Sharpening for VERY large prints with 5DmkII

jtangen · August 21, 2009

(I originally posted this in Grad School not knowing it should go here.)

As with most of us who have prints for sale off their Smug sites, I would prefer people to buy huge expensive prints:D So I sharpen for the large prints. My main camera has been the Oly E3 and has been great with large prints. I have several 30x40 gallery wrap canvas prints from it and am completely happy. I just recently bought the Canon 5DII but have not seen a large print until the following happend.

A workmate ordered two large prints from my website and they were delivered to our office today. They were a 16x20 shot with my 10mp Oly E3 and an 18x24 shot with my new 5DII. She was thrilled with them (which was good) but I noticed that the photo shot with my Oly was much crisper and had an overall better appeal sharpness-wise, (basically it was really good) whereas the 5DII shot was on the soft side. When I did my final sharpening on the full size print, I visually sharpened as much as I thought was safe and was typically close to what I got with my Oly shots (visually, on-screen), but it looks like the increased resolution of the 5DII will require more aggressive sharpening.

I read an article within the last year in a reputable mag that said to do your sharpening at 25% zoom. They said that if you get things visually sharp at 25% it will look horrible at 100% but that’s OK because prints are always visually softer than what you see on-screen. I don’t print at home so don’t have an easy way to test this out. I guess I’ll have to bump up the sharpening from the 5DII to where it is a little more than horrible at 100% and order a couple test prints.

Anyone have thoughts or experience with this? Have you gone from a 10-12mp camera to 21mp and had to change your sharpening tricks? I really want the prints to be crisp. Thanks for any input

arodney · August 21, 2009

jtangen wrote:

(I originally posted this in Grad School not knowing it should go here.)

I read an article within the last year in a reputable mag that said to do your sharpening at 25% zoom. They said that if you get things visually sharp at 25% it will look horrible at 100% but that’s OK because prints are always visually softer than what you see on-screen. I don’t print at home so don’t have an easy way to test this out. I guess I’ll have to bump up the sharpening from the 5DII to where it is a little more than horrible at 100% and order a couple test prints.

Anyone have thoughts or experience with this? Have you gone from a 10-12mp camera to 21mp and had to change your sharpening tricks? I really want the prints to be crisp. Thanks for any input

Yes, that's a good tip considering the output resolution of most displays.

As for where to start, here's a good basic: http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/20357.html

Andy · August 21, 2009

Link us to the 5D Mark II shot.

jtangen · August 21, 2009

Here it is.

http://www.jefftangenphoto.com/gallery/3641873_6qiyG#615455605_pqMvF

Andy wrote:

Link us to the 5D Mark II shot.

jtangen · August 23, 2009

So, I guess no one is selling or making big prints to either have this problem or have a successful workflow for the issue....................

angevin1 · August 23, 2009

jtangen wrote:

So, I guess no one is selling or making big prints to either have this problem or have a successful workflow for the issue....................

It might help a bit if we can access the Original size~

jtangen · August 23, 2009

Ok, you should be able to pull up the full size now. Its the "8th Wonder" shot.

http://www.jefftangenphoto.com/Lake-County-California/Clear-Lake/3641873_6qiyG#615455605_pqMvF

angevin1 wrote:

It might help a bit if we can access the Original size~

pathfinder · August 23, 2009

If this is the file? - http://www.jefftangenphoto.com/gallery/3641873_6qiyG#615455605_pqMvF-A-LB

I wish I could see it in a more appropriate size to evaluate its sharpness. I know many files of foliage of mine, with lots of very fine detail, cannnot be appreciated at web display sizes, but only in print, so take comments about your image sharpness with that disclaimer in mind.

When I examine your image at X2L it does not look critically sharp, compared to other images I see at that size. The points of the sun are soft as well as the foliage detail that I can make out.

Here is one of mine of foliage that I know is crisp, but as a web image never really shines, and for it to work, detail is critical ( my image I mean) Web display can make it look over sharpened here on line, but as a large print it is not over sharpened, just sharp.

Are you sharpening the RAW file in your RAW converter?

There are three discrete steps I use in sharpening.

Capture sharpening of the RAW fie in Adobe RAW converter to regain the sharpness loss in digitizing the original analog data on the sensor. I sharpen more than some folks at this step, but you must not overdo it or you can damage your file before it ever gets to Photoshop. I use an Amount of around 70 - 85 frequently, with a Radius of 1.0, a Detail of28-32, and raise the Masking high enough that sky is black frequently with values around 45-70. This gives me nice and crisp jpgs to start with, if my files were focused critically in the camera. ( Marc Muench sharpens with lesser Amounts when I watch him to this. ) I also correct for Chromatic Aberration in the Raw Converter, and even my best lenses may display it from time to time. I try to shoot at my lenses sharpest apertures, typically 2-3 stops less than maximum, and almost always between 5.6 and f11. Some long L glass can be shot wide open, but I usually stop down at least 1 stop as a routine if I can.

Creative sharpening of local areas in the image as dictated by my creative desires, what I want sharp and not so sharp, along with a touch of local contrast enhancement with Unsharp Mask and large radius. For local contrast enhancement I use USM Amount around 20, Radius 50, and Threshold 0-2, on a 2nd layer that I blend in Luminosity Mode.

Final output sharpening I leave to the Print Module in Lightroom2 - while this can help a print, most of my real sharpening is done in the RAW converter. If the image does not look sharp coming out of the RAW converter, I haven't done my job with the camera capturing the image. I do not find sharpening in Photoshop makes less than tack sharp images really sharp, just artifacted. I do own and use Sharpener Pro 3.0 fro Nik software from time to time if needed.

The beauty of printing on canvas is that much of the fine detail goes by the board, and you are left with larger contrast edges to deal with more than sharpness, I believe. Mavbe Andy will comment on this.

Getting sharp 30 x 40 in prints from a 10Mpix camera is quite impressive. Approximately 3162 pixels on a side ( square root of 10 is 3.162 ) 3162 pixels / 30 inches = 105 pixels per inch, which is a very low ppi ratio for a large print. On canvas this might work, but many prefer 200 ppi for a large print, and some criical folks recommend 300 ppi for prints on matte paper. 3162 pixels /40 inches = 79 ppi and this is getting very low. Did you uprez your Oly files with Genuine Fractals or some other Blow Up program?

My 5DMkII has image dimensions of 3744 by 5616, and even for it 5616 pixels/ 40 inches = 140 pixels per inch. Thus for the best images from files this small, uprezzing with GF or some other program can be helpful for the best image quality.

For prints of the magnitude you are talking about, I tend to shot panos of 3 - 8 or more frames, giving me significantly more pixels to work with if I have the opportunity.

The frame I displayed above is a single frame from a 1Ds MkII at 4907 by 2760 pixels

Has this post been of help to you?

You have some lovely images with nice compositions in your gallery.

pathfinder · August 23, 2009

I just posted before seeing the full sized file link you offered sorry!! That was very helpful.

I think it looks adequate, but suspect that it has not been sharpened properly in post processing.

Try the values I suggested in your RAW converter - ADOBE Camera Raw or Lightroom 2 - and see if that does not help a bit.

Perhaps Olympus sharpens its files within the camera more than Canon does its RAW files. The RAW Files from Canon's full frame cameras do look soft without proper processing on their way to jpgs.

I commented about Chromatic aberration correction here

I frequently run my skies through NoiseWare before contrast enhancement, even if shot at low ISOs. I prefer skies without any grain if achievable.

Shooting a rising sun with a cloud level just a clock hour above the horizon is always a gorgeous opportunity isn't it?

I might point out that the Sharpening workflow I described using here, is very similar to that discussed by Bruce Fraser in the link Andrew Rodney posted up above in his post. Bruce Fraser was the guiding light in how sharpening should be done, and still is!

jtangen · August 23, 2009

pathfinder wrote:

I just posted before seeing the full sized file link you offered sorry!! That was very helpful.

I think it looks adequate, but suspect that it has not been sharpened properly in post processing.

Try the values I suggested in your RAW converter - ADOBE Camera Raw or Lightroom 2 - and see if that does not help a bit.

Perhaps Olympus sharpens its files within the camera more than Canon does its RAW files. The RAW Files from Canon's full frame cameras do look soft without proper processing on their way to jpgs.

I commented about Chromatic aberration correction here

I frequently run my skies through NoiseWare before contrast enhancement, even if shot at low ISOs. I prefer skies without any grain if achievable.

Shooting a rising sun with a cloud level just a clock hour above the horizon is always a gorgeous opportunity isn't it?

I might point out that the Sharpening workflow I described using here, is very similar to that discussed by Bruce Fraser in the link Andrew Rodney posted up above in his post. Bruce Fraser was the guiding light in how sharpening should be done, and still is!

Thank you for your time on this.

I always shoot Raw and when I'm shooting with my E3 I have in camera sharpening and NR turned off. I process the Raw files in Olympus Master as I found that with Oly's system, the camera settings have NR at Off, Normal & High. When it is set to Off, Olympus Master recognized that in the Raw files and leaves it alone. If I process that same Raw file in ACR, ACR adds some sort of default NR to it so it's softened right from the start. I also uprez the Oly file to 5120px on the long side for my Alamy submissions and I find it's a good setting for keeping "jaggies" under control. I don't do any sharpening in my master PSD file. I save out a flattened file for final Smug uploading and apply a varied setting of SmartSharpen.

Since I got the 5DmkII, I don't uprez as I feel that is unnecessary now giving the 21mp. I still have CS3 so I use Canon's DPP to process raw. When I processed my first few photos with DPP I did not notice that it was defaulting a +3 sharpening to the file. I did not like what it was doing to the pixels so I now set that to 0 and again do all my sharpening at last stage.

The native 5616px of the 5DII file is not that much different than my uprezzed Oly file of 5120px so I thought I could pretty much treat them the same as respects final sharpening but it looks like there is some combo of strong AA filter and default in-camera NR happening to the 5DII file so it's not as crisp as the Oly file, not to mention the Oly Zuiko lenses are super sharp which adds to the factor.

I'll try your suggestions and it looks like I should upgrade to CS4. Thanks also for the comment on my gallery.

btw..... I saw your Toroweap gallery, very informative to see more varied shots of that area as I'm heading out there 2nd week in Sept.

Jeff

pathfinder · August 23, 2009

You're quite welcome.

The second week of September in Toroweap will be a bit more temperate for you hopefully. It was a great experience, and the time was chosen in hopes of getting great storm cloud type of skies. We did not get strom clouds at Toroweap, but I did a few days later in Wupatki and New Mexico.

Apparently, I under estimated the pixels with your Oly. I just took the square root of 10 Mp as a round guess.

pathfinder · August 23, 2009

You don't need CS4 if you have Lightroom 2 of course, the RAW converter engine and controls are essentially the same in both programs, and will process your 5DMkII files with ease.

I don't uprez the files from the 5DMkII either, unless I know I plan to make a print greater than 20 x 30 say. Truth is that I find shooting the 5DMkII in sRAW quite handy much of the time. Smaller files, easier to manage, takes up less space. Some folks think the noise is even lower than a standard 5DMKII file. I got that tip from kdog, here on dgrin

If I already owned CS3, and did not own LR2, I think I would purchase LR2 instead of CS4 if I could only have one new program. I like the new features in CS4, but there is a lot I still prefer in CS3, except that its RAW converter won't process 50D, 5DMkII, etc etc

Scott_Quier · September 1, 2009

This thread has been sooo helpful. I really appreciate the insight into how you sharpen photos in LR2.

As to your last comment about CS3 and the 50D - ACR 4.6 will open the 50D CR2 files (and ACR 4.6 is compatible with CS3) but not, as you say, the 5DII files.

pathfinder · September 1, 2009

Scott_Quier wrote:

This thread has been sooo helpful. I really appreciate the insight into how you sharpen photos in LR2.

As to your last comment about CS3 and the 50D - ACR 4.6 will open the 50D CR2 files (and ACR 4.6 is compatible with CS3) but not, as you say, the 5DII files.

Thanks for that correction Scott. I think I had abandoned CS3 before ACR 4.6 was out, and was using LR2 to process my 50D files. As you say, Adobe reserved 5DMkII files to CSR ACR 5+

arodney · September 4, 2009

pathfinder wrote:

You don't need CS4 if you have Lightroom 2 of course, the RAW converter engine and controls are essentially the same in both programs, and will process your 5DMkII files with ease.

AND use Bruce Fraser's capture and output sharpening, while doing the later in the print module, automatically based on the output size, by simply defining metadata (not burning the data into pixels). It makes handling documents for print in Photoshop seem positively prehistoric.

pathfinder · September 4, 2009

Sharpening for VERY large prints with 5DmkII

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