Mark Metternich
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 p.1 #5 · Topaz labs: Topaz Photo .. or… Topaz Studio | |
I use a lot of different software doing post processing for top end gallery enlargement for clients (almost always under strict confidentiality agreement so no one knows that I do their work - funny enough) doing galleries or Art shows, or personal enlargement pieces… that want the very best of the best.
There’s a few things that I could not live without, to obtain the kinds of quality that were pioneering in. Getting the noise reduction in the native file just right (extremely low but not totally annihilated) before the sizing and sharpening, is so key! It’s really the most important thing foundationally. (And NOT having any sharpening on in LR or Camera Raw (or elsewhere) on the native file! Turn the light room sharpening default off. In fact, I wish they would just get rid of it because it was never intended for general sharpening purposes, and it does damage to the file.
I don’t like Topaz so much for that purpose (straight sharpening). If I use the Lightroom/Camera Raw Denoise, but I do it on a layer (raw “smart object” layer in photoshop) by clicking into one of the 2 duplicated layers (which opens Camera Raw) and using the “Denoise”, but NOT on the other layer… by using “Blend If” (Layer Style - “blend if”) I am able to split the black slider by option (or alt-PC) clicking on the right side of the black node, and just slide it across so that the noise reduction, which is essentially DXO’s base AI noise reduction, is targeting the darkest tones (noise resides mostly in the darks and decreases as the tones head toward the highlights…) the very most, but in a perfectly graduated fashion, it falls off by the time it reaches the lights or the highlights… what is so awesome about combining Denoise and “blend if” (like a perfectly graduated luminosity mask) is that we are able to keep the unadulterated (no AI) and more natural highlights and lights. And the AI noise reduction is perfectly strong for the areas that need the most. This also allows shooting at nearly ANY ISO and the native file look like it was shot at ISO 50 or below!
I show examples in my thread here: https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1939847/
This is one of the most critical things to get right for world class enlargements. Or the potential quality of detail in any image of any size.
But as to your question, I couldn’t live without that Denoise, nor topaz photo AI, and topaz gigapixel, and a few other things, including the free software Raw Therapee. Raw Therapee has a couple things (works on rasterized Tiff’s) in it that are just world class in and of themselves. Their “Micro Contrast” is one of a few things that is really mind-boggling. It’s capable of adding contrast to an image at a pixel to pixel basis! I haven’t found anything like it anywhere. It can do this in 3 x 3 pixel blocks or 5 x 5. Meaning it’s adding contrast at a pixel to basis, in sections of 9 pixels or 25 pixels (and it does it to the entire image). If an image is hyper clean, this can mean that the micro detail can be massively more detailed.
I definitely don’t rely a whole lot on straight topaz sharpening although it can have its use. I find much better results using a combination of tools. And Photoshop’s high pass in “Linear Light” (one of Photoshop’s Layer Blend Modes) is still one of the most powerful ways to control sharpening at various radius’s. The thing that makes it so potent is that you can sharpen at an extremely fine radius’s, or wider radius’s. Although it is certainly not the only tool in the tool kit, it is certainly an under exploited gem.
I teach the stuff all the time and people want to know what I do. Basically I do everything, and because I do this about 12-14 hours a day, six days a week - for over 20 years now (under very high pressure) over time I just get kind of an instinct or feel for what might end up working the best. And more often it’s combining several tools.
If you had to pair it down to a simple minimum, using the simplest possible approach, to get the most bang for your buck… using Lightroom or Camera Raw in the way that I am mentioning, for the critical noise control, and absolutely not using ANY sharpening whatsoever in LR/CR, and then using different radius’s of high pass sharpening, using linear light blend mode, would be the most potent combination in my opinion. That would be quite limiting to me, but if I only had one or two tools that I could work with, that combination is extremely potent! And you could try this adding gigapixel upsizes, (trying a variety of different algorithms and settings (with Standard 2, and High Fidelity 2, generally giving the best results).
What I personally do is too complicated to explain in text here (more comprehensive than what I am describing). But I do teach it all. And we are literally breaking world records in never before chartered territories of quality and sizes. It’s an incredible time to be a printmaker!
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