LinearSharpen for Canon EOS D30

WHERE TO DOWNLOAD?
Click links below to copy LinearSharpen to you own machine. PC version is packed with Zip and Mac version is packed with Stuffit.

Download LinearSharpen 3.42 for PC       

Download LinearSharpen 3.42 for Mac

HOW TO INSTALL?
Open Photoshop's actions palette and select "load action" from top menu.

HOW TO USE?
Open Photoshop's actions palette, select an action (open action folder to see actions inside it) and press 'play' button on action palette.

WHAT ARE LINEAR TIFF'S?
You can produce 'Linear TIFF' files from Canon D30 CRW (RAW) files by selecting 'linear' in conversion options of your RAW converter software. Linear TIFF contains RAW CMOS image data without any processing.

WHAT IS THE ADVANTAGE OF USING LINEAR TIFF'S?
It makes it possible to get more true to life colors (as a matter of fact any color look you like), better shadow detail and highligt preservation, have internal sharpening totally off (great quality improvement for big upsampling!) and extract data from whole dynamic range of a RAW file.

LinearSharpen is a Photoshop 6 action (automation script) which converts Canon EOS D30 Linear TIFF to nonlinear and (optionally) sharpened photo. Sharpening works better than any other action for this purpose because this action does it all in linear domain, which I discovered to preserve and enchance USM and color quality. This info has been first found out a long time ago by Timo Autiokari in his long quest for the ultimate Gamma knowledge at http://www.aim-dtp.net.

LinearSharpen does also color corrections (which D30 needs) in linear mode conversion which means you get true and saturated colors which are cleaner than by normal Canon conversion. Version 3.12 works on Wide Gamut RGB mode which preserves the wide gamut of colors D30 can capture. Sharpening method this plugin uses is a plain Unsharp Mask function with an old sharpening masking system first popularized by 'Ultra-sharpen pro' action, and then continued by Fred Miranda in 'Edgesharpen'.

LinearSharpen 3.42 contains: Info 342 Copyright and support info Convert only 342 Conversion only - feed this a linear TIFF and wait few seconds. 400-800 convert and sharpen Simple sharpening and conversion for ISO 400-1600 photos. 400-800 convert and sharpen HQ High quality sharpening and conversion for ISO 400-1600 photos. This is slow (depends on available RAM) but worth the wait. 100-200 chooser Does all sharpening actions (non HQ) and places the results in history as snapshots to choose from. 100-200 chooser HQ Does all sharpening actions in High Quality and places the results in history as snapshots to choose from. convert (XXXX sharpening (HQ)) All sharpening + conversion actions where XXXX is level of sharpness and HQ means high quality (slower) aftershave 1 (deeper colors) After conversion (and sharpening) use this to make colors more 'bright' or 'deep'. Don't use more than twice if you don't want to loose detail in strong color. Try it on different kinds of photos and you'll see what it does. aftershave 2 (shift yellow) Use this for converted and sharpened photos. This is a special aftershave which I use for indoor ISO 800 concert hall shots - the auto WB in dark often gives a yellow cast which can be removed by clicking this a couple of times. Try it on different kinds of photos and you'll see how it affects. aftershave 3 Use this for converted and sharpened photos. Adds cyan which means brigher sky blue and green. Shifts red to magenta if used too many times. Id you use this only once on portraits it enchances the skintone to a bit more tanny look. result to grayscale Use this for converted and sharpened photos. It makes three versions of grayscale version for you to choose from history palette snapshots result to AdobeRGB Use this for converted and sharpened photos. This converts color space to AdobeRGB which is more suited for printing than WideGamut. result to web JPEG Use this when you want to export photos to web galleries. This converts the photo to sRGB color space and then to 8 bit mode. The rest of the actions are for LS's internal use only. More aftershaves can be made to suit individual tastes!

High ISO sharpening can be used on low ISO images too (and vice versa), but it's much slower due to noise reduction. In this version sharpening is intented to be conservative and of high quality, and main goal was to not mess with the area on 'DoF border' and not to produce any artifacts like pixelisation and jaggies. The wait is worth it.

If you use low ISO sharpening on high ISO photos you'll have quite natural and subtle film grain effect due to sharpening of the noise components.

The plain advantage of sharpening in linear mode is that you get less halo effect and stronger contrast. The tonality of the photo is not altered by sharpening, this is especially noticeable in small detail areas where LinearSharpen does not make thin highlights thicker like conventional methods do.

NOTE THAT THE RESULTED PHOTO IS IN WIDEGAMUT COLOR MODE, AND I SUGGEST YOU KEEP THE PHOTO IN THAT MODE WHEN SAVING (SAVE WITH PROFILE).

If you need to do an sRGB color space photo for web there is an action included in LinearSharpen 3.12 which does sRGB conversion are conversion to 8 bits. In any case make sure you use sRGB when saving JPEG's for the web, otherwise colors will be really off on most www browsers.

For any conversion OUT of Wide Gamut ICC, please convert to AdobeRGB first, then convert to the desired target. This is because sRGB and many other ICC's are so narrow you'll get color artifacts (e.g. on smooth bokeh) if you convert straight to any low gamut ICC. So if you need e.g. PAL, do Wide Gamut -> AdobeRGB -> PAL.

And best of all: LinearSharpen is freeware. My principle has been from the start that as this kind of work is a result of pieces of common knowledge people have shared in the net, it would not be fair to make those ideas only available for those who can afford it.

Feel free to edit the action to your purposes. If you make a version which works with other camera models, I'd be happy to host them for you on my site.

LinearAction for Canon EOS D30

NOTE: LinearAction is discontinued, it is now included in LinearSharpen 3.11 and later.

Cheers!

Pekka Saarinen
musician and photographer

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