Could I have made this pic sharper?

[echoyjeff222]

I'm starting to learn portrait photography. I took some shots for my friend's graduation.

With the camera / lens that I have, could I have made this sharper, either in camera or in PP? Can I up the sharpening in PP? I'm using lightroom and I'm trying to figure out the right balance of sharpness. Right now I have:

selective sharpening on the eyes and eyebrows: +38 sharpness, +8 clarity
and overall sharpening
amount: 46
radius: 1.2
detail: 30
masking: 48

Camera Details:

IMG_3022 by Jeffrey Lee, on Flickr

straight out of camera, RAW:

IMG_3022original by Jeffrey Lee, on Flickr

 

[W.Y.Photo]

The focus is unchangeable after the camera has taken an exposure. There is currently no way to change the actual focus in post. That being said sharpening can help make defined lines of pixels sharper which makes already focused areas of the image look sharper than they were when captured.

The problem you are having with soft focus is due to a shallow depth of field with a focal point on the edge of the subject rather than in the front of her. This makes the front of her look soft (You'll notice that her left eye is sharper than her right) There is only so much you can do to fix this with sharpening in post. It looks like you've done a good job so far. You may consider sharpening only her right eye and the area of her body which is currently soft in order to match the sharpness of the area that is really in focus, this could help give the illusion of complete sharpness better than just sharpening everything.

That's about the extent of my knowledge on sharpening, at least without being afraid of misinforming you. I do my best to stay away from it as over-sharpening can often have a detrimental effect on the quality of images. I'm sure there are some people on here that know more than I do on the subject so I'll leave it to them to explain more and give you more ideas on how to make this image look its sharpest.

 

[tirediron]

Alternatively, what you could try (might work, might not) would be to sharpen her face as suggested above, and then apply a very light Gaussian blur to the rest of her...

 

[KmH]

For a portrait I would use little, if any, Masking. For other images I rarely exceed 10 to 25 when I want to mask sharpening from surfaces, things like a persons cheeks and forehead or the sky.
I would not do any global sharpening. Why sharpen a blurred background, or ancillary subjects?
I would sharpen her hair, mouth, and nose in addition to her eyes and eyebrows.

How much, if any, Luminance noise reduction did you use?

Radius is OK.
To me the Radius setting is the key to sharpening. The Detail and Masking sliders are greatly affected by the Radius setting.
As edge frequency in a image increases then you decrease the Radius. I have never found a use for a Radius setting larger than 2 for sharpening.

When we use the sharpen sliders Detail panel, what we are adjusting is edge contrast. Radius sets how far from the edge contrast is manipulated. Masking

Do you know you can hold down the Alt key and the left mouse button to see a B&W detailed view of what each Sharpen slider is doing?
Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop, Camera Raw, and Lightroom (2nd Edition)

 

[echoyjeff222]

The focus is unchangeable after the camera has taken an exposure. There is currently no way to change the actual focus in post. That being said sharpening can help make defined lines of pixels sharper which makes already focused areas of the image look sharper than they were when captured.

The problem you are having with soft focus is due to a shallow depth of field with a focal point on the edge of the subject rather than in the front of her. This makes the front of her look soft (You'll notice that her left eye is sharper than her right) There is only so much you can do to fix this with sharpening in post. It looks like you've done a good job so far. You may consider sharpening only her right eye and the area of her body which is currently soft in order to match the sharpness of the area that is really in focus, this could help give the illusion of complete sharpness better than just sharpening everything.

That's about the extent of my knowledge on sharpening, at least without being afraid of misinforming you. I do my best to stay away from it as over-sharpening can often have a detrimental effect on the quality of images. I'm sure there are some people on here that know more than I do on the subject so I'll leave it to them to explain more and give you more ideas on how to make this image look its sharpest.

How could I have shifted the focus to "in front of her?" She was moving when this was taken, and I was using continuous back-button focusing to get the shot. I'm not sure of other ways I could have adjusted the focus that quickly?

I had ~ 20 on the luminescence noise reduction. I turned that off just now.


I guess I'm just curious how much more sharp could I have gotten if I had the focus perfect, given my camera/lens?

Here's a copy without noise adjustments and an increased sharpness/clarity to more facial regions/body.

IMG_3022 by Jeffrey Lee, on Flickr

 

[JacaRanda]

The focus is unchangeable after the camera has taken an exposure. There is currently no way to change the actual focus in post. That being said sharpening can help make defined lines of pixels sharper which makes already focused areas of the image look sharper than they were when captured.

The problem you are having with soft focus is due to a shallow depth of field with a focal point on the edge of the subject rather than in the front of her. This makes the front of her look soft (You'll notice that her left eye is sharper than her right) There is only so much you can do to fix this with sharpening in post. It looks like you've done a good job so far. You may consider sharpening only her right eye and the area of her body which is currently soft in order to match the sharpness of the area that is really in focus, this could help give the illusion of complete sharpness better than just sharpening everything.

That's about the extent of my knowledge on sharpening, at least without being afraid of misinforming you. I do my best to stay away from it as over-sharpening can often have a detrimental effect on the quality of images. I'm sure there are some people on here that know more than I do on the subject so I'll leave it to them to explain more and give you more ideas on how to make this image look its sharpest.

How could I have shifted the focus to "in front of her?" She was moving when this was taken, and I was using continuous back-button focusing to get the shot. I'm not sure of other ways I could have adjusted the focus that quickly?

As mentioned, you can't change the focus. Next time you can stop your lens down to get more depth of field (more in perceptible focus in front of and behind where your focused).

 

[echoyjeff222]

The focus is unchangeable after the camera has taken an exposure. There is currently no way to change the actual focus in post. That being said sharpening can help make defined lines of pixels sharper which makes already focused areas of the image look sharper than they were when captured.

The problem you are having with soft focus is due to a shallow depth of field with a focal point on the edge of the subject rather than in the front of her. This makes the front of her look soft (You'll notice that her left eye is sharper than her right) There is only so much you can do to fix this with sharpening in post. It looks like you've done a good job so far. You may consider sharpening only her right eye and the area of her body which is currently soft in order to match the sharpness of the area that is really in focus, this could help give the illusion of complete sharpness better than just sharpening everything.

That's about the extent of my knowledge on sharpening, at least without being afraid of misinforming you. I do my best to stay away from it as over-sharpening can often have a detrimental effect on the quality of images. I'm sure there are some people on here that know more than I do on the subject so I'll leave it to them to explain more and give you more ideas on how to make this image look its sharpest.

How could I have shifted the focus to "in front of her?" She was moving when this was taken, and I was using continuous back-button focusing to get the shot. I'm not sure of other ways I could have adjusted the focus that quickly?

As mentioned, you can't change the focus. Next time you can stop your lens down to get more depth of field (more in perceptible focus in front of and behind where your focused).

So this is highly dependent on the context, right? I've seen portraits of people with a f / 1.4 and they look super sharp. In my case, is it because she's moving / unevenly turned face that I shouldn't use that small of an f/stop number?

 

[vintagesnaps]

Maybe you need more practice at shooting events so you can get photos as things are happening. Next time I wouldn't use such a large aperture so if the subject moves around talking to people you would have more depth of field, more distance in focus. It was probably good to use a somewhat faster shutter speed to prevent movement blur. I tend to focus on the side or edge of the subject closest to me in general but it depends on what you're photographing.

Think too about the background and your vantage point to eliminate other people in the frame who seem to have nothing to do with the subject. This might have been better if you'd turned the camera to a vertical position (but of course I wasn't there to see what else was there and I know space can be tight at events like this).

Next time maybe try practicing some focusing with your camera before you go to the event to get 'warmed up' so to speak.

 

[JacaRanda]

The focus is unchangeable after the camera has taken an exposure. There is currently no way to change the actual focus in post. That being said sharpening can help make defined lines of pixels sharper which makes already focused areas of the image look sharper than they were when captured.

The problem you are having with soft focus is due to a shallow depth of field with a focal point on the edge of the subject rather than in the front of her. This makes the front of her look soft (You'll notice that her left eye is sharper than her right) There is only so much you can do to fix this with sharpening in post. It looks like you've done a good job so far. You may consider sharpening only her right eye and the area of her body which is currently soft in order to match the sharpness of the area that is really in focus, this could help give the illusion of complete sharpness better than just sharpening everything.

That's about the extent of my knowledge on sharpening, at least without being afraid of misinforming you. I do my best to stay away from it as over-sharpening can often have a detrimental effect on the quality of images. I'm sure there are some people on here that know more than I do on the subject so I'll leave it to them to explain more and give you more ideas on how to make this image look its sharpest.

How could I have shifted the focus to "in front of her?" She was moving when this was taken, and I was using continuous back-button focusing to get the shot. I'm not sure of other ways I could have adjusted the focus that quickly?

As mentioned, you can't change the focus. Next time you can stop your lens down to get more depth of field (more in perceptible focus in front of and behind where your focused).

So this is highly dependent on the context, right? I've seen portraits of people with a f / 1.4 and they look super sharp. In my case, is it because she's moving / unevenly turned face that I shouldn't use that small of an f/stop number?

Yes. The speed of which the subject is moving, the distance, the lens, shutter speed, aperture. All factors.

 

[Designer]

Shutter speed (or time) is kind of at the low end considering a hand-held shot at 200mm. Add in the subject's walking movement, and you're really pushing it.

The low ISO has put your aperture wide open, so now the DOF is quite thin.

If you were 20 feet from your subject, the DOF is only 0.45 feet.

If you were 30 feet from your subject, the DOF is better, but still only 1.02 feet.

By increasing the ISO you can stop down and get more of your subject in focus.

 

[The_Traveler]

Her face looks dark to me and the bright background really pulls my eye away.
There is a lot of space around her that does nothing but lessen the impact.
(Her face looks really smooth; either she has great skin or it is denoised too much for my taste or it was even darker and lost detail. The bright spot on her throat suggests a lot of makeup that plasters over texture.)

 

[KmH]

How could I have shifted the focus to "in front of her?" She was moving when this was taken, and I was using continuous back-button focusing to get the shot. I'm not sure of other ways I could have adjusted the focus that quickly?

That is done by fully understanding depth-of-field (DoF) and how DoF is distributed in front of and behind the point of focus (PoF).
The DoF is usually shallower in front of the PoF, say 45% in front of and 55% behind the PoF.
Some combinations of lens focal length, lens aperture, and PoF yield a DoF distribution that is 50/50.
Visit Hyperfocal Distance and Depth of Field Calculator - DOFMaster

 

[EyeSO]

It looks like a few things to me. First, the focus seems to have actually landed on her neck/ upper chest. I would suggest always trying to land your focus on the subject's eyes. The depth of field would have covered this if the focus was correct, though stopping down to even f/5.6 would have probably allowed her face to be in focus while still allowing a fairly quick shutter speed with an increase in ISO.

Second, your shutter speed seems fairly low for the focal length. A rule of thumb is that you try not to let your shutter speed fall below '1/whatever your focal length is' , in this case 1/200th would have been your lowest, and you are at 1/250th. Not necessarily a sharpness killer, but something to keep in mind.

 

[GHK]

A careful examination of the tone of the original post showed a bluish cast. This was easily removed using a Curves adjustment layer. Compare the complexion and the hair in particular. Sharpening is not really necessary on the face but I did sharpen both the eyes and the teeth to brighten them up. This was done by creating duplicate later, adding a layer mask, and then carefully painting out the teeth and eye areas from the mask using a black brush. The whole of the original background was then sharpened to produce the final image.
GHK

 

[robbins.photo]

When shooting people/animals if your going to use a wide aperture I suggest you switch your AF to a single focus point, and when shooting put the focus point on the subjects eyes. When you look at a photograph the first thing your eyes are drawn to are the subjects eyes, so that's really what you want as the focal point for the photograph.

As others have mentioned your generally better off when possible stopping down the lens to get an increased DOF, 5.6 is usually a good start for most people portraits.