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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Sharpening techniques and different applications | |
So following a short discussion in the E-M1.2 thread regarding sharpening (among other things) and Lightroom and Capture One Pro I thought I'd start a new thread about this. I don't have the E-M1.2 thus I don't post these shots there.
So, different applications handle files differently, for better and worse.
I've been using Lightroom since the first day of the open beta, a couple of years ago I tried Capture One Pro and fell in love with the detail extraction and noise reduction as well as some other tools. Capture One has some weird color problems with some Olympus shots though (too much red generally) but it's usually no concern and it is fixable.
Keeping to the subject, Capture One is much better at extracting details while maintaining low noise. Not only does the sharpening algorithm seem to be better but they also have a "structure" slider that works like a micro-contrast enhancer. Similar to clarity but at a much smaller scale (C1 also has clarity with 4 different modes).
Structure is excellent for getting more detail from fur, feathers, eyes, eyelashes and many other things.
I promised I would post some examples.
We'll see if we see any difference at web size and much of it will come down to personal choice.
First photo to start with is a cat shot, just because it's what I grabbed right now in the heat of the moment.
First two shots are Lightroom and Capture One with ZERO sharpening. I've tried to get about the same look from the two files otherwise.
The following two shots are with my sharpening to my best ability for this photo (or my best ability in the time I spent on it now).
In C1 I used sharpening and structure as tools, nothing local only applied all over.
In Lightroom I used the sharpening slider with: Amount 41, Radius 1.4, detail 49 and masking 36 in order to apply the sharpening to the fur, whiskers, eyes etc and leave the out of focus areas alone in order to avoid extra noise.
I also decided to throw in a wild card. Last night I bought Affinity Photo in order to test it and see if I can let go of Adobe all together once my year of paying has run out (by next summer) and everything points to that. Affinity Photo feels great so far, only spent a few hours with it and I have never been good att Photoshop. Affinity Photo feels fun in another way though, and more modern and very powerful.
So last shot Affinity Photo with local sharpening to the face by using two different layers of unsharp mask. One with a low radius value in order to target fine detail and one with a high radius value in order to mimic the structure slider in Capture One (targeting finer detail then clarity and contrast but not as fine as sharpening alone).
Lightroom Unsharpened
Capture One Unsharpened
Lightroom Sharpened
Capture One Sharpened
Affinity Photo Sharpened
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