and Radius of .3. At this stage I find it very hard to see a difference and am only doing it because I’m supposed to. It’s hard to explain, but I can see the difference in the final version if I don’t do this step, but when I’m checking the preview zoomed in to 100% and clicking the preview on and off, I really don’t see the difference I just do it.

Before you read the next paragraph, when I refer to LCE (Local Contrast Enhance) I mean the sharpening with High Radius and Lower Amount. I’m not sure if I have the terminology correct, so better define my terms to avoid confusion.

Then I do the LCE sometimes global sometimes Local depending on the shot. On these shots I selected the bird and did LCE locally. I tried a few different things with the selection at this stage – expand, contract different feather settings. Some settings produced very visible halos. With these shots I ended up contracting the selection by 3 pixels and then feathering by 6. These settings got me to the point where I did not notice the halos as much. My sharpening settings are different all the time. I move the Amount and Radius sliders until it looks right to me. Usually in the range of Radius 40-60 and Amount 10-30. At this stage I can see big differences when I click the preview on and off.

When I’ve done as much as I can with levels and sharpening, I do the resize using bicubic sharper

Then I do another USM sharpening on the resized version with regular settings High Amount but not usually as high as the 1st sharpening Amount 100-200 and Radius of .3

Then I resize the canvas for a frame, and then Save as jpg.

Also at some point I convert to 8 bits. I don’t do that until all the Enhancement adjustments are made. If I have not been forced to convert for cloning or whatever, I do the 8 bit conversion just before saving (Or after trying to save and finding that jpg is not available at which point I realize that I have not done the conversion)

These subtle halos are difficult for me. I’m not sure if I will be able to deal with them properly until my screen is calibrated. Once I have noticed them, I can’t seem to get rid of them, or I think they are gone and then they seem to show up again. Sometimes they come and go and seem to travel around the edges. That probably does not make sense, so when they start moving around it’s probably stress related.

Open to any suggesions.

Wendy

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Wendy,

That makes sense.

Three thoughts (in the wrong order);
1) Don't use bi-cubic sharper - I think this is the halo culprit, just "bi-cubic", especially if you are manually applying more USM after re-sizing (those figures looked good to me). I think bi-cubic sharper put a larger radius than 0.3 on, and that's about what I see as a halo.

2) When you say;

Then I do what I think is referred to as Capture Sharpening with a High Amount (150 – 300) and Radius of .3. At this stage I find it very hard to see a difference and am only doing it because I’m supposed to. It’s hard to explain, but I can see the difference in the final version if I don’t do this step, but when I’m checking the preview zoomed in to 100% and clicking the preview on and off, I really don’t see the difference I just do it.

Just to clarify, and you may already know this - You have to have the main picture zoomed to 100% to see the effect of checking and unchecking Preview in USM. The little 100% preview window does not toggle on and off (I have never understood why).

3) To reduce risk of (larger) halos in LCE, don't be afraid to put the radius up over 100px, or much more. You will have to reduce amount to compensate (sort of), but your 40 pixels will become 10px when you down size (from 4000 to 1000), causing a a halo.

Hope that helps,

[ScoutR]

Three thoughts (in the wrong order);
1) Don't use bi-cubic sharper - I think this is the halo culprit, just "bi-cubic", especially if you are manually applying more USM after re-sizing (those figures looked good to me). I think bi-cubic sharper put a larger radius than 0.3 on, and that's about what I see as a halo.

Aaaahaa I think you are right. I changed to bicubic sharper just recently, when I was going through a tutorial on something or other and trying to follow along exactly as specified. I guess I forgot to change it back. These terms are so foreign to me that it did not hit home until you mentioned it. I was using plain bicubic until recently - really, I was

I am going to start over with the cardinal and see if that is where the problem comes in.

2) When you say;

Just to clarify, and you may already know this - You have to have the main picture zoomed to 100% to see the effect of checking and unchecking Preview in USM. The little 100% preview window does not toggle on and off (I have never understood why).

Yes, I zoom the main picture. I think I might have to zoom a little more until I get an eye for this. I've always wondered why the little window was there, and did not realize that it was not changing until I started doing the LCE where the change in the main window was so obvious, but there was no change in the preview window.

3) To reduce risk of (larger) halos in LCE, don't be afraid to put the radius up over 100px, or much more. You will have to reduce amount to compensate (sort of), but your 40 pixels will become 10px when you down size (from 4000 to 1000), causing a a halo.

Thanks for the tip, usually I just tweak until I see a change that seems satisfactory and have not wanted to go higher thinking that I would end up with an overcooked effect. I'll play around a bit more.
Thanks for the help, I'll start practicing, this will be phase II of my sharpening evolution.

Wendy

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Wendy,

Aaaahaa I think you are right. I changed to bicubic sharper just recently, when I was going through a tutorial on something or other and trying to follow along exactly as specified. I guess I forgot to change it back. These terms are so foreign to me that it did not hit home until you mentioned it. I was using plain bicubic until recently - really, I was

I believe you

Yes, I zoom the main picture. I think I might have to zoom a little more until I get an eye for this. I've always wondered why the little window was there, and did not realize that it was not changing until I started doing the LCE where the change in the main window was so obvious, but there was no change in the preview window.

Good, you're on the right track. Here's what I do (when I remember ), before selecting USM, use zoom tool "Z" to set the screen magnification as follows -
always "Fit to Screen" for LCE, because you just can't see that close up and,
always "1:1" for sharpening, because (if you get it right), you can't see that further away,
anything that is only close to 100% probably won't do, e.g. by using scrollwheel, if not exactly 100%, it is interpolating, and that will hide the effects of the small (0.3 or 0.4) radius we often need.

Thanks for the tip, usually I just tweak until I see a change that seems satisfactory and have not wanted to go higher thinking that I would end up with an overcooked effect. I'll play around a bit more.
Thanks for the help, I'll start practicing, this will be phase II of my sharpening evolution.

Been there; drove myself nuts last year, Colin got me through it (thanks mate), so now it's my turn to help someone out, "what comes around ....."

Cheers,

[ScoutR]

Thanks Dave: I've added all the above to my Sharpening document and will give it another go when I have time. Unfortunatley I'm coming into the busy part of my work schedule, which is always interferring with everything. . I have 2 projects to practice on my next break. Sharpening and Chromatic Aberation (or in my case auras)

Getting there slow but sure, but still a long way to go.

Thanks for sharing
Wendy