Please help with post processing..

So I am using CS5. These images were taken yesterday with a used (but new to me) camera, the t2i. It was my first shots with the new camera body. The lens, also new to me, upgraded to a Tokina 11-16. I like the image, but am totally open to feedback about anything from cropping to compensation, sharpness, post processing, whatever. The first image (both taken from JPEG) is the full shot after post processing. It doesn't seem as sharp to me even though the sharpness settings are the same. The second image, i cropped it and straightened it out a bit. The second picture is way sharper, is that because is cropped? When you crop, does that change the way the sharpness is perceived? Also, how is the sharpness on the images, overdone, underdone? The focus, compensation?

Thanks for providing feedback and knowledge. Critic at will.

edit: After posting these, i notice the sharpness thing is way harder to notice when they are small like this, but it didnt allow me to attach them. Any way to get them bigger to show you guys?

Pic #1

True that when looking at an image compressed for Web viewing we can't see "critical sharpness". But do you mean sharpness as in fine detail, or do you mean a "sharp look" which is more about how the contrast of a scene is rendered and perceived?

I guess more of a sharp look, professional look. Obviously that's what i'm working towards in my quest to be a better photographer. Is there any way to post full sizes for people to see?

painful100 wrote in post #14143672
I guess more of a sharp look, professional look. Obviously that's what i'm working towards in my quest to be a better photographer. Is there any way to post full sizes for people to see?

You can post larger pics but stay at the POTN limit of 1024 pixels at the largest. How you do this depends -- if you have an image host online, you can upload to the host and then post a link to it. If you're uploading to here from your computer, you need to both resize and set the jpeg Quality slider to a medium Quality setting that will give you a file size within 250KBs.

Just realize that image quality is "perceived", filtered through our individual perceptions. You my be happier if, after resizing an image, you do some sharpening and/or contrast tweaking to it.

The second image is clearly sharper. I don't know why, but if I were to make a guess I would say it is because you rotated it. Rotating, because every pixel has to be redrawn in a new location, naturally reduces sharpness. I think PSCS compensates for this by automatically adding some sharpening, "under-the-hood" as it were. They may have exaggerated a bit and this "hidden" sharpening is going further than just restoring the original sharpness. It is because of things like this together with the fact that edits like increased contrast, saturation and resizing can change the image's sharpness, that the standard recommendation is to sharpen in the final step of your workflow.

Generally, you could start with a image that has more information in it. Take identical shots, one RAW & then one max jpeg. Convert the RAW file to jpeg. Look at the two file sizes.
A max jpg from my 20D is 2,754 KB. The exact same shot with the jpg extracted from RAW is 4,315 KB which is 1.57X larger.
Why throw those extra bits away?

Second, every shot, needs to be RE-sharpened when it's resized, even if it hasn't been cropped. I don't like in-camera .jpgs, because there's no good way to fix an image that has areas that have been oversharpened by the geek at Canon who programmed the in-camera PP.

There are several ways to sharpen, but generally, I only sharpen the part of the image that will benefit the most.
Selection for sharpening illustration.

Sticky: PS Tutorial - Resizing Images Using Save For Web

Sticky: Sharpening Tips & Tricks, Tutorials, and FAQ

Good tutorial: Really Smart Sharpening

Sharpening for a print lab

Veru helpful tzalman, photosguy and tonylong...thanks much. Makes a lot of sense.