Culling for Sharpness?

Submitted by ohaya on Sat, 06/13/2020 - 15:05
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General discussion

Hi,
I don't know how usual or unusual this is, but in my workflow, I try to cull for sharpness.  I use a variety of tools to try to do this, including FastRawViewer.  Re. using FRV for this purposed, I tried using the sharpness (USM E) view, but I am not able to distinguish an image that is sharp using that view, so I generally use use the view at 150% or 200% and try to "judge" whether each image is (subjectively) "sharp".
Another type of tool I use in conjunction is a tool that shows focus points (camera specific).
This all is very time-consuming and also really subjective, so I was wondering if anyone else is culling for sharpness, and how you do that?
Thanks,
Jim
EDIT:  Also, I was wondering, re. the above, when viewing your images at 150% or 200%, would you expect them to "appear" to be sharp?  I find that in my cases (mainly Fuji X-T3, and Nikon D500 at this time), no images actually appear to be sharp when viewed at 150% or 200%.  I mostly show aviation (planes) and, for example, if I look at an image (even ones that I think look "sharp", if I look at details like the windows, they are kind of "fuzzy".  Even though they are all fuzzy, looking at the images at 150-200% seems to allow me to judge which images look relatively sharper or less sharp.

sport

Sun, 07/05/2020 - 08:39

use the peakview option (P, on keyboard).
i never go behind 100% view, raw is softer, there is zero sharpening or contrast added

ohaya

Sun, 11/08/2020 - 13:54

Hi,
Thanks!  I was already using USM E etc., but didn't know about the key shortcut!
Also, I don't know, but for some reason, I have a hard time comparing sharpness at 100% - so I've been going to 200% (maybe because of bad eyes, but I don't think so).   I don't mean I am doing this for pixel peeping, but mainly/purely for trying to determine if an image is "sharpest".

xmnboy

Sat, 12/19/2020 - 18:15

I find the "P" key (red option -- View > Focus Details > Fine Details) -- I'm viewing on a 4k screen, but not at 1:1 pixel ratio. It's easier to compare two similar images if you open FastRaw twice, open both in the same folder of images, then Alt-Tab between the two instances of FastRaw, one instance open to image A and the other instance opened on image B. Use the "p" command to get to the red screen, then Alt-Tab between the two. Do it again with the regular image. Do that for two images where one is obviously out-of-focus and one is in-focus. You'll pretty quickly see how to use the red "p" view to see what is in better focus. Especially where you see bright red lines of contrast on the object of interest. 

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