Linearsharpen D60 beta 2

[Pekka]

Here at last. Took some time to pull this up - the solutions to "bugs" were not very easy to produce.

Download from http://photography-on-the.net/D60/LS_D60_beta_2.zip

This version works with AdobeRGB (1998) color. This means you must feed it either a linear TIFF which is "untagged RGB" or a linear TIFF which is tagged as AdobeRGB. Always use 16 bit images only.

So, please check in photoshop's bottom Status Bar that color profile of the linear TIFF before you feed it to LS is either "Untagged RGB" or "AdobeRGB (1998)".

Improvements:

- High ISO sharpen does not force noise blur. Apply it as you like after seeing the result. Many times high ISO noise is so pleasing and quiet that noise reduction is not desirable.

- Luminosity resembles now Canon output. You can hit brightness buttons (included) a couple of times if you feel you need it (I usually do). You can calibrate your monitor's black point using instructions from http://www.aim-dtp.net/aim/calibration/blackpoint/crt_brightness_and_contrast.htm .

- Color improvements. Reds do not disturb skin color, and skies are not cyan. Overall color accuracy is now _very_ good. Compared to Canon this gives more color detail in shadows, better overall shadow detail, cleaner skin colors, purer reds (a bit darker) and blues.

- histograms do not clip colors in left side and keep colors better in extreme cases.

- sharpening affects now noise in more unobtrusive manner.

- new code structure.

- "bring up shadow detail" command. This raises shadows without affecting overall saturation and curve.

- each command gives before/after snapshots.

- noise reduction 2 is now called "HQ" and can be run once after ISO 100 sharpening, it actually improves sharpening in some cases! For each ISO it is hard to tell how many times you should run it - the lighter the exposure the less you need. I have used 4 times HQ with ISO 800 (sharpened with strong) with very good results. The common noise blur (non-2) is also there for those who want results fast (it may bleed somes colors though).

- successive noise blurs offered in fixed packages of 2,4 etc to avoid excessive Lab->RGB movement which degrades colors (give blue tint).

- an experimental fix for indoor/concerthall WB problem (common yellow-reddish tinted WB D60 gives) is included.

- web 33% export improved.

This has taken two weeks day and night, so I'm sure you understand why EE 1.3 will not be ready tomorrow. I consider LS D60 to be very important for all of us, and EE 1.3RC works already, so I devoted my time to this now. I wish I had four hands.

Here's an ISO 800 shot with 4 times noiseblur HQ:

http://photography-on-the.net/D60/CRW_3014_RT16.jpg

Sky color is good!

http://photography-on-the.net/D60/CRW_2381_RT16.jpg

[Morden]

I have eagerly awaited this file! As soon as I am sober enough to trust my own use of the PCs, I'll try it!

Have you met Samuel L. Jackson!?

Neil D.

[Thomas]

Pekka,

I decided to buy my D30 camera a year ago largely because of your LS actions. Later I upgraded to a D60 and was waiting for many months for you to do the same. My Christmas present was the news that you finally did.

May I represent here the members of this forum and say thank you for your time, intelligence and open spirit in sharing. Thanks to you we all have much more fun with our Canon gear.

Thomas

[wcapald]

Pekka,

This is just unbelievable. I've just zoomed in to a file I shot and converted using your action and its exceeded every expectation I've ever had from my D60. Truly incredible tool for wedding photographers.

Let me know if there is a way to provide monetary contribution to your creativity and weeks of effort in providing us with such a valuable asset in our software bag.

Best regards Wayne

[Sniper]

The pictures sharpen with this method looks wonderful!

I am not an owner of a DSLR (yet) but those picture does convince me even more to take the step.

My questions:
I got PS 6.0. Shall I just put the "LS D60 beta 2"-file in the plug-in folder? (there are a lot of folders under plug-in, so which one shall I place it in)? And under what menu do I find the action in PS?

Can somebody post an unprocessed picture so I can try out this sharpening action myself?

That would be great. Thanks in advance..

---------------------------------------
Sniper
http://www.pbase.com/sniper/

[kd6lor]

Pekka, just used your Linearsharpen action tonight for the first time. In fact, I have been looking at the EE information for the past week so carefully, I didn't realize you even had a D60 action. In any case, it works great, and I love it.

Link to picture converted with Linear Sharpen action

http://www.melor.com/gallery/photo.php?photo=414&exhibition=6


Thanks. I know you are busy with the D60 action, but don't forget about EE1.3, I for one am waiting for that anxiously as well!

Paul Jaruszewski

[kr-foto]

Hello everybody,

I´ve downloaded the linear sharpen file. yesterday. I´ve been working wuth it the whole morning, but i don´t get it (at least some of it). I have seen the pictures and i´m yhinking to myself: that wat i want too!!!!!!!!!!
Can anyone give me some clues on how to work with this file??? Is it supposed to do a whole lot of actions after eachother? And why does it allways starts interpolation when i want to convert the file clicking on " convert" in the action table. Please help me to get started properly.

Thanks in advance!

Koen

[Francis]

Hello,

I'm new to this forum but it seemed that I just joined at the right time after trying this new wonderful LS D60 action. Thanks Pekka.

My only question is that I have always heard do do the unsharp mask as the final step, before printing a photo. Now, with this action, I have to convert and sharpen at the same time. What if I want to convert, work on the photo (retouch, layers, colors, etc...) and then sharpen as a last step. Did I miss something or two separate convert-sharpen steps are not possible.

Sorry if it has already been discussed in the past but I badly need this information after seeing what this action can do.

Thanks Francis

[Pekka]

Francis wrote:
Hello,

I'm new to this forum but it seemed that I just joined at the right time after trying this new wonderful LS D60 action. Thanks Pekka.

My only question is that I have always heard do do the unsharp mask as the final step, before printing a photo. Now, with this action, I have to convert and sharpen at the same time. What if I want to convert, work on the photo (retouch, layers, colors, etc...) and then sharpen as a last step. Did I miss something or two separate convert-sharpen steps are not possible.

Sorry if it has already been discussed in the past but I badly need this information after seeing what this action can do.

Thanks Francis

The plain conversion is separated there as "CONVERT" command. To separate and get the sharpening work with same quality is not possible because the sharpening works mainly in fully linear mode - USM works better that way.

Many tools are not available in 16-bit mode (layers, masks) so if you need layering effects you have to be in 8-bit mode which is not good for linear photos anyway.

You simply can not get same detail level when converting and then sharpening. So the rule "sharpen last" does not apply here.

[Pekka]

kr-foto wrote:
Hello everybody,

I´ve downloaded the linear sharpen file. yesterday. I´ve been working wuth it the whole morning, but i don´t get it (at least some of it). I have seen the pictures and i´m yhinking to myself: that wat i want too!!!!!!!!!!
Can anyone give me some clues on how to work with this file??? Is it supposed to do a whole lot of actions after eachother? And why does it allways starts interpolation when i want to convert the file clicking on " convert" in the action table. Please help me to get started properly.

Thanks in advance!

Koen

Hi,

if you click "CONVERT" it should not interpolate, just do plain conversion (colors, curves).

Basically the commands are:

CONVERT
Converts and color corrects D60 linear TIFF to PC gamma.

CONVERT+SHARPEN (medium)
Interpolates, sharpens (with edge detection), converts and color corrects D60 linear TIFF to PC gamma.

CONVERT+SHARPEN (strong)
Interpolates, sharpens (with edge detection and full sharpening), converts and color corrects D60 linear TIFF to PC gamma. Produces very sharp results (if there is sharpness to be found in the photo) and will add some noise due overall sharpening.

CONVERT+HIGH ISO (med)
Interpolates, sharpens (with careful edge detection), converts and color corrects D60 linear TIFF to PC gamma. This option is for those who don't want to mess with noise reduction steps.

Saturation +1
Saturation +5
Saturation -1
Saturation -5
Raise or lower overall color saturation.

Brightness +1
Brightness -1
Brightness +3
Brightness -3
Raise or lower overall brightness.

try fixing indoor yellow cast
An experimetal step to remove that common yellowish-reddish color cast in indoor shots.

bring up shadow detail
Brightens and shifts left side of histogram which means you get to see more in shadow areas. Repeat for stronger effect.

more contrast
add contrast.

run noise blur once
run noise blur 2 times
run noise blur 4 times
This is the standard quality noise reduction. for higher ISO photos you may need more steps - it is better quality-wise to run "run noise blur 4 times" than "run noise blur once" four times.

run HQ noise blur once
run HQ noise blur 2 times
run HQ noise blur 4 times
run HQ noise blur 7 times
This is the high quality quality noise reduction. for higher ISO photos you may need more steps - it is better quality-wise to run "run HQ noise blur 4 times" than "run HQ noise blur once" four times.
For ISO 100 and 200 I recommend converting with sharpening (high) and then running "run HQ noise blur once". It will fix sharpening noise and remove some artifacts.
For higher ISO converted with "strong" try 2 steps first. If you need more, select history snapshot "before" and try 4 steps and so on.


rotate CCW
rotate image counter clock-wise.

to web
converts image to 8-bit srgb.

to web 1/3 size
converts image to 8-bit srgb and sharpens mildly.

It is best to use above commands to set up the result, and as last step open levels and do changes there.

[Roger_Cavanagh]

Francis wrote:
Hello,

I'm new to this forum but it seemed that I just joined at the right time after trying this new wonderful LS D60 action. Thanks Pekka.

My only question is that I have always heard do do the unsharp mask as the final step, before printing a photo. Now, with this action, I have to convert and sharpen at the same time. What if I want to convert, work on the photo (retouch, layers, colors, etc...) and then sharpen as a last step. Did I miss something or two separate convert-sharpen steps are not possible.

Sorry if it has already been discussed in the past but I badly need this information after seeing what this action can do.

Thanks Francis

Francis,

Further to Pekka's reply, the integrated sharpening is the same principle as in the D30 version of LinearSharpen. I have never noticed any problems when applying further edits to sharpened images.

After using LS, I would recommend making any required levels and curves in 16-bit, and only converting to 8-bit when absolutely necessary.

Regards,

[kr-foto]

Hello Pekka,

Thanks for the extra information. I´ll give it another go! By the way , this forum is very helpfull on many subjects.

p.s. And the pictures you uploaded look fabulous in color and sharpness. This motivates me to go photoshopping again.!

Koen

[Mike K]

Thanks Pekka, you are quite a service to the photo community with this type of work as well as the forum itself. Very nice results with the LS action, best I have gotten so far.
Question:
when running the action I have to hit "OK" about 2 dozen times, making the processing the action very long. I didn't have to do this on the older "preview" version. I must be doing something wrong?
Mike K

[Pekka]

Mike K wrote:
Thanks Pekka, you are quite a service to the photo community with this type of work as well as the forum itself. Very nice results with the LS action, best I have gotten so far.

Thanks!

Question:
when running the action I have to hit "OK" about 2 dozen times, making the processing the action very long. I didn't have to do this on the older "preview" version. I must be doing something wrong?
Mike K

You should not have any questions or interruptions when running them - what are you hitting ok to, what is the dialog saying?

Check that you do not have selected the second "tick column": On the left of each action and step you see a black tick mark, the next column should be empty - if you tick that (a small window image appears) it means PS will ask alternate settings each time.

[Pekka]

wcapald wrote:
Pekka,

This is just unbelievable. I've just zoomed in to a file I shot and converted using your action and its exceeded every expectation I've ever had from my D60. Truly incredible tool for wedding photographers.

Let me know if there is a way to provide monetary contribution to your creativity and weeks of effort in providing us with such a valuable asset in our software bag.

Best regards Wayne

Thanks Wayne,

If you feel like it, please use donate link in http://photography-on-the.net/D30/linear/

[Francis]

Pekka,

I have run your action on many past images and I observe that it does very well with general subjects. However for portrait work, the skintones are too satured and many times still too red (at least for my taste).

For saturation, I just dial less saturation, make a snapshot, dial more saturation and then paint less saturation snapshot on the skin with history bruch. This way, it keeps the nice saturation on foreground and background but off the skintones.

It doesn't solve the too red problem though. What would be the least destructive way to get some more red off once the action has finished????

Thank you
Francis

[T a z]

I'm still experimenting, but I've tried D60 beta 2 on my D30 files and have found the color rendition for the most part to be excellent. However, like Francis, I'm having a bit of a problem with the reds also. I'm getting a slight red color cast to things. But I've found this is easily fixed by going into curves...choosing the red channel...and then dragging down from the center point just oh so slightly. I've saved the curve setting and have incorporated it into Pekka's action. Overall, I find it produces better color than LS3.42.

I must say, I know the sharpening actions are geared toward D60 images, but I find the SHARPEN MEDIUM option works quite well on a good percentage of my D30 images. However, on images with a lot of detail, LS3.42 seems to produce a cleaner sharper image.

I sure wish I could find a way to mesh the two actions together so that I could get the color rendering that D60 beta 2 offers coupled the D30 sharpening actions. But maybe with some more experimentation, I might get close.

Once again, Pekka...thank you so very much for sharing your excellent work.

-Taz

[Roger_Cavanagh]

I'm not so convinced as Taz about the effectiveness of vanilla LSD60 on D30 pictures.

http://www.pixelpixel.org/images/linked/cdp/lsd60/lsm_over_lsd60.jpg

The outer ring is the LSD60 version and the inner ring is the LSM/LS342.

The blue and magenta seem to be the most mismatched.

Anyone else care to post some comparisons?

Regards,

[Persio]

Roger,

Thanks for sharing your comparison.
I have run D60 Beta 2 on some D30 people images and the slightly warmer colors do not bother me.
My major concern is with the sharpening algorithms, it seems to me that CONVERT+SHARPEN (medium) is too much for D30 images. It would be nice if Pekka could also have a CONVERT+SHARPEN (light). I believe that would be perfect for D30 users.

Regards,
Persio.

[photoArne]

Hello Pekka,
Opening the linear file in PS and running your new action goes very well, but that still leaves me with the native D-60 file size. How does interpolation to say a print size of 13x19 in (I am using the Fred Miranda D-60 interpolation) fit into the scheme of things? Interpolation of the linear file first and then running the LS D60 is slow because of the increased file size. If I do the interpolation after running LS D60, would you recommend doing the conversion without sharpening and then sharpen conventionally in PS before printing?
Sorry if these questions are obvious, but so far I've been working with non-linear files.
Thanks for sharing.

Arne

[Roger_Cavanagh]

On my D60 test image, the strong sharpening setting seems to induce haloes:

Unsharpened at 200%
http://www.pixelpixel.org/images/linked/cdp/lsd60/halo1-none.jpg

Strong sharpening at 200%
http://www.pixelpixel.org/images/linked/cdp/lsd60/halo1-strong.jpg

And here's the medium at 200%
http://www.pixelpixel.org/images/linked/cdp/lsd60/halo1-medium.jpg

What are y'all finding?

[Roger_Cavanagh]

Pekka,

What are you trying to achieve with this action - converting from Adobe to Wide Gamut and back?

Checking histograms at each stage does a difference, but the change in mean values for RGB and L before and after this stage was, in my test image, only -0.04, +0.14, +0.88 and +0.12. There is no discernible change in the appearance of the image on screen.

Given that a profile conversion involves an intermediate translation to Lab mode, which is known to be potentially destructive, is this step of real value?

Regards,

[Pekka]

Roger_Cavanagh wrote:
Pekka,

What are you trying to achieve with this action - converting from Adobe to Wide Gamut and back?

Checking histograms at each stage does a difference, but the change in mean values for RGB and L before and after this stage was, in my test image, only -0.04, +0.14, +0.88 and +0.12. There is no discernible change in the appearance of the image on screen.

Given that a profile conversion involves an intermediate translation to Lab mode, which is known to be potentially destructive, is this step of real value?

Regards,

That step scales the histogram so that you regain level editing possibility on some problematic photos where reds and yellows go over in dark side, but then again it will have a negative impact on some others.

This is still a beta, so for final version I will remove that step from conversion finalize and leave it as a separate action.

[Roger_Cavanagh]

Pekka wrote:
That step scales the histogram so that you regain level editing possibility on some problematic photos where reds and yellows go over in dark side, but then again it will have a negative impact on some others.

This is still a beta, so for final version I will remove that step from conversion finalize and leave it as a separate action.

OK.

I'd be interested in an example of a problem image.

Cheers,

[wcapald]

Just been out today and did a RAW shoot at some gardens in Stratford. Just converted back home tonight using D60 beta 2 action and colours looked OK but looked like they needed a bit more oooooomph, so then applied the ooooomph action step from version 1 and wooooooowww do they jump off the screen now. Stunning....

The "combo" gives vibrant colours ready to go straight to the printer without any tweaking and I just shot on full program on the D60 as a test. (Roger I could post the RAW files on Monday to your home address on a CD for you to experiment with)

Wayne

[john_houghton]

I did a comparison of BreezeBrowser and LS_D60_beta_2 convert + sharpen(medium) on a D30 image. The BB result is the more accurate of the two.

John

http://homepage.dtn.ntl.com/j.houghton/d30comp.jpg

[Roger_Cavanagh]

wcapald wrote:
Just been out today and did a RAW shoot at some gardens in Stratford. Just converted back home tonight using D60 beta 2 action and colours looked OK but looked like they needed a bit more oooooomph, so then applied the ooooomph action step from version 1 and wooooooowww do they jump off the screen now. Stunning....

The "combo" gives vibrant colours ready to go straight to the printer without any tweaking and I just shot on full program on the D60 as a test. (Roger I could post the RAW files on Monday to your home address on a CD for you to experiment with)

Wayne


Wayne,

Can you post examples? If you haven't got an ISP host, email me the JPGs and I put them up on pixelpixel, so we can all see.

Cheers,

[Pekka]

john_houghton wrote:
I did a comparison of BreezeBrowser and LS_D60_beta_2 convert + sharpen(medium) on a D30 image. The BB result is the more accurate of the two.

Well, it is expected as I have done the conversion solely for D60 and developed it with D60 photos only. I just noticed it works _reasonably_ well on D30.

[Pekka]

Roger_Cavanagh wrote:
On my D60 test image, the strong sharpening setting seems to induce haloes:

Unsharpened at 200%
http://www.pixelpixel.org/images/linked/cdp/lsd60/halo1-none.jpg

Strong sharpening at 200%
http://www.pixelpixel.org/images/linked/cdp/lsd60/halo1-strong.jpg

And here's the medium at 200%
http://www.pixelpixel.org/images/linked/cdp/lsd60/halo1-medium.jpg

What are y'all finding?


This is known issue and can be fixed by adding masking step to each 'between-resize' USM. This however will slow LS down some, so it will most likely to be called HQ sharpening.