Detail Slider question

[Zenon]

Hello. I'm new around here. A little history.

I use both LR standalone 6.8 and CS6. I use LR for most of my work and CS6 for my hobby shots. I have read quite a bit about LR's export page and who developed it and it does a great job. Based on the developers my guess there is a lot of magic going on in the background we don't know about.

For my hobby shots I prefer to have a visual of my final product before saving so for that I use CS6. Also I have created a resizing/sharpening action combining the best elements of these. I use the 3 phases of sharpening. The sharpening method for my action is Smart Sharpen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44mV3NsLmXw
Really Smart Sharpening - Photo Tips @ Earthbound Light

I shoot with Canon and do use their propriety developer DPP for other specific purposes. Recently I became interested in DLO (Digital Lens Optimizer) which is a de-convolution adjustment.

I did a lot of searching on how LR handles this. I realize the Detail palette is for capture sharpening. The only thing I could find on another forum was "according to Jeff Schewe, the Detail slider works as sharpening to the left and de-convolution to the right". That is not a direct quote from Jeff. I never really paid much attention to it and left it at the default setting.

Just like Canon's DLO the adjustment is very subtle and I know Detail works in combination with all the sliders in the Detail palette, including the Luminance adjustments. Just as a note I use the Clarity adjustment (+15) as a default which gives it a nice touch as well.

I did a lot of searching but there is not a lot of specific information on the Detail slider so I thought I'd check here.

Thanks in advance for your patience having to read all of the above.

 

[Gnits]

This is a subject not easily dealt with in a discussion forum.

If you want to explore Sharpening in more detail I suggest you read the book by Bruce Fraser and Jeff Schewe, titled "Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop, Camera Raw and Lightroom". Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop, Camera Raw, and Lightroom: Amazon.co.uk: Bruce Fraser, Jeff Schewe: 9780321637550: Books

 

[Zenon]

Thanks. I have heard about that book. It may be time to make an investment.

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Yes, the Schewe quote's correct. A few snippets from my book:

Digital image sharpening works in two ways.
• USM, or unsharp mask, works by creating small halos along edges to make them appear sharper. On the dark side of an edge it creates a darker halo, and on the light side of an edge it makes a lighter halo.
• Deconvolution sharpening attempts to calculate and reverse the cause of the blurring.

Lightroom uses both kinds of sharpening, balanced using the Detail slider.

Detail is very good at controlling sharpening of textures. Low values use the USM sharpening methods, and as you increase the slider, it gradually switches to deconvolution methods. The default of 25 is a good general sharpening setting. A low setting is ideal for large smooth areas, such as portraits or sky. Try a high setting for landscapes or other shots with lots of fine detail, where you want to sharpen details like the leaves on the trees. As you increase Detail, it also starts to amplify the noise in the image, so you may need to reduce the Amount slider and increase the Masking and Luminance noise reduction to compensate.

 

[Zenon]

Great explanation. That is exactly what I found as I have been checking out that last several days. I was working on some trees in the corner of the image. There is a balance to avoid amplifying noise.

Thanks very much.

 

[Tony Jay]

The information that you have about the detail slider is extremely confused.
I accept that what you have written is a possibly mangled interpretation of what Jeff Schewe may have said.

In fact, the detail slider is really two sliders in one, and it is mean't to work in conjunction with luminance noise reduction.
At its default setting of 50 it is actually doing nothing.

If one is familiar with how smart sharpening works in Photoshop then the deconvolution sharpening that is applied as one moves the slider to the right toward 100 is very similar.
Moving the slider to the left (toward 0) invokes a halo suppression algorithm.

In practice, for me anyway, which way I go with the detail slider depends on the noise in the image.
Although I like to use the masking slider to try to limit the sharpening effect from the amount slider to edges prominent noise will be interpreted as an edge and so the visibility of the noise is accentuated.
Obviously reducing the amount of sharpening helps but that may not be what is needed.
In this instance pulling the detail slider to the left allows the halo suppression to kick in.
So, using the amount slider, the detail slider, the masking slider, and the luminance noise reduction slider in a creative fashion allows one to get appropriate capture sharpening while reducing noise visibility without the need for excessive luminance noise reduction that just blurs the image.

If noise visibility is not an issue then I will often push the detail slider well to the right to take advantage of the deconvolution sharpening.
I do a lot of bird photography so being able to accentuate the fine detail in a bird's plumage is really great.

Most, if not all, the sharpening and detail algorithms in Lightroom and this includes the capture sharpening, creative sharpening, and output sharpening that is available in Lightroom were the brainchild of the late Bruce Fraser (the primary author of the book recommended by Gnits) and have been latterly adopted by Adobe.

For a more up-to-date treatment of the subject matter under discussion I would recommend "The Digital Negative" by Jeff Schewe.

Tony Jay

 

[Zenon]

That is why I said that not a direct quote by Jeff Schewe, but someone trying it explain it.

Part 2. Ahhh. I found a quote by person who does a lot of adobe training videos that described halo suppression but threw me off a bit. Now I get it. I am going to have to bookmark this and try some more stuff out. This morning I set my detail default to 50. I guess I'm going to have to revisit that.

Funny you mention the late PS guru Bruce Fraser. I know I don't know a lot but I often say the exact same about his development of output sharpening for LR which I had read about somewhere else. I guess it never occurred to me to tie all 3 together which makes perfect sense. Doh! I often call him the father or the inventor of the 3 phases of sharpening. That was an intersecting journey on it's own.

 

[Zenon]

Forgot to mention I do a lot of birding as well.

 

[Tony Jay]

Forgot to mention I do a lot of birding as well.

Yes, there is nothing like bird photography to sharpen (pun intended!) both one's camera technique and post-processing if one wants good results!

Tony Jay

 

[Zenon]

That was what did it for me. When I got into digital in 2005 I was blown away by some of the sharp images people were posting. I figured if they could it so could I. It was tougher back then with all the different algorithms, etc. Software is constantly improving and like you trying to squeeze every ounce out of sharpening. I know there is other stuff out there but I'm pretty happy with my workflow. LR is great for multiple file editing for event photography, etc.

Just so you know. When I get a new cam or lens I head to the zoo in the summer or to an indoor bird preserve in the winter and I test on birds eyes, beaks, feathers and claws That is where I determine this will work. I do this before getting into BIF and the rest of it.

This is with my new 5D4. 100-400 II and 1.4 III and the crop. I normally use my 7D2 for birding but I'm trying something out

 

[Tony Jay]

That is a great approach you describe - practise does indeed make perfect!
Luckily for me I live in a sub-tropical environment absolutely dripping with bird species that are available to model year-round.
I know several local photographers who have won major awards for bird photography with images where they didn't even have to leave their front porch to shoot.

Based on those posted images you appear to be well on your way as far as shooting technique goes!
I think you will also agree, wholeheartedly, with me that post-processing is just so much easier when one has captured a great image in-camera.

Tony Jay

 

[Zenon]

Lucky you. Had a great time shooting in Costa Rica last January. We are way North and just had our 3 blizzard within a month. It was -48 celsius with the wind chill this morning. We do have very hot summers but a bit to short. There are owls, etc around but they are harder to find. Most birds are south now.

 

[Tony Jay]

Costa Rica!
It definitely does have a reputation as a spectacular birding location.
I can image that you really enjoyed yourself there!

Anyway the weather where I am at the moment is almost as anti-social as you are describing, except it is hot, damn hot, close to 40 degrees Celcius across broader South-east Queensland. Unfortunately, closer to the coast, despite a slightly lower temperature the humidity is even higher, and so the discomfort arguably worse. Hopefully a good sea-breeze will kick in and moderate things a bit.

So, no mad dogs and Englishmen here!
I plan to stay home for the next few days until the weather is a bit more agreeable.

Tony Jay

 

[Zenon]

I just noticed Julieanne Kost mentioned on another forum and that is where I got a little information in this subject.

As a rule of thumb, use the Detail slider to suppress sharpening in landscape images, and use the Masking slider to suppress sharpening in portraits.

The masking slider made sense to me which I use all of the time but the detail explanation threw me off. Thanks again everyone.

 

[Tony Jay]

The logic of Julieanne Kost makes perfect sense to me:

The issue with portraits is to limit sharpening to edges and since portraits are low-frequency edge situations with large areas of relatively homogenous surfaces that one doesn't want to sharpen then this is the way to go. I would also increase the radius setting to > 1.0.

With most landscapes (unless one goes for the minimalist look!) one is in high edge-frequency territory. The haloes generated by sharpening one edge can interfere with the detail of another edge so using halo suppression is helpful. I would also drop the radius setting as low as 0.5-0.6 to limit the extent of the haloes from the edge to be sharpened. This seems to settle down the otherwise over-crunchy look that can occur with sharpening these types of images.
This technique is also exceptionally helpful in balancing sharpening the high-frequency detail in plumage while retaining the smooth look to the plumage that makes really good bird shots so alluring to observe.

Tony Jay

 

[thommy]

Interesting to know how the detail slider works in detail
I'm would also like to know how the local sharpening, like using the brush for example, is working technically.

 

[Tony Jay]

How Adobe managed to create the adjustment brush to apply local adjustments I believe is a proprietary secret.
However, given that it is possible to apply local adjustments the low-down on what it is doing with local sharpening adjustments is as follows:

One is able to selectively adjust the amount of sharpening (just as in the amount slider in the detail panel).
However, all the other slider settings such as radius, detail, and masking apply to the local adjustments just the same as they apply to the image overall.
This is what happens when moving the sharpening slider to the right from 0 to 100.

When going to the left from 0 to -50 one is progressively reversing the global sharpening applied. From -50 to -100 an active blurring algorithm kicks in and becomes more intense the further to the left one goes.

Tony Jay

 

[Zenon]

I changed my detail slider defaults. For lower ISO's where I normally bird my base is 75. As the ISO goes up it set to 25. All the other sliders are tuned for that as well. We'll see how much I have to work it and fine tune later. I like pushing everything to limit with crops and ISO just to see what I get out of the cam.

 

[Zenon]

Interesting to know how the detail slider works in detail
I'm would also like to know how the local sharpening, like using the brush for example, is working technically.

I'm no expert but we really aren't sharpening anything. We are just increasing contrast between neighbouring pixels. I'm not sure if Radius settings applied in the Detail palette transfer to the local sharpening adjustments. If you use the factory setting of 1 you are sharpening one pixel width. A setting of two widens that to 2 pixels and more artifacts/halos will show.

I am confused about Brush A and B. If I'm on A and click somewhere on the image it shows a dot. If I switch to B and repeat no dot?

I found this during a search if it helps.

• Size: The size of the brush
• Feather: The amount of feathering for the brush
• Flow: How much paint is applied to the area for every stroke. For example, if the Flow is set to 20%, 20% paint strength is applied for the first stroke. The subsequent stroke brings up the paint strength to 40%.
• Density: The maximum opacity that the brush paints. If you have this setting at 40%, for example, the brush will not paint opacity greater than 40%.

 

[Zenon]

This is kinda interesting and still trying to wrap my head around it. I bring it up because of the Radius adjustment I mentioned in the previous post. You really need to know what you are looking for. What I found interesting is if you view at 4:1 you can see the changes between the pixels. Radius at 1 has more contrast between light and dark pixels and .5 much less. You press and hold Option (Mac) and move the slider. Just to point out .5 does almost nothing to sharpening.

I'm not sure if Jeff Schewe is pointing out that .7 is the best all around setting for Radius or just for that image. I'm not sure I could do this every time I edit but it is interesting to see what is happening at the microscopic level. Gives you insight on artifact/halo control.

Someone on another site showed me this link a few days ago while I was asking questions about the Detail slider.

Maximizing Image Detail | Advanced Raw Processing Using Lightroom or Camera Raw | Peachpit

 

[Zenon]

Back to A and B. After clicking A I closed the local adjustments palette and then when I opened it again I was able to place the dot with brush B. Not sure if that is the way it supposed to work.

 

[Tony Jay]

This is kinda interesting and still trying to wrap my head around it. I bring it up because of the Radius adjustment I mentioned in the previous post. You really need to know what you are looking for. What I found interesting is if you view at 4:1 you can see the changes between the pixels. Radius at 1 has more contrast between light and dark pixels and .5 much less. You press and hold Option (Mac) and move the slider. Just to point out .5 does almost nothing to sharpening.

I'm not sure if Jeff Schewe is pointing out that .7 is the best all around setting for Radius or just for that image. I'm not sure I could do this every time I edit but it is interesting to see what is happening at the microscopic level. Gives you insight on artifact/halo control.

Someone on another site showed me this link a few days ago while I was asking questions about the Detail slider.

Maximizing Image Detail | Advanced Raw Processing Using Lightroom or Camera Raw | Peachpit

I think that this excerpt from Jeff Schewe's book is absolutely highlighting the fact that there is no one ideal radius setting.
In fact none of the settings are cast in steel.
There are definitely principles at work - some of which I have explained but each image is an individual and will need different treatment.
ISO, overall exposure, edge frequency, noise visibility, and individual aesthetics all play a role in deciding what to do in the detail panel.

Tony Jay

 

[Zenon]

Thanks Tony

 

[Zenon]

Interesting to know how the detail slider works in detail
I'm would also like to know how the local sharpening, like using the brush for example, is working technically.

I posted this earlier

• Size: The size of the brush
• Feather: The amount of feathering for the brush
• Flow: How much paint is applied to the area for every stroke. For example, if the Flow is set to 20%, 20% paint strength is applied for the first stroke. The subsequent stroke brings up the paint strength to 40%.
• Density: The maximum opacity that the brush paints. If you have this setting at 40%, for example, the brush will not paint opacity greater than 40%.

which I found on this site

How to apply local adjustments to photos in Photoshop Lightroom

I watched the video at the beginning. Try this in the basic palette

1. Hold down the shift key (Mac) and double click on whites

2. Do the same for blacks

You just increased the dynamic range by hitting the white and black points without disturbing anything else.

 

[thommy]

Thanks for the feedback, but I know the function of the brush.
I was looking for specific answer about the sharpening in the brush only.