new scan snippets: 4990 vs. V700 vs. vs LS-8000 (same negative)

[Paul Saunders]

It's the end product that counts, after all, so if it can be made to
look better through sharpening then so be it.

The edges can be made sharper, but you can't improve fine texture detail.

What settings do you
recommend for sharpening at the different scan resolutions?

I wouldn't think in terms of scan resolution if I were you, it's the output
resolution that matters.

Does the
software do a decent job or is it better done in Photoshop?

Definitely the latter, and definitely do it last of all. Only sharpen
during the scanning stage if you don't intend to any processing and don't
intend to resize it. Sharpening degrades the image, any further processing
or resizing simply ehances that degradation.

Also for
resizing, is it better to send people the original scan if they might
resize it or sharpen what you've got at full size?

Best to send the unsharpened image. Publishers and photo agencies usually
insist on unsharpened images, they prefer to resize them and use their own
sharpening techniques to suit their own printing requirements.

I do printing for a few people and always tell them not to sharpen. I save
all of my processed "master" images unsharpened. You can always add
sharpening later, but you can never take it away. It's practically
impossible to undo the "damage" of a sharpened image.

Paul

 

[winhag]

Okay, I just tried sharpening. It is a little better, but the Nikon
just has better defined detail, colors etc. I appreciate the
difference in price, but Epson is misleading people when they imply
that their flatbeds can compete with high quality dedicated film
scanners.
I have an Epson 3200, and it was 'spanked' by a Minolta Dual Scan III
when it came to scanning 35mm film. Of course the Epson's are cost
effective especially for large format film. But I would think at any
format they still lack good color reproduction.

 

[David J. Littleboy]

The edges can be made sharper, but you can't improve fine texture detail.

I find that sharpening LS-8000 scans does wonders for fine texture, but that
I don't care for what it does to edges, which are largely already of
adequate contrast. (I.e., I hate halos.)

But I find theis true for almost any digital image, not just LS-8000 scans.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

 

[Paul Saunders]

I find that sharpening LS-8000 scans does wonders for fine texture,
but that I don't care for what it does to edges, which are largely
already of adequate contrast. (I.e., I hate halos.)

I wonder, is there some way of using the Stylise - Find Edges filter to
create some kind of mask to inhibit sharpening on the edges?

Paul

 

[Peter Chant]

Paul Saunders wrote:

I wonder, is there some way of using the Stylise - Find Edges filter to
create some kind of mask to inhibit sharpening on the edges?

But then what does it sharpen? Surely it can only sharpen the edges and it
does this by boosting contrast at them. If you mask it it does not work.


Pete

 

[Scott W]

Paul Saunders wrote:



But then what does it sharpen? Surely it can only sharpen the edges and it
does this by boosting contrast at them. If you mask it it does not work.

Sharpening does much more then sharpen edges, in fact it is not all the
good with edges. Where sharpening works the best is getting textures
back that are low in contrast, due to soft images. And when you
sharpen grass, sand or gravel as examples you don't have to worry about
halos.

Scott

 

[David J. Littleboy]

But then what does it sharpen? Surely it can only sharpen the edges and
it
does this by boosting contrast at them. If you mask it it does not work.

Edges come in a wide range of contrasts. Sharpening seems to boost the
contrast more for edges that are already high contrast. This is exactly the
opposite of what you want; you want edges that are hard to see to be made a
tad clearer. So people mask out the high contrast edges to protect them from
being given "halos".

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

 

[Bart van der Wolf]

SNIP

Edges come in a wide range of contrasts. Sharpening seems to boost
the contrast more for edges that are already high contrast. This is
exactly the opposite of what you want; you want edges that are hard
to see to be made a tad clearer. So people mask out the high
contrast edges to protect them from being given "halos".

I fully agree with that, one doesn't need sharpening of edges that are
sharp already. It'll only lead to halo artifacts and those artifacts
add nothing to perceived sharpness. It just cries-out "I've been
over-sharpened, image quality has been compromised".

That's exactly why I recommend to blend the image with a luminosity
sharpening layer like this on top:
<http://www.xs4all.nl/~bvdwolf/main/downloads/Non-clipped-sharpening.png>

The small radius sharpening used in the example prevents very
wide/visible halo, but still clips all detail into a featureless halo
when the edge contrast is already high with "regular sharpening". With
a minor adjustment to a sharpening layer, this can be reduced to
enhanced medium to low contrast, and progressively less enhancement as
contrast is higher already, which normally prevents clipping
altogether.

The progressively blended sharpening layer is also highly adjustable
by changing opacity or by local masking, and it avoids color
sharpening artifacts.

 

[Randy Howard]

Bart van der Wolf wrote

SNIP

I fully agree with that, one doesn't need sharpening of edges that are
sharp already. It'll only lead to halo artifacts and those artifacts
add nothing to perceived sharpness. It just cries-out "I've been
over-sharpened, image quality has been compromised".

That's exactly why I recommend to blend the image with a luminosity
sharpening layer like this on top:
<http://www.xs4all.nl/~bvdwolf/main/downloads/Non-clipped-sharpening.png>

The small radius sharpening used in the example prevents very
wide/visible halo, but still clips all detail into a featureless halo
when the edge contrast is already high with "regular sharpening". With
a minor adjustment to a sharpening layer, this can be reduced to
enhanced medium to low contrast, and progressively less enhancement as
contrast is higher already, which normally prevents clipping
altogether.

The progressively blended sharpening layer is also highly adjustable
by changing opacity or by local masking, and it avoids color
sharpening artifacts.

What do you think of using a mild high-pass filter on a layer
copy above, then blending with hard or vivid light? For some
images that seems to do a nice job without making it overly
obvious it's been sharpened.

 

[Paul Saunders]

But then what does it sharpen?

It sharpens the texture parts of the image. Well it would if I could figure
out a practical way of doing it.

Surely it can only sharpen the edges

No, sharpening affects everything, but it's most obvious on the edges.

and it does this by boosting contrast at them. If you mask it it
does not work.

That's the whole point, David J. Littleboy commented that his edges are
already sharp enough, but that the textures can still benefit from
sharpening.

The edges are areas of high contrast, where adjacent pixels have large
differences in brightness. What I'm calling "texture" is areas of fine
detail where adjacent pixels have small differences in brightness, for
example blades of grass or the surfaces of rocks (unfortunately this also
applies to film grain in the sky).

When using USM you can increase the threshold to limit sharpening to the
edges only, thus preventing grain from being sharpened, but this also
prevents fine detail like grass being sharpened. But the reverse is not
normally possible, to sharpen the texture without sharpening the edges,
which as David said, may already be sharp enough.

Actually, there is a solution available in the form of the FocalBlade
plug-in. I quote; "FocalBlade sharpens edges and surfaces in an image
independently" (they use the term "surface" instead of "texture").
http://thepluginsite.com/products/photowiz/focalblade/index.htm

It even has the ability to suppress halos, which might please David. This
is a very powerful plug-in, well worth a look. I'm still undecided myself
since I like Focus Magic so much.

While we're on the subject, take a look at their excellent ColorWasher and
LightMachine filters too (click on the Example links), and no, I don't work
for them.
http://thepluginsite.com/products/photowiz/index.htm

Paul

 

[Paul Saunders]

But then what does it sharpen?

It sharpens the texture parts of the image. Well it would if I could figure
out a practical way of doing it.

Surely it can only sharpen the edges

No, sharpening affects everything, but it's most obvious on the edges.

and it does this by boosting contrast at them. If you mask it it
does not work.

That's the whole point, David J. Littleboy commented that his edges are
already sharp enough, but that the textures can still benefit from
sharpening.

The edges are areas of high contrast, where adjacent pixels have large
differences in brightness. What I'm calling "texture" is areas of fine
detail where adjacent pixels have small differences in brightness, for
example blades of grass or the surfaces of rocks (unfortunately this also
applies to film grain in the sky).

When using USM you can increase the threshold to limit sharpening to the
edges only, thus preventing grain from being sharpened, but this also
prevents fine detail like grass being sharpened. But the reverse is not
normally possible, to sharpen the texture without sharpening the edges,
which as David said, may already be sharp enough.

Actually, there is a solution available in the form of the FocalBlade
plug-in. I quote; "FocalBlade sharpens edges and surfaces in an image
independently" (they use the term "surface" instead of "texture").
http://thepluginsite.com/products/photowiz/focalblade/index.htm

It even has the ability to suppress halos, which might please David. This
is a very powerful plug-in, well worth a look. I'm still undecided myself
since I like Focus Magic so much.

While we're on the subject, take a look at their excellent ColorWasher and
LightMachine filters too (click on the Example links), and no, I don't work
for them.
http://thepluginsite.com/products/photowiz/index.htm

Paul

 

[Simon Meeds]

Bear with me on this...

Generally smooth images may require a little sharpening, and generally
detailed images may require a relatively large amount of sharpening. Images
where there is a mixture of the two styles may require sharpening to the
edges only. To do this, first create a copy of the image. Use "find edges"
and taking the resulting image increase the contrast so that the edges
appear bright and the rest dark, next apply some Gaussian blur and then
apply to resulting image as a mask to the original image. Now apply
sharpening to the image.

If you want to apply sharpening to everything but the edges (though I agree
it is a rather strange thing to want to do) you could apply the inverse of
the mask to the original image.

Simon

 

[Bart van der Wolf]

SNIP

What do you think of using a mild high-pass filter on a layer
copy above, then blending with hard or vivid light?

A high-pass filter can also produces some halo, unless it is an
exactly defined HP-filter. I occasionally produce HP-filters when I've
got an exact analysis of the blur-function, so I can neutralize the
effect by "inverting" the Point Spread Function (=~blur) kernel, with
the exception of the central kernel pixel.

For some images that seems to do a nice job without making
it overly obvious it's been sharpened.

In case of HP-filter layers, I use an overlay (or soft light) blending
mode because it comes closer to a predictable behavior, to me anyway.
But if you can get the desired result by using another blending mode,
then who am I to object ;-).

My goal remains to avoid halo and avoid clipping, because it looks
more natural, and I can do that automatically with the method I linked
to earlier.

Bart

 

[Randy Howard]

Bart van der Wolf wrote

SNIP

A high-pass filter can also produces some halo, unless it is an
exactly defined HP-filter. I occasionally produce HP-filters when I've
got an exact analysis of the blur-function, so I can neutralize the
effect by "inverting" the Point Spread Function (=~blur) kernel, with
the exception of the central kernel pixel.

whoosh. I have no idea what you just said.

In case of HP-filter layers, I use an overlay (or soft light) blending
mode because it comes closer to a predictable behavior, to me anyway.
But if you can get the desired result by using another blending mode,
then who am I to object ;-).

I seem to find the correct mode varies with the image in
question, no hard and fast rule seems to be evident.

My goal remains to avoid halo and avoid clipping, because it looks
more natural, and I can do that automatically with the method I linked
to earlier.

Ok. I'm definitely going to try that out as well.

 

[Bill Carr]

Much of this is irrelevant when scanning 4x4 and larger. The LS-8000 (or
9000), although wonderful, can't handle anything larger than 120.