Sharpening for Sports Photos

Big Red

I don't know if this question will makes sense or not but here goes. For those taking actions shots of sports, how much sharpening do you typically add in LR3 when editing? I know all photos are different but do you find yourself typically adding none, a small amount like 5-15 or much higher? What if the ISO shot with is low like 200-300? If you use a lot of sharpening, which noise reduction sliders do you use most?

I shoot a 7d, typically with a Canon 70-200 2.8. The photos I typically edit are photos to to be placed on Smug Mug for parents to view and hopefully buy.

Thanks in advance

b08rsa

I typically do not sharpen any of my photo's in editing software. I use Photoshop 7.0 most of the times. If you are shooting ISO 200 or 300 , what type shutter speed you getting? I love shooting youth soccer, and I use a Sony A33 with a Tamron 75-300mm lens. I love shooting around ISO 800 with f.10 ap. on sunny days. This gets me in the neighborhood of a 1250 to 1600 shutter speed. I try to freeze the action. I also use a bigma f-2.8 70-200mm on my Oly, but it is to the point where it is hard to cover a U12 soccer field. Also, what I noticed on some of your youth soccer shots, you have kid's running, but what are they runng for? I try to include the soccer ball with the kid's in action. Just a suggestion. Love the shots though.

Big Red

Sports Photo Sharpening
Thanks for your commnets B08rsa,
My latest shots in which I tried higher sharpening are my Water polo 2011 shots. I have always been hesitant to use much sharpening but I raised it quite high on those. I continually try to learn more about LR3 and try to see what others have learned through trial and error.

I agree with the comments on having the ball in the photo for soccer and other sports. I will check on my latest photos and see if I have improved that or not (they are not uploaded yet).

My favorite sport to shoot is baseball but I shoot whatever my kids are playing.

Jeff

adbsgicom

Jeff, you do set the mask on when you sharpen, right? Generally my mask is up to the 60's somewhere to just get the main edges. The amount of sharpening is based on the ISO for the most part, anywhere from nothing to 40's.

rolette

b08rsa wrote: »

I typically do not sharpen any of my photo's in editing software.

If you are shooting RAW, you need to sharpen the photos during post-processing. YMMV if you are shooting JPG, but very likely that best results require sharpening in post-processing there as well.

Jay

mercphoto

rolette wrote: »

If you are shooting RAW, you need to sharpen the photos during post-processing. YMMV if you are shooting JPG, but very likely that best results require sharpening in post-processing there as well.

Jay

Agreed on that. If you shoot RAW you must sharpen. If you shoot JPG its done in-camera, but you can still choose how much (to some degree). I personally don't sharpen my car racing shots too much, and I do apply a "standard" sharpening to all photos (as opposed to sharpening each separately). If I got tons of money per pic then I'd be more picky in my processing.

I also wanted to comment on shooting ISO 800 at f/10 on a sunny day. Drop the ISO to 100 or 200. Open the aperture to f/4 or faster. Get some background blur and separation. No need to see those cars crisply focused in the background.

JSPhotography

Cars, I'm gonna tackle that guy and take his Cheeze Its, .

JTL994

Question. I just finished a season of girls water polo and have no less then 2000 images that I posted on my Smugmug account. I get a ton of hits and I assume they are being downloaded as this was my intention for the parents who don't take photos. What are you planning on charging and what has been the feed back when you offered? I was so terrified to even post the pics I sent out a disclaimer to exclude anyone who didn't want to be involved.

JBHotShots

JTL994 wrote: »

Question. I just finished a season of girls water polo and have no less then 2000 images that I posted on my Smugmug account. I get a ton of hits and I assume they are being downloaded as this was my intention for the parents who don't take photos. What are you planning on charging and what has been the feed back when you offered? I was so terrified to even post the pics I sent out a disclaimer to exclude anyone who didn't want to be involved.

If you are giving them away now you can pretty much forget about making any sales to the same target audience.

jhefti

I believe whole books have been written about sharpening, so it's a big and rather difficult topic. I just have a couple of suggestions that have worked for me.

1. Denoise before you sharpen: should go without saying, but I often see really nicely sharpened noise, especially in indoor games!

2. Don't over-sharpen, and don't try to use USM or other sharpening features to salvage an OOF shot.

3. Try a moderate amount of sharpening, then play with the mask until you get the main edges clear but no graininess in the bokeh. Season to taste.

4. Look for halos near high contrast edges; a sure sign of an over-sharpened image.

5. Lastly, if you have the time and patience, try any of the layering techniques for sharpening--e.g., blended duplicate layers using a high pass filter. You'll need to go into PS to do this and it takes time, but the results can be worth it.

Just my $0.02's worth...

john

travischance

b08rsa wrote: »

I typically do not sharpen any of my photo's in editing software. I use Photoshop 7.0 most of the times. If you are shooting ISO 200 or 300 , what type shutter speed you getting? I love shooting youth soccer, and I use a Sony A33 with a Tamron 75-300mm lens. I love shooting around ISO 800 with f.10 ap. on sunny days. This gets me in the neighborhood of a 1250 to 1600 shutter speed. I try to freeze the action. I also use a bigma f-2.8 70-200mm on my Oly, but it is to the point where it is hard to cover a U12 soccer field. Also, what I noticed on some of your youth soccer shots, you have kid's running, but what are they runng for? I try to include the soccer ball with the kid's in action. Just a suggestion. Love the shots though.

Why would you shoot a sporting event at f10 & not 2.8 or 4? On a bright day, this would yield 1/4000 to 1/8000 at ISO 100 or 200 & more importantly, allow you to drop the background OOF. The cars in the image above would have fallen OOF enough to not be recognizable...

Icebear

jhefti wrote: »

1. Denoise before you sharpen: should go without saying, but I often see really nicely sharpened noise, especially in indoor games!

5. Lastly, if you have the time and patience, try any of the layering techniques for sharpening--e.g., blended duplicate layers using a high pass filter. You'll need to go into PS to do this and it takes time, but the results can be worth it.

john

I think the OP was looking for Lightroom specific advice. Don't worry about whether you "denoise" or sharpen first. Lightroom is very wise. It will do it in the right order, no matter how you try to mess up.

Open up your aperture and bokeh out the backgrounds then sharpen however you want.

jhefti

Icebear wrote: »

I think the OP was looking for Lightroom specific advice. Don't worry about whether you "denoise" or sharpen first. Lightroom is very wise. It will do it in the right order, no matter how you try to mess up.

Open up your aperture and bokeh out the backgrounds then sharpen however you want.

Good point on the first (I think I got distracted by the second post with the high DOF shot and forgot that the OP asked abut LR3). And strongly agree with the second point. Hell, I can see the license plate on the car better than I can see the Argentina shield and the girl's jersey!

CelJak

Big Red wrote: »

I don't know if this question will makes sense or not but here goes. For those taking actions shots of sports, how much sharpening do you typically add in LR3 when editing? I know all photos are different but do you find yourself typically adding none, a small amount like 5-15 or much higher? What if the ISO shot with is low like 200-300? If you use a lot of sharpening, which noise reduction sliders do you use most?

I shoot a 7d, typically with a Canon 70-200 2.8. The photos I typically edit are photos to to be placed on Smug Mug for parents to view and hopefully buy.

Thanks in advance

I always sharpen "high" when I edit my sports photos.... I do the same thing your doing....and parents do buy!! They love my shots!

jhefti

CelJak wrote: »

I always sharpen "high" when I edit my sports photos.... I do the same thing your doing....and parents do buy!! They love my shots!

Ya know, I find that non-photographers tend to prefer these over-sharpened and over-saturated images over well-edited shots. This is partly the reason I'm glad I am not in the business of selling photos to parents and friends. Still, you gotta sell them what they want...

Moving Pictures

b08rsa wrote: »

I love shooting around ISO 800 with f.10 ap. on sunny days. This gets me in the neighborhood of a 1250 to 1600 shutter speed.

This may be a personal thing ... but I figure it's always best to mirror what the eye sees. And the eye does not "see" that much DOF. You're far better off shooting f4 or thereabouts, and really pushing the shutter speed.

I'm not at work, so the best I could find was a downsized thing on the web, but hopefully this gives a bit of a sense of what I mean. Grab an SI, and see how many pictures are captured with a very small DOF.