NX - A selective Sharpening Tutorial

[Kevin_d50]

Hi guys.
Had a go with NX and USM, and enjoy the flexibility it affords by painting away oversharpened areas.

Herewith a mini tut, hope it can help someone here;
First, the original, your everyday prancing zebra shot ... you know, the one which everyone has lying around on their hdd?

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At any point when you are ready to sharpen, the steps I follow are;
1. EDIT LIST
1.1 Click NEW STEP (bott right)
1.2 Click SELECT ADJUSTMENT
1.3 Select FOCUS
1.4 Select UNSHARP MASK

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This opens the UNSHARP MASK dialog with it's parameters.
I have applied 100 / 2 / 5 to start with.

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Here (while the USM tool is active) I have zoomed in by pressing (Z) and dragging a zoom box around the hind quarter to demonstrate the USM in progress.

Have a look at the grass to the left of the (everyone has one lying one their hdd zebra pic) and notice the effect of the USM.
Check the stripes on the hind leg too.
Very obvious USM applied.


FURTHER, the USM is applied to the ENTIRE pic, not just a selection. Makes sense so far ...

>>> However! I only want to apply USM to the prancing zebra and the areas which make photographic sense, ie, very close to him (or is it her?) hmmm... <<<

We all know sharpening trees / branches etc really show the effects of USM, so we want to stay away from sharpening there. (Well, I think so at least eh?)
The magic of the NX "mask" / selection process kicks in now.


Still with the USM tool active, press (B) which gives you the Brush tool (sorry, screenshot did not want to include the brush shape here) but its just a circle cursor, with a + or - to indicate, well, + or - USM to apply.

Paint away any unsavoury looking USM applied by left clicking and dragging over areas of the image you want to be left alone (IOW, no USM applied to those areas)
NOTE!


If you feel you have removed USM where you wanted to have it in the first place, simply swap your brush by pressing the inverse key (+ or -) depending on which one you have active then, and paint the USM back onto your pic. Neat!

TIP: At any point you can click the (Z) tool to zoom out and see your results. Click (Z), right click and select 100% zoom.

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In the above, I have REMOVED USM by painting over the image (all this, without a mask or selection tool, besides a loose brush, applied anywhere)

Notice, to the left of the hind leg, under the belly, is where I have removed USM. The grass and background and other areas are all still with WIP USM applied.
Here, I am revealing the "mask" that NX has created by using the B tool

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Notice how undefined the edges are, how loosely the mask can be applied by painting away / back the tool in use ?

The bright red between the legs is because of reducing the brush size (while B is active, press + or -) to change size.

Further, still with B active, you can right click, and the Brush dialog opens, giving you the ability to change the opacity, hardness, size of the brush on the fly.

When done adding / removing selective USM, click OK on the USM dialog box, and you're done.

Lastly (and only for reasons known only to myself, LOL) I have applied the gaussian blur step (hey, I need to play too eh?) , which once more, applies to the WHOLE image by default.

I then repeat steps above for removing blur from the zebra only (B minus) and painting, very loosely, adjusting B size and opacity for effect.
That's it.
USM and Blur applied, using the loose brush selection.


There are other methods to achieving this too, eg. selecting ONLY the zebra, and working on that, this doesn't cover those options.
Hope someone can use this, and it's straightforward enough in it's presentation.
Hope the pics are presentable, if not, just resize them till they look good

Should there be any Q. comments etc, shout please.
Rgds

 

[Allan]

You probably have noticed, duh, but the images are missing. :smile:

 

[Kevin_d50]

You probably have noticed, duh, but the images are missing. :smile:

thanks joseph, pics are loading fine by me?
you getting error msgs, access denied etc?

 

[Retief]

thanks joseph, pics are loading fine by me?
you getting error msgs, access denied etc?

I am getting a message that reads:


This image or video
has been
moved or deleted

PhotoBucket

If I right-click, I do not get a "Show Picture" active, and I get the same error if I try to grab the URL from Properties and paste to a new browser window. Some sites, such as the software I use, require you to use a special "click-through" URL for linking to other sites. You might want to check this with PhotoBucket, I am not familiar enough with them to know the particulars.

And, do it QUICK, eh, we want to see the danged tutorial. It is BORING without the pictures :wink: :wink: :biggrin: :biggrin:

 

[Kevin_d50]

updated links, working now?

 

[Retief]

You got it! You should send a PM to the other poster as well.

What I really like is that the selections do a mask and selection at the same time, pretty neat, and the mask will remain with the step if you edit again at another time.

Pretty slick stuff, I think.

Thanks,

 

[docsol]

I cant see your final image, just a red area with a white zebra form.

 

[Retief]

I cant see your final image, just a red area with a white zebra form.

That is what you SHOULD see, it is showing just the mask when you do a "View Selection" in NX. What I think is nice about this is the combination of the selection, the mask and the new layer all in one operation.

So the area you see that is Not Red, is the only area that will be affected by whatever it is you are doing.

 

[docsol]

OK. That is very cool. I cant wait to play. Selective sharpening is a terrific tool. Thanks for the tutorial!

 

[Retief]

OK. That is very cool. I cant wait to play. Selective sharpening is a terrific tool. Thanks for the tutorial!

One other point. While Kevin notes this for Selective Sharpening, this technique works for any of the adjustments, Controls Points, etc. In this way you can easily bound the area a CP will affect as well.

And yes, I find it quite cool. I can do the same in PS, but it takes multiple steps.

 

[docsol]

Selective anything doesn't exist in NC 4.4. I do not have PS and not likely too for some time (no time to learn) so these are great for me.

 

[Kevin_d50]

I can do the same in PS, but it takes multiple steps.

aaahh, here the thorn in the side of PS and the others

 

[kramk]

Selective sharpening and its ease of applying with the brush are major NX features IMO. I've replaced NC4.4 with NX as my default editor just due to this. Also, selective high pass sharpening, using overlay in the opacity settings, works well on high iso shots.

An easier way to sharpen just the zebra, is to click the + button on the brush tool, and brush in where you want sharpening (on the zebra), as opposed to taking away sharpening from the background. A lot less brushing..

best, mark

 

[Kevin_d50]

Indeed, selective most things wihout "selecting" is its hidden power methinks

An easier way to sharpen just the zebra, is to click the + button on the brush tool, and brush in where you want sharpening (on the zebra), as opposed to taking away sharpening from the background. A lot less brushing..

best, mark

not getting the brush in focus part mark?
if i activate the usm tool, by default it applies to the whole image, therefore i need to - away the excess?
where'm i going wrong please?
cheers

 

[Cydne]

not getting the brush in focus part mark?
if i activate the usm tool, by default it applies to the whole image, therefore i need to - away the excess?
where'm i going wrong please?
cheers

USM is not applied to the whole image until you click on Ok. To apply it selectively, don't click OK, just drag the palette out of your way if needed, select the + brush and start painting your sharpening in.

Lee

 

[kramk]

Hi Kevin, Like Lee said....

best, mark

 

[AFS]

I love this feature, I use it all the time particularly on the D1's files. It keeps noise and artifacts out of the areas I don't need sharpened.

 

[Kevin_d50]

USM is not applied to the whole image until you click on Ok. To apply it selectively, don't click OK, just drag the palette out of your way if needed, select the + brush and start painting your sharpening in.

Lee

Brilliant!!!
Thnks guys

 

[Retief]

What I am finding is that I use the +Lasso a lot, thanks to the patience of Harrison, Cydne and others in pointing me in the right direction. What I find nice about this is that I don't have to be cautious when approaching the edges. So, in this case, I'll get my step ready, select the +Lasso, trace around the Zebra, or whatever I want, set the USM, or whatever, grab the +Brush and then just brush away in the selected area. By accident I found that the selected area remains for that step, so you can't accidentaly screw up later, which is why I often now do New Step first, so that modifications don't end up bundled together.

This also, since you have already constrained your area, allows you to do differing bits to different parts without affecting the whole image.

This is what makes it palatible for me to get past the UI stipdities that have been introduced.

 

[docsol]

I really appreciate all the input from everyone. You are saving me huge chunks of time.