I like over-sharpened photos

While looking through a travel brochure at the impressive the landscape photos, I suddenly realized they were all over-sharpened. How could this happen in a commercial publication? For years I have read that over-sharpening is a big No No and I have gone to great lengths to prevent this from happening to my images, but these photos looked great!

I remember when I compared my D30 shots with my G1 shots and how soft they looked. The informed sources’ comments were “that’s they way their suppose to be�, so that’s the way I processed them.

My 10D still lacked the sharpness of the old G1 but “that’s the way their suppose to be�, cranking up the Unsharpen Mask will bring the wrath of critics upon you!

Then I started thinking,� What’s so bad about a small outline only visible at 400X with a loupe�. I don’t use a loupe to enjoy my photos, I stand back and view the entire print and slighty over-sharpened prints look better to me.

So I went back to some files that were sharpened with C1 @ Standard/64/2 and added Lab/Luminous/Unsharpen 90/1/0 and I was impressed with the improvement and in fact, some images could even take a bit more.

Now I’m happy with the results, still not G1 sharp, but I guess you can’t have everything!

toglenn

Use what looks good for you if you are non-pro. Use what works if you are a pro.

Sometimes I like over-sharpened photos. You can look at my bumblebee wings photos on my little photo collection and see how oversharpening came make things look neat.

I actually went the same route as you. I initially cautiously avoided sharpening, but then later, started using more and more sharpening for certain types of pictures.

Tell me what you think?

pradeep:
Your bumblebee photo is very beautiful! The composition is very good, the color fantastic, the sharpness just right. The background is perfectly out of focus. This is a winner by any standards.
The image is relatively small (pixels) and I cannot detect any sharpening artifacts viewing it at 1to1 on my laptop. My Sharp LCD is 1920x1200 pixels, and is extremely hard on images that are "over" sharpened. I would like to see a larger version of your photo, just to see why you think it is "over" sharpened. I can tell you that too much sharpening looks particularly bad when it's in a full-size image on my screen, but few people are displaying such large images at 1to1.
Anyway, I must admit that over the 3 years I have been doing digital photography, I have used sharpening less and less (the opposite of what you and toglenn have said.) I look back at images I made 3 years ago and they are way too sharpened, and look harsh and "digital".
Sharpening algorithms have also improved dramatically since then, and actions like Fred Miranda's are substantially better than simply applying unsharp mask to the entire image.
But in the end, it's all about making the image that you like best, viewed on the equipment you have.

cheers,

Ganderton,

Thank you for your kind words. I am very honored. I have been following your work and your interesting website for a while now. I have a friend who is enrolling at UNM for grad bioinformatics studies, and I told him to look you up and get in touch with you. After reading my email, he may just one day take one of your photography courses.

No, the bumblebee wings photo that I've posted on photo.net is not that over sharpened...at least not to the point of introducing sharpening artifacts. It is, however, considerably sharper than the original as it came out of my camera.

It has just been sharpened twice using Paintshop Pro's built in function. I tried all different types of sharpening to bring out the wings selectively and emphasize them, but ended up making them look like plastic tacked onto a living thing. I settled for some sharpening and went with that. I still have yet to get Photoshop and so all the fancy sharpening you read about, such as this high-pass filter sharpening on layers is a bit removed for me? The most I've done is unsharp mask. I checked out Fred Miranda's stuff and it looks very interesting.

I am not sure if I use sharpening more or less nowadays. It all depends on the picture. Some pictures, I will apply a good amount, and on others, I won't touch it at all.

This is how it looked fresh out of my G3 without anything done to it. How would you use Fred Miranda's tools on this picture?

Byte size: ZERO | Content warning: NOT AN IMAGE

Pradeep:
Yes, send your friend to visit me at UNM. I just finished the second semester of the photo course, and it went very well, (much better than the first, but I hoped it would.) It will be better next semester, but my biggest hurdle is people's expectations: some want a "how to" class on their HP digicam, others want photo critiques of their own work...

The larger image still looks fantastic, and again shows no sign of sharpening artifacts. It's a great photo, and I'm glad to see it again!
Fred Miranda's sharpening algorithm is now available in 16-bit for PS-CS. I have not tried it, but hope to soon. I also tried Focal Blade and was very impressed with the results. These algorithms are much more selective in applying sharpening to different areas of the image (harder edges, softer surfaces, for example.) But like anything, the more control you have, the more responsibility to manage and use it wisely!

cheers,