Soft images a55 sony

[Tyson L. Sparks]

I was told my images were soft by one of the forum members. I shot this in RAW mode and edited in CS6. Do you think it is soft and I might have to shoot in RAW mode to get the best imaages out of my camera from now on?

[Photo-John]

This actually looks very sharp to me - maybe even oversharpened. Can you give me a link to the post where someone said your photos didn't look sharp? Also, note that I moved this post to the DSLRs forum. The Photo Critique Forum is more about content and this is more of a technique or gear question.

[Tyson L. Sparks]

Three portraits

[Tyson L. Sparks]

The comment said "I've noticed that your recent uploads have all looked quite soft" I shoot JPEG for ease. I guess the Nikon D7000 and the a55 share the same sensor and there has been much discussion about them being "soft" out of camera. I am no wiz at Raw conversions. I need to shoot RAW more often.

[Photo-John]

Oh yeah. I looked at those and although thought they looked a bit sharp. My first assumption was that they suffered from a bit of motion blur, though. What were your exposure settings and what lens did you use? Was it the same lens you used for the cat photo?

[Tyson L. Sparks]

I used a 50mm Minolta for the cat and a 1650 sam for the girl shots.

[Anbesol]

Definitely always shoot raw. Sharpening through raw is many times more effective, as are numerous other means of processing. Also when you resize for the forum, use the bicubic sharper algorithm. The appearance of softness in this case is I think exacerbated by the lo-key textures and a standard bicubic resizing, not an issue with the jpeg or camera/lens or exposure data or anything.