Sharpening - too much, examples requested

[lvcrtrs]

Could someone post some examples of what photos look like when they are sharpened a bit too much and when they are obviously over sharpened. Thanks so much.

 

[Garbz]

Extreme example found through google image search: http://static.photo.net/attachments/bboard/00F/00FPzj-28442684.jpg

 

[LaFoto]

Ouch, Garbz, that certainly is an example for OVER-OVER-sharpened. Boy, that one hurts!

 

[lvcrtrs]

This is my first attempt at uploading pics. I chose 2. My dog (who just passed on Jan 4 :heart and a flower. When I put Foster in my digital picture frame his individual hairs seem almost needle like. I like things sharp but it looks kind of unreal. The flower looks really sharp but is it too sharp. Working with my new D90 with the kit lens. I copied the info by clicking on "details" when looking at the photo. Sharpening just says normal or hard, not + with the number I bumped it up. I've read you should look to see if straight lines look jagged and I'm not real sure what a halo from sharpening means. I changed to size of the pics to 800 on their long side. I've been spending time working on holding still to take a picture cause they were fuzzy. I put away the 70-300 and practice with the kit lens just set to 50mm now. I figure when I get good with that I'll pull out that long lens again.

1. Foster F5.3, 1/60, 66mm, meter-center weighted, mode-Programed auto, (I only changed the sharpening)

2. Flower F13, 1/60, 45mm, meter-pattern, mode-Aperature priority (with me upping the sharp setting, wish I knew how much)

 

[Garbz]

Halo means that there is an inversion in brightness visible. This is how sharpening works, by increasing the edge contrast either side of a detail. When pushed too hard it halos which is if you follow my link, the result on the mountains. In this case the black line underneath the mountain line where the mountains meet the sky is a halo.

The other form comes from double sharpening, where first the contrast is inverted around the detail, and then it is again. Regardless of what you think of sharpening it is rarely if ever a good idea to sharpen the same image twice with the same settings for this very reason.

The dog looks fine, but the flowers do seem a tad over sharpened. Another thing to realise is that sharpening changes depending on the output medium. While the flowers may look oversharp to me right now on this screen, they may look more than perfect when printed on matte paper, and look different again when printed on glossy paper.

A few more things:
1. Best sharpening is done at the end of all processing.
2. Avoiding halos can be done by keeping the sharpening radius low, where even 150% sharpening in photoshop at a radius of 0.8 pixels will not show a halo and can really enhance microfine details.
3. Sharpening for small details increases noise.

 

[lvcrtrs]

Garbz, Thank you. I wish I had another one that I deleted. It was Pompas Grass. It has really tall fuzzy flowers of sorts. Anyway, it has really long thin green grass like blades. Each grass blade came out looking like alternating green & white (or bright spots). It was weird. I had wondered if that was sharpening. All the D90 reviews said its' images were "soft" and to adjust the in camera settings. So not knowing I changed it from the default of 3 or so up to 9 (max) initially. Now I have just have it up about 2 notches. You are right about different devices. On this computer screen, Foster's hair looks pretty normal. Do you think it's because I changed the size to upload? Also, do you know why Foster's picture came out as is, but the flower picture came out with the bar on the top "This image has been resized. Click here to view the image full-size"? Thanks again, Sherry

PS Do you how people know the settings (think it's called EXIF) from looking at pictures people put up. Many times I want to know what people use because they don't note it and then other people reply with the settings??

 

[Garbz]

Either find a plugin for your browser that automatically reads the settings, or save the picture, right click on it in windows, click properties, go over to the far right tab and click advanced, that will show the ExIF data.

Also max sharpening is never a good idea in any camera I have tried. It is often to appease the P&S digicam guys who just got their first DSLR. P&S are well known for over sharpening, over saturating, and over contrasty images. But my D200 was the same. When I shoot JPEG I have the sharpening set to +1 out of +3