FM's sharpening plugins question

[gramps]

Does anyone have any thoughts in the two Fred Miranda sharpening plugins?
Intellisharpen II vs: CSpro

From what I see, but don't understand they seem to be just about the same except CSpro is for 20D files only. Am I correct?

[Scottes]

I've been running Intellisharpen, both I and II, for some time now. I think it does an excellent job and can recommend it.

As to CSPro I don't know much about it but I have to wonder about the "20D only" limitation. What if you shoot RAW - you get a TIFF if you use anything besides PS ACR. Does this mean you can't sharpen the image? And what if you want to sharpen something else, like a friend's image, or if you get a new camera?

I'd be worried about the "20D only" limitation - I'd check the details on this. Perhaps it just works better on 20D images, or was designed for 20D images? But if it *is* 20D only then I'd get Intellisharpen II - it will work on anything and certainly works fine on any 20D image. I used it on just about every image posted here.

[Bruce Watson]

I would second Fred's actions. I also have both versions on Intellisharpen; both work well but the II version is more flexible.

Send Fred an email and ask him his opinion, he would be best source on pros and cons of these.

[gramps]

Thank you gentlemen................Intellishapen it will be. The limitations to the 20 D on CSpro does seem odd.

[gmitchel]

The reason the limitations is that different cameras product images with different resolutions and different needs for sharpening.

The photosites on the 20D and 1Ds MkII are similar, for example. So, you might conclude the 20D is just a cropped 1Ds MkII image. Use the same settings. As one who owns both, I can tell you, settings that work great for the 20D will oversharpen 1Ds MkII images.

Fred's actions and add-ins offer a bunch of presets: something like Level 1 to Level 10, High/Medium/Low, etc. That stuff would have to be camera specific. Even better both camera and output specific.

Cheers,

Mitch

P.S. Fred writes some great actions. I own several. I stopped buying them because Fred's site is heavily censored. I know it's not obvious, but if you look around, you will find evidence in his forum on board matters, you'll see where threads get locked, etc. As an artist, I loathe censorship, so I do not buy from censors. I'm not preaching, just informing. You'll have to decide your own values on such matters.