Post Processing your DSLR for more "Pop"

[benjikan]

If at all interested in making your images "Pop" more like 4x5 or 6x7 film, you may wish to look at one of my suggested work flow methods:

http://pentaxlife.com/benjamin-kanar...cessing-method

[photophorous]

If at all interested in making your images "Pop" more like 4x5 or 6x7 film, you may wish to look at one of my suggested work flow methods:

http://pentaxlife.com/benjamin-kanar...cessing-method

Hi Ben,

Thanks for the link. That's an interesting technique. I'll have to try it sometime soon. I just have one question. Is this a technique you apply to any style of photo, or is it best suited for fashion and portrait photography? I find that different amounts of sharpening are required, depending on the amount/type of detail that is present in the photo. But sharpening is one of those gray areas where I'm never really sure if I'm doing it the best way.

Thanks,
Paul

[Canuck935]

interesting technique indeed. I've always tweaked with levels and curves for the "pop." I'm curious as to where in the workflow this technique would be recommended. In lieu of levels/curves? After everything else?

Thanks.

[another view]

Interesting technique, I'll have to try it but I'm interested in the answers to the questions too. I usually shoot in RAW so I guess I'd probably start with the curves/levels while the image is still in 16 bit, then convert to jpeg and start this process.

[drg]

If at all interested in making your images "Pop" more like 4x5 or 6x7 film, you may wish to look at one of my suggested work flow methods:

http://pentaxlife.com/benjamin-kanar...cessing-method

Thanks for the link. I am interested in your reversing of the sequence of the de-hazing method (larger Radius than Amount) and the sharpening. I've used the de-haze technique for sometime now prior to sharpening the photo. It certainly can do wonders for landscapes that are very large files. It works well if done before the very aggressive sharpening you suggest.

I do continue to question as I did in a previous post on Sharpening
The Sharpening Thread!
the efficacy of using a Threshold of 0 in Adobe Photoshop (any version). This has the side effect of also sharpening noise (which the second step in your process would help to eliminate if done first) and will accentuate any color noise without it being taken care of first.

As a 'last step' prior to presentation this is not a bad final 'pop' producer but it does not (and I played with half a dozen samples from some VERY large files) work on some types of imagery. Smaller pictures of people (under 1000 pixels long side) are fine, but larger than that and skin imperfections can be grossly exaggerated. Thus the use of turning up the threshold to at least 1 or 2.

If starting with a RAW or DNG file, why convert to a JPEG? That means that all one is doing is introducing additional artifacts and lower quality to the image that is 'then' to be improved. Using a lossless form other than the previous two, like a .PSD or .TIF should only improve the result.

I do not generally dislike the 'effect' but I don't see that it replicates a medium format image unless there is something about the starting file that has been left out.

[Medley]

Interesting method. I normally do my sharpening in Lab mode, if only to avoid the color shift associated with RGB, but I'll give this a try the next time I want to accentuate the blacks.

-Joe U.