May 2012 - Digital Group - Sharpening and Photo Books

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spb
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Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2008 7:04 pm

May 2012 - Digital Group - Sharpening and Photo Books

Post by spb » Thu May 10, 2012 2:47 pm

We started this last meeting of the 2011-12 season by talking about filters, plug-ins and sharpening.

SHARPENING

Digital images are not fully sharp at capture. There are several reasons for this;
- the sensor captures a mosaic of dots which has gaps and is susceptable to interference patterns. To mitigate these effects the image is slightly softened or 'anti-aliased'
- lenses can never be optically perfect
- camera shake is a fact of life. Even with a sturdy tripod, long exposures and long lenses can pose problems.
Hence all digital images need sharpening except where softness is required for creative effect. Raw files are sharpened by default when opened and JPGs are sharpened in-camera. However you may need to add further sharpening, especially for printing purposes.

Although Unsharp Mask has been the sharpening tool of choice since the early days of Photoshop, there are better options available today such as Smart Sharpen or Adjust Sharpness. In particular I favour the High Pass Filter method described here.

This method has the advantage of not sharpening grain or noise and being retrospectively adjustable by changing the opacity or the blending mode of the High Pass layer. I circulated some A3 test prints made from a 16mpx Raw image and found that the Adobe Camera Raw default sharpening plus the High Pass filter at 3 pixels and using Overlay mode at 100% gave the best results for that image. This cannot be assumed to be a universal formula and everyone needs to make their own tests. Sharpening should be done last, at the output resolution ie at original resolution for prints or 1400 x 1050 for the projector. When sharpening for the printer, the image will often look over-sharpened on-screen at 100% magnification. Print it before you judge.

The High Pass filter needs to be applied to a copy of the image and if that image is made up from many layers, you can create a single composite layer at the top of the stack. This is called a Stamp Visible layer and can be achieved with Alt+Ctrl+Merge Visible. Note that some versions of Photoshop will need a new blank layer to be created first. This is a really useful function in many situations and Adobe should implement a button to achieve it.

Many images only require small key areas to be sharpened so a layer mask can be employed on the High Pass layer to hide those parts that do not require sharpening. In most images soft subjects like clouds should not be sharpened, nor should large areas of grain or noise unless for creative effect.

NEWS

If you have Photoshop CS5 or Elements 10, Adobe Camera Raw 6.7 has been released. This will be the last update for CS5 users who will be required to update to CS6 if they buy a new camera model tomorrow and wish to use Raw. Thank you Adobe.

Bucks Open Studios runs from 9-24 June and several APS members will be participating; Pirjo Keene, Bob and Ann Marshall and Roger Longdin.

My Epson R2400 printer has started to display 'Service Required - parts inside your printer are near the end of their service life'. Apparently this refers to the waste ink pad which is getting full. The options appear to be;
- buy a new printer (the recommended Epson solution!)
- take it to a service agent (two local agents declined to quote but Computer Cavern in Little Marlow quoted £30 - a bargain if true)
- fit an external waste ink tank, available online for about £15.
I'll let you know how I get on.

PHOTO BOOKS

There are numerous companies offering online printing service including calendars, postcards, mugs, mouse mats and other items. In particular Photo Books have caught the imagination of our members and we had perhaps 20 on display last night. Many thanks to the members who brought them along and shared their experiences, in particular Patrick Hudgell and Peter Spring.

A handful of companies seem to be popular. Here is a summary of our members' experiences and the result of a trawl of online reviews;

Blurb - Highly rated and utilised by our members, this service gives excellent creative control over page layout and a professional result. Blurb is integrated with Lightroom 4 and there are plugins for earlier versions. The books are printed overseas and this has resulted in shipping delays in the past although members reported an improvement recently to about a week. Software is provided but it is also possible to use your own software such as InDesign and send a PDF. Pricing is by bands of pages (eg 21-40 or 41-60 pages) so it is possible to get better value by choosing the top of a band. They offer 8x10 inches rather than A4 size which can look a little 'mean'. The large landscape books can be very expensive and there are reports of some unsaturated colours.

Bonusprint - Also popular amongst the members and well reviewed. This is the same company as Albelli.
The finished books are of good quality.

Photobox - Widely used but considered to be at the 'popular' end of the market with less flexible layouts but some very competitive pricing offers. One member reported that black and white images were disappointing although turning off the Auto Adjust option hidden in the user profile made some improvement. Another member reported that the software was idiot proof.

Bob Books and Jessops both use the same source: CEWE Photobooks Although none of our members had used them, the books are very highly rated for design flexibility and quality.

At the top end of the market Loxley Colour and GrafiStudio produce top quality books at a premium price and are recommended by members for a special occasion. YoPhoto also came out very well in reviews with top quality binding and a UK based operation. My Publisher is well reviewed but has expensive P&P.

Summarising the experience that our members shared, the choice of paper seems to be important, with better results from premium paper choices. The durability of the book and the ability to lay flat is also dependent upon the choice of binding method. A stitched binding gives a quality finish but does create a significant gutter at the join. Perfect Binding (ie a glued edge) is durable and inexpensive and opens more fully. Pricing improves with quantity but a test book is recommended to ensure that the print quality will be acceptable. There are periodic special offers which give excellent savings if you are prepared to wait and jump quickly. Registering with a supplier can improve these offers and Blurb also offer training courses for registered users.

Patrick reported that discount code 'VOWS2012' will produce a special offer on Blurb at the moment and Photobox are currently offering a free 30 page square book during May 2012.

We should not expect the quality to equate to that of our inkjet prints as these books are likely to be printed using laser technology. There are kits on the market to bind homemade double-sided inkjet prints and Peter reported that this gave the best image quality of any of his books. He used the Permajet Photobook system but it was expensive.

Finally Jane Edmonds reported excellent postcards printed by Moo where the images can be varied within the print run.

If you have subsequent good or bad experience of online printing services, please feel free to add them to this forum, below.

NEXT MEETING

The next meeting will be on October 4th 2012.

Have a great Olympic Jubilee summer and don't hesitate to contact me with any digital photography questions.

Cheers, Steve.

PatrickHudgell

Re: May 2012 - Digital Group - Sharpening and Photo Books

Post by PatrickHudgell » Thu May 10, 2012 4:18 pm

Thanks for a very useful evening Steve. Doing some further research today, I have found another type of book that might be useful for some applications. It comes with double-sided paper for you to print your own pages and a leather binder to hold the pages when complete, a bit like the system that Peter used. They are not cheap but look rather smart. I have only seen this on line but it might be worth further investigation. Silverprint stock these here:-

http://www.silverprint.co.uk/ProductByG ... PrGrp=3036

Regards
Patrick

Anthony Evans

Re: May 2012 - Digital Group - Sharpening and Photo Books

Post by Anthony Evans » Sat May 12, 2012 10:14 am

Steve, thanks for the info regarding the high pass filter for sharpening. Seems to me like a sharpening tool that is 2nd to none!

PatrickHudgell

Re: May 2012 - Digital Group - Sharpening and Photo Books

Post by PatrickHudgell » Tue May 15, 2012 8:34 am

In case anyone is interested, I read today that Bonusprint is operated by Dutch specialist photo book manufacturer Albumprinter BV who in turn have now been acquired by Vistaprint. The Blurb books that I have ordered have always been sent from The Netherlands so maybe they are made there too??
Regards
Patrick

spb
Posts: 146
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2008 7:04 pm

Re: May 2012 - Digital Group - Sharpening and Photo Books

Post by spb » Fri May 18, 2012 9:53 am

I took my Epson R2400 printer into Computer Cavern in Little Marlow. They fixed the ink pads, reset the warning and tested everything in a couple of days for a bargain £30. Highly recommended. The shop also does computer repairs and sells ink at competitive prices.

Two other local Epson service agents declined to quote for my 6 year old printer!

Cheers, Steve.

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