tips for sharper photos

GC Jr · Jan 29, 2008

Sometimes it's not the camera, it's the surroundings moving too fast.

JerryPH · Jan 29, 2008

Emerana said:
big difference, very nice. I didnt even see how un sharp it was. What is cs3?

CS3 = Photoshop CS3 (Creative Suite 3).

I tried using the unsharp mask but again, got better results with the smart sharpening in CS3, and it was a small difference... 50% and 0.5 pixels. With the original sized file you could likely go 75% and 0.75 pixels and get a big increase in sharpness and no loss in IQ.

Emerana · Jan 29, 2008

photoshop is a little out of my budget range

but thanks for the help...I didnt see how unsharp the photo was until you sharpened it

Emerana · Jan 29, 2008

oooh my husband says we can get photoshop for free from his work...it might be a while though. Is it hard to learn how to use? My brother said it is

JerryPH · Jan 29, 2008

CS3 is an intimidating program, but there are free mini tutorials on youtube and a slew of good books out there for CS3 and digital photography.

Start with the small things, and work into it, thats how I am coping... lol.

Sharpening is VERY easy, but just remember to do that as your last step in the process.

Dissolution · Jan 29, 2008

Emerana said:
oooh my husband says we can get photoshop for free from his work...it might be a while though. Is it hard to learn how to use? My brother said it is

becareful doin that, ADOBE is very strict when it comes to their "licenses". our school had bought 5, then the server went down, so they re-installed it on the 5 computers...and ADOBE tried suing them saying they stole the program

JerryPH · Jan 29, 2008

She made no mention of improper license usage... I know of a company that permits legitimate usage of Office 2007 for $35/CD and a company volume license key for employees is legally cleared by Microsoft. They could be in a similar situation with Adobe at his place of work.

Keeping it legit is understandably always highly recommended, though.

Emerana · Jan 29, 2008

it isn't illegal...he works for a major university hospital and they buy our computers and put software and maintain them so they can make he work all hours day or night

...its on the up and up

JerryPH · Jan 30, 2008

Welcome to the wonderful world of Photoshop... don't get too discouraged until you get the feel for it.

Sandspur · Jan 30, 2008

1. For normal daylight exposures of at least 1/125th sec., you don't need mirror lock up.
2. Optimal apertures for sharpness (regardless of the lens) are f5.6 - f 11.
3. I've never seen a digital image (except for one that is intentionally soft focus) that didn't benefit from the use of Unsharp Mask. But always do that LAST, after your image is scaled to it's target size.

And the FIRST thing to do with any image taken into Photoshop is to optimize it, whether in RAW or jpg. Optimizing means, first and foremost, adjusting the Histogram - black slider first (this one is absolute), then white point (subjective), and if needed, a mid-tones adjustment.

Never adjust brightness, contrast, color or anything else until that Histogram is right.

Contact me if you have questions about this. I'm about to write a new tutorial on it for my site and would appreciate any questions.

mrodgers · Jan 30, 2008

Sandspur said:
Contact me if you have questions about this. I'm about to write a new tutorial on it for my site and would appreciate any questions.

With that note, thank you. I just bookmarked your site to read later. I don't have a dSLR, but most info out there can be used with my camera as well. Looks like I'll have yet another site to read through while I sit in front of the control computer at work.