Sharper Shooter Settings

[petermmc]

On the D70 there is a setting under Shooting Menu called Optimise Image. There are a number of settings under this including:Normal, Vivid & Sharper. For some reason mine has been on Sharper for some months.


As a general rule. What setting should I use? What do these settings actually do? Wouldn't sharper be the best? What am I sacrificing for sharpness? How can you sharpen a pixel? Is it the same as PS Sharpening and if so should I leave it on Normal and do any of that kind of change in PS.

Any comments appreciated.

[gstark]

On the D70 there is a setting under Shooting Menu called Optimise Image. There are a number of settings under this including:Normal, Vivid & Sharper. For some reason mine has been on Sharper for some months.


As a general rule. What setting should I use? What do these settings actually do? Wouldn't sharper be the best? What am I sacrificing for sharpness? How can you sharpen a pixel? Is it the same as PS Sharpening and if so should I leave it on Normal and do any of that kind of change in PS.

Any comments appreciated.

Play with them and see what settings give you photos that you like.

There's too many variations for us to tell you which ones to use, and it's certainly not a one-size-fits-all situation.

If you're shooting raw, all of these settings can be modified later in your PP, but if you're shooting jpg, once you're shot, you're shot.

[sirhc55]

I would put all of these settings to their lowest or off and use PS to PP the image as it has far more control, and hence you, of the final outcome

[mudder]

G'day,
Not sure if that means you're shooting raw or not... If you shoot raw and enjoy PP then use no sharpening and do it yourself in PP where you control it, if you're shooting jpeg and want to do minimal jpeg I'd probably just go normal...

[Matt. K]

petermmc
Don't confuse shooting RAW with "shooting in the RAW". These are 2 entirely different activities. Both Gary and Peter are correct in the advice they have given you. If you want the ultimate in quality and have the time to spend post processing then shoot RAW. Be prepared for a steep but satisfying learning curve. If you want to shoot and have the imagery processed down at the lab then fine-tune your settings to give you the kind of image quality you like straight out of the camera. Both methods will give you high quality once you have learnt to do the fine-tuning. Looking forward to seeing you post some pics.

[cordy]

Certainly dont be scared off by the "extra" processing you have to do with RAW, it took me a little longer to process RAW than JPEG for a while, now I have it down pat its about the same processing time. RAW is definitely worth your time

Chris

[gecko]

This is a good question and as a relatively new member, I struggled with all of the options/settings on my D70 for weeks and often felt that I was going around in circles without my images improving!

Then I read somewhere on the forum that while the D70 is a smart little unit, it does not have the processing power of your PP computer. Hence, shoot RAW with basic settings and then fiddle with sharpening at the PP stage. So I have been stessing less of late about custom curves, sharpening, optimizing etc and trying to learn how to maximize my use of PP software (currently using NCE)

Having said this, my PP skills and experience are rudimentary compared with many on the forum, but there is lots of invaluable advice on the forum to help us all improve...

Have fun
Gecko

[petermmc]

Thank you for all your input. I have not yet ventured down the 'RAW' path. My background is in B&W which I mastered quite well over the years. The variations are amazing and I wil take the RAW plunge soon. I still have a number of questions I would like to ask but I realise that some of my questions are too broad to illicit a straight forward answer. May I ask just one more.

What does using the sharpening tool on the camera actually do to the image? (eg does it increase the definition or contrast of pixels on the edges, does it have any side effects eg a glow)

Thank you for your patience.

[Onyx]

The sharper setting does as you described: increases edge contrast. It very crudely resembles what the unsharp mask function of photoshop does - but with less finesse.

I found as a side effect of using higher sharpening in-camera, it tends to accentuate noise. Personally, I've lived with med-low sharpening in mine, as no sharpening wasn't pleasing to me (had to use exorbitantly high USM settings) and the default I found had slight tendency to halo (powerlines against the sky, etc.)

I take the opposite view of most of the responders here - everything you can do in raw post processing you can achieve in camera, so I'd rather have things optimally setup to minimise/eliminate PP. I view this hobby as photography, not software image editing... having said that, there's at least 5 programs on my system consuming copious amounts of HD space, devoted to NEF conversion.

[sirhc55]

When digital cameras first came out it was in the professional arena. It was also the advent of PP digitally - the two go hand in hand. If we were at all concerned about the purity of photography we would all go back to film!

To control PP’ing with finesse outside of the camera, is IMO, far more satisfying than having a camera make some fairly limited attempts of control internally.

[mudder]

G'day Stephen,
I think there's quite a few benefits from using PP to selectively sharpen only the components of an image you want sharpened, as opposed to the cam just sharpening anything and everything in an image... Just the first few thoughts...

- Cam sharpening means all image areas are sharpened including backgrounds by the same amount.
- Selective Sharpening (in PP) means you can sharpen some areas more than others, and allows you to blur the background, making the subject look even sharper and take attention away from backgrounds.
- Cam sharpening will also sharpen and accentuate digital noise in the background, particularly shadows (which you wouldn't sharpen in PP)
- Cam sharpening cannot be undone.
- Cam sharpening *may* lead to halo's on edges
- Also, don't think that USM is the only way you can sharpen an image in PP, I very rarely use any USM at all, I much prefer to use a highpass filter which sharpens but results in no halo's or increased noise etc... In PP, there's always more than one way to skin a cat so to speak...

Hope that helps... Spose it mainly depends on how fussy you are and whether you don't mind doing PP...

Cheers.

[marcos]

I am a total newbie with DSLR cameras, D70 is my first one ever, lots to learn but I am well versed on photoshop, having worked as a graphic designer for a long time. I have the sharpening settings at "none" and tone comp to "0" on the camera, I rather do my own sharpening on PS, most of the times I use a set of actions that allow me to sharpen images up to 200% without getting halos or hard edges at all, it finds hard edges on the image and use it as a mask when sharpening, pretty cool actions, they are called "Deadman's Sharpeners", you guys might be able to search the net and get it, they are free, if someone needs those actions, email me and I'll send it, or uploaded here on the forums, don't know how yet. Anyways, I thought I would share this with the rest of the D70ers

[big pix]

This is a good question and as a relatively new member, I struggled with all of the options/settings on my D70 for weeks and often felt that I was going around in circles without my images improving!

Then I read somewhere on the forum that while the D70 is a smart little unit, it does not have the processing power of your PP computer. Hence, shoot RAW with basic settings and then fiddle with sharpening at the PP stage. So I have been stessing less of late about custom curves, sharpening, optimising etc and trying to learn how to maximise my use of PP software (currently using NCE)

Having said this, my PP skills and experience are rudimentary compared with many on the forum, but there is lots of invaluable advice on the forum to help us all improve...

Have fun
Gecko

...... next time you are down at the Coast playing in your canoe, get in touch and I can give you some photoshop lessions if you want.....

[atencati]

It all boils down to what and how you shoot. If you shoot NEF (do I have to include the copyright symbol here now????) you can pretty much change the settings in PP. If shooting Jpeg, you can still PP but with less control. If you hate PP, set up the PP in camera via the menus (but remember the camera is making the decisions at this point).
Nef gives you the most room for error, but takes up much more space on your card and a little extra effort in post. Again, it all depends on what and how you shoot. If you know your style you can seek out a member that shoots similarly and I'm sure they will help with settings. Conversely, posting here is a great way to learn a TON. Throw up some images and see how they fare.

My preference. All values at null, and adjust in post.


good luck

[gstark]

I am a total newbie with DSLR cameras, D70 is my first one ever, lots to learn but I am well versed on photoshop, having worked as a graphic designer for a long time. I have the sharpening settings at "none" and tone comp to "0" on the camera, I rather do my own sharpening on PS, most of the times I use a set of actions that allow me to sharpen images up to 200% without getting halos or hard edges at all, it finds hard edges on the image and use it as a mask when sharpening, pretty cool actions, they are called "Deadman's Sharpeners", you guys might be able to search the net and get it, they are free, if someone needs those actions, email me and I'll send it, or uploaded here on the forums, don't know how yet. Anyways, I thought I would share this with the rest of the D70ers

Don't forget that you are able to upload (and use) a custom curve into your camera. This has the ability to alter the underlying characteristics that will apply to any image that you're shooting, and different curves can have a dramatically different effect on an image even before you begin any PP efforts on the image.

My line of thought on this is to get the image as close to (what I think is) "correct" in the camera, and thus reduce the amount of time spent in PP.

[marcos]

yes gstark, it can be done through NC 4, I yet to read on it or study how to do it, can you recommend an artcle about it? or maybe point me to some samples? Thank you one more time