Rome: Old vs New - C&C Appreciated

[TheBigE]

One of my favorites scenes from Rome...I really like the transition of the buildings to the Colosseum at the end.

I had to do some cropping to remove the scaffolding on the Colosseum but I think the vertical narrow profile adds a nice touch to composition.

I welcome any feedback. Thanks

[Shadowman]

Nice composition, needs a bit of sharpening.

[Barbara Ponder]

I agree I find the mix of old and new very fascinating.

[Geoff F]

A rather small image to study in detail, but it looks good to me.

[TheBigE]

Nice composition, needs a bit of sharpening.

ill not
Thanks John...still working on learning Sharpening. I seems to add sharpening, then noise and then remove noise...if that makes any sense. I wonder if I over sharpen and then loose the impact by adding NR.

I have tried both Sharpening in LR and PS, and still not really good at finishing the product.

[TheBigE]

A rather small image to study in detail, but it looks good to me.

Thanks Geoff - the problem is I had to crop most of the image to remove the scaffolding which, to me, took away from the image.

[Geoff F]

I was referring to the image upload size which seems to be 210 x 450 pixels. Which is quite small for detailed examination and if I view it at 200% magnification it looks quite blurred.

With regard to sharpening, what average settings are you using? I tend to do noise reduction on my Raw files during conversion then just a little, if absolutely necessary, after the final sharpening. And I quite often do that on a layer with a mask or within selections to limit the effect to only the necessary areas.

[TheBigE]

I was referring to the image upload size which seems to be 210 x 450 pixels. Which is quite small for detailed examination and if I view it at 200% magnification it looks quite blurred.

With regard to sharpening, what average settings are you using? I tend to do noise reduction on my Raw files during conversion then just a little, if absolutely necessary, after the final sharpening. And I quite often do that on a layer with a mask or within selections to limit the effect to only the necessary areas.

Geoff - Gotcha. If interested the original image is here

For this image I did it all in LR - my final settings are below



Like I said, I am still new to Sharpening and not quite sure what works best. I have done it both in PS and LR, as well as used Masks. I have watch videos and understand the concept, but execution seems to lack at times. I feel it can be a bit of an ambiguous process for me..

[dje]

Hi Eric

I like the shot with the contrast between the old Colosseum and the newer buildings and modern cars.

On the technical side, your full size image does look a bit soft and I would mention a couple issues :

Your ISO setting of 500 and aperture setting of f/16 would be contributing to noise and loss of sharpness respectively. An aperture of f/8 or f/11 would have given adequate Depth of Field in this case I believe and this would have allowed a lower ISO for the same shutter speed. The larger aperture would also have given a sharper image.

Regarding your settings, the masking level of 58 looks a bit high to me, I typically use about 25. Masking is used to prevent sharpening small variations such as noise in uniform areas but if it is set too high, the edge sharpening will be masked too.

Luminance noise reduction of 46 seems a bit high for ISO 500 with that camera but I'd have to see the raw image to judge that properly.

One final thing, I'd try adding a bit of contrast to the image and reducing the highlights a bit.

Dave

[IzzieK]

+1 to Dave's comments...

[Geoff F]

A slight alternative which I often use when sharpening, Erik, is to slightly increase the radius but reduce the amount as well. For example radius 2 and amount 80 which tends to give a bit more sharpening impact but without excessive noise increase.

But each shot is unique so it is unwise to be overly dogmatic about any fixed adjustment settings.

I have downloaded the original for a more detailed look. Your camera appears to have focused on the closest area, which was the left hand buildings so the far distance, in effect the main subject, was slightly soft. There is a little bit of noise in some shadows but nothing to seriously worry about.

Just as an experiment, I tried sharpening for the distant area which made the left side a little over sharp so I did the sharpening on a layer then used a mask to slightly 'obscure' the effect on the left side.

This is the result of my attempts.



I also did a slight crop and a few other light tweaks to concentrate more on what I assume to be the intended subject area.

[TheBigE]

Geoff - Thanks for taking a look and providing feedback. Can I ask what settings you used on the sharpening? Did you end up with Radius 2.0 and Amount 80? Or near there about? Which Mask did you use- Unsharp Mask? Smart Sharpen?

I can really see the difference in your work. As I said still trying to understand this sharpen thing a bit more, and not sure if I want to do in in LR or PS. Thanks for the help.

[Geoff F]

Unsharp Mask at radius 2 and amount 80 with threshold 2, Erik. Done in CS5 on a duplicate layer. Then a Reveal All Mask which was edited to slightly reduce the sharpening effect on the left side.

No noise reduction at all.

And after resizing for upload an additional sharpen of radius 0.5 with amount 50 and threshold 1. This isn't always necessary but after a downward resize it can just give that little bit extra.

But possibly the main change came from very slightly increasing brightness in the midtone area.

[wtlwdwgn]

Nice juxtaposition of old and new. What I want to know is what they were serving in that pasticceri?