On 5/18/2011 12:00 AM, Jim Nichols wrote:
> Moose,
>
> I downloaded the trial version of Focus Magic and played with it as a plugin
> in PSE 6.0. I can see how it can make a difference, but I have a few
> questions.
>
> 1. Do you decrease the amount of sharpening used in the RAW converter if you
> intend to apply FM?
I don't sharpen in the RAW converter. At least I can't recall ever doing so.
There are several things I often do that
affect the appearance of sharpness, so it is almost always my last step.
An exception would be in NeatImage, where resharpening is a part of noise
reduction without losing detail. Sometimes it
just does a beautiful job of enhancing detail. I've had a few examples where NI
followed by FM have worked magic.
> 2. Do you load the image into the editor and go directly to FM?
In this case, yes. If I am going to apply noise reduction, I'll usually do that
before focus. I seem to generally get
better overall results that way.
> 3. I am assuming that FM is applied to the full-size jpeg image. Correct?
Always at the largest size available.
> 4. The instructions say one should go to 9 or 10, but this seems too much,
> in the cases I have used. Any suggestions?
I didn't read the instructions. The setting depends a great deal on the size of
the image and its 'in-focusness'. For a
small image like the larger one off your gallery, I can't imagine a setting
that high. Unless it is clear that OOF-ness
is pretty even across the image, I will generally try a few spots, click its
calculate button, try going up and down
from that, to see what works.
Sometimes, I'll apply it twice (or more) at different settings and use a mask
to apply it differentially to the image.
If I had the original of this image and wanted to do a really first rate job,
I'd probably use a different setting for
the back of the insect than the front, as the back is actually slightly OOF,
while the front looks like focus is perfect
(except for the closest eye), but the AA filter and/or downsampling have
softened it.
As it is, one pixel was not quite enough for the rear and two just a bit much
for the front, but I just used two, as I
would be downsampling, which takes the edge off. If it hadn't come out about
right, I'd have gone back and split it.
> I will probably buy it and try to master it, but it opens an entirely new set
> of choices that I must make.
Every image is different, and requires different treatment for optimal results.
This one was nice tonally and quite
vibrant already, so I didn't use Levels, Curves, Shadow/Highlight, LCE, etc. I
usually some of those when playing with
your images.
With practice, it's usually fairly obvious what tools in what order will be
used. Some images fool me and need something
different than I expected. Occasionally, I run into one that requires some real
original thinking - and I really learn
something. Different cameras also present different image characteristics.
Moose
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