Good, Bad, Ugly ?

[gotrocks]

Merry Christmas, that's GOOD.

What do you say about these two shots?

[jetrim]

Lovely, aside from being 10x oversharpened

[gotrocks]

Jim, thank you for your valued appraisal.
I usually let PS Elements do the sharpening.
How do you tell I've got 10% over?
The window for Unsharp Mask shows Amount, Radius and Threshold.
If you have time a little direction on which setting are over will be appreciated. Merry Christmas, again AND Happy New Year with your new studio. Norris

[jetrim]

Your radius is fine (if it wasn't, you'd see halos around the bird and branches). If your threshold is below 2.0 that may be the culprit but I think the Amount is just set miles too high. I rarely go above 60 on the amount because it degrades the image so badly. Your branches and leaves look OK but most of the feather detail in the cardinal has been wiped away. A lot of times what I do with birds is to use an adjustment brush to sharpen only the eyes and beak.