LS 3.42 - Which Action To Use?

[mjordan]

I'm a little confused as to the naming convention used for the different actions in LinearSharpen 3.42.

I have been shooting raw with AWB and ISO 100 and converting them in BreezeBrowser per the instructions (16 bit linear tiff) and everthing left at "As shot".

In Photoshop I have been using 400-800 or 400-800 HQ convert and sharpen. It says these are for ISO 400 to 800 images but there isn't a 100-200 convert and sharpen. Is the 100-200 chooser and 100-200 chooser HQ the same thing for the lower ISO speeds as the 400-800 action?

I tried them and didn't really notice a lot of difference although adding a little more USM seemed to help the image.

Is it a waste of time to use the 400-800 HQ on my ISO 100 images?

Thanks

Mike

[Roger_Cavanagh]

Mike,

You will get better results if you use the action appropriate to the ISO setting.

Pekka has provided additional sharpening options (low, normal, high and extra-high) for 100-200. These are the actionsd labelled "convert (....)". The HQ option provides an extra upsize-downsize step that is intended to improve "jaggies", but this adds a lot of time to the process, but does make some difference to the final image.

The Chooser actions are handy for processing one image at a time because they create a snapshot for each level of sharpening, so you can choose which you like best. However, you cannot use a chooser action in batch mode. For batch mode I would recommend you use the normal HQ option as high sometimes introduces sharpening artefacts, and extra-high very often does.

WRT to parameters settings, only white balance is relevant for linear TIFF conversion. Sharpness, saturation and contrast are not applied.

Regards,

[mjordan]

Thanks for the info, Roger. I'll give the choosers a try on some of the more important images. If that improves them, even a little, then that will be worth not being able to run them in batch mode. I shoot mostly dog pictures, so sharpness and detail are more important to me than it would be for people portraits. It's amazing how well these actions do.

Mike

[jhsinger]

I'm a bit confused... should we use the 100-200 for ISO 100-200 images and 400-800 for ISO 400-800 images... ok, sounds like a dumb question, but the statement on the LS web page:
"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."

makes it sound like if you use the 400-800 setting on 100-200 pictures you get better quality.

Thanks,
jeff

[Roger_Cavanagh]

... 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."

makes it sound like if you use the 400-800 setting on 100-200 pictures you get better quality.

Well, we really need Pekka to comment, but my view would be that "conservative" does not necessarily mean better quality, just a reduced chance of introducing sharpening artefacts because of the characteristics of the image.

Regards,