Critique Welcomed Ansel In Edinburgh

[Rob MacKillop]

Now, is it too sharpened? Only a measly jpeg, of course. I'm getting so much detail from the DP1 Merrill, I'm not confident in sharpening techniques. I didn't add any here, but on my monitor (iMac) it looks quite sharp.

 

[Pete Askew]

I think it is. I use no raw sharpening and no more than 35% adaptive (25% for mono) in Nik Output Sharpener.

 

[Julian de'Courcy]

Superb regardless Rob. The Nik works very well.
There is a touch of the prickly feeling from sharpening though.

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Thanks, Pete. Something to think about and experiment with.

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Thought so, Julian. Thanks.

 

[Rob MacKillop]

A few more Ansel-influenced edits (or poor rip-offs, if you will!). Feel free to criticise.

view20a by RobMacKillop, on Flickr


view22b by RobMacKillop, on Flickr


view26a by RobMacKillop, on Flickr


view28a by RobMacKillop, on Flickr​

 

[Tom Dunne]

Any possible issues with sharpening/contrast have been nailed in the last two here. The last one in particular is a cracker.

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Thanks, Tom. Takes time to get used to new hardware and software, and the combination thereof.

 

[Keith Hollister]

They all look slightly "crunchy" and contrasty to me. I like several of the compositions but I would tweak the processing.

 

[Brian Moore]

That first one does look over-sharpened to me. There is a distinct line over the edge of the peak. It is neither rock nor sky, and seems to me to want curtailed. I do like the comps, though, Rob.

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Agreed. Back to the darkroom...

 

[Julian de'Courcy]

Agreed. Back to the darkroom...

Rob I don't have a lot of knowledge of sharpening, other than smart sharpening, in Cs6 , not sure if that is in element's? There is a convoluted way of getting smart sharpening using filters and layers, they used it prior to Adobe bringing a one click solution. Up still then it was always Unsharp mask which is very crude.
Also you may have done it here, if you have not it can produce that hallo on the edge Brian mentioned. That is to use the lasso tool to only sharpen parts of the image. Such as foreground only , so isolating and bringing attention to it by it being different.
No need in a landscape to sharpen a blue sky or parts that do not hold detail, which includes distant objects.

I now apologise , I am always reluctant to write things such as I have written, I am far from an expert and I may well be saying it to someone who not only already knows all this, but is more dab hand than myself.

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Never apologise for offering help and advice, Julian, as it's up to the receiver what to do with it. I've just started a new thread where I used the Auto Sharpen feature in Elements: http://realphotographersforum.com/forum/threads/lens-distortion.17161/

But I use SPP as well as Lightroom 4, as well as Elements and Nik filters - plenty of possibilities for fine-tuning sharpening. I must watch a few of the Nik tutorials on it, as that allows me to easily highlight one thing (e.g. an iris) and sharpen it or otherwise. But the files from the DP1 seem sharp enough already, and the danger is to overdo it. One of the problems is that SSP doesn't allow 100% viewing until you've converted it, so I've learned not to add sharpening there...

 

[Julian de'Courcy]

Never apologise for offering help and advice, Julian, as it's up to the receiver what to do with it. I've just started a new thread where I used the Auto Sharpen feature in Elements: http://realphotographersforum.com/forum/threads/lens-distortion.17161/

But I use SPP as well as Lightroom 4, as well as Elements and Nik filters - plenty of possibilities for fine-tuning sharpening. I must watch a few of the Nik tutorials on it, as that allows me to easily highlight one thing (e.g. an iris) and sharpen it or otherwise. But the files from the DP1 seem sharp enough already, and the danger is to overdo it. One of the problems is that SSP doesn't allow 100% viewing until you've converted it, so I've learned not to add sharpening there...

Yes you can 100% view . The ''Full Res'' button on the top panel. Click it, go make a coffee on your return hey presto.

I don't sharpen at all in SSP many advocate to take the sharpening back .2 - 0.7 as starting point into another editor.

 

[Pete Askew]

Certainly getting there Rob and last one is very nice indeed.

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Thanks, Pete.