Again, your opinion and comments please.

[Spriter]

Here I am again working on improving my techniques.

I reviewed my Histogram, Dodged (or burned can't remember which one) distracting elements. Review the framing, realized that I should have kept some place on the left side, sorry.

All in all I am moderately happy with this one. Please keep on posting. Your comments contribute to my will to improve.

I think that sharpness could/should be improved. There is so many ways to do this, your opinion on thi would be appreciated too.

Thanks

[kat]

You wrote everything I see! I personally think that it is a bit bright in some areas and that is should be sharper although it may be hard to see the sharpness throught the brightness.

[Spriter]

You wrote everything I see! I personally think that it is a bit bright in some areas and that is should be sharper although it may be hard to see the sharpness throught the brightness.

I agree with both comments.

About improving Sharpness, which of the various ways to improve it would you use?

[kat]

I agree with both comments.

About improving Sharpness, which of the various ways to improve it would you use?

I would put it on the highest aperture you can go for your lens. When I want crisp sharp shots throughout, I get that on the highest it will go. I have one lens that goes to f32 but the other only to f16 so there are times when I think a lens may have a role in it too..correct me if I'm wrong guys!!!

I'm quite sure that there is more to it but that is where I am at in my photography!

[Mad Aussie]

I think most lenses are actually sharpest at between f8 - f16 max. After that other issues arise that can come into play. I should go research that a bit more.

[Mad Aussie]

Did a quick search around and it seems my memory serves me ok here. Lenses do vary in what aperture is sharpest but factors such as diffraction (to do with the light wavelengths) causes sharpness to fall away at higher apertures. Chromatic Aberration can play it's part as well.
Some lenses are actually sharpest at f-stops around f4 or f5.6 but a general rule of thumb is apertures around 2 or 3 stops down from the minimum aperture of the lens is usually best.
So working in full stops, and generally speaking only, using f8 - f11 (some lenses may allow slightly lower or higher) is likely to produce the sharpest results.

Maybe someone here knows much more about it than I (I've only looked into it briefly here and there over the years) and correct me or add to what I've said?

[edbayani11]

it is good to know about the technical details of a good lens. a really good lens can contribute greatly to photographs. but nowadays, the differences between lenses are minimal due to good technology.
it will help a lot to make our photographs 'sharper' with our knowledge of lighting, edgesharpness, tonality, contrast, color contrast. all these can make a subjectively sharp image even though it is not 'tack' sharp. and with the coming of digital age, you can still sharpen photograps in post processing although we must be careful not to 'oversharpen', a word not known to photographers before who used film. there was no such thing as oversharp pictures in film.
having a really good lens is good but it is really you who can make your photographs sharp.
in the photo posted by spriter to me looks sharp enough but the central where it is all yellow needs some contrast in lghting to accentuate the edges of the petals. maybe a direct lighting a little to the left side is needed to produce the lighting contrast.

[Spriter]

it will help a lot to make our photographs 'sharper' with our knowledge of lighting, edgesharpness, tonality, contrast, color contrast. all these can make a subjectively sharp image even though it is not 'tack' sharp.

Looked at my histogram and made some mods that did help.

I then used photoshop in Lab Color mode I used Unsharp mask on the lightless layer. This made a big difference. However, I have seen comments about "over-sharpening". Not looking at the unretouched one, would you say I did too much?

Thanks

[edbayani11]

it is a marked improvement and i don't think it is oversharpened. a lot better than the first post!!

[kat]

Thanks MA! I needed that info! I knew my thinking wasn't to correct when it comes to lens (although it would help to have some!! :p )

The second one is definately better!

[Marko]

Did a quick search around and it seems my memory serves me ok here. Lenses do vary in what aperture is sharpest but factors such as diffraction (to do with the light wavelengths) causes sharpness to fall away at higher apertures. Chromatic Aberration can play it's part as well.
Some lenses are actually sharpest at f-stops around f4 or f5.6 but a general rule of thumb is apertures around 2 or 3 stops down from the minimum aperture of the lens is usually best.
So working in full stops, and generally speaking only, using f8 - f11 (some lenses may allow slightly lower or higher) is likely to produce the sharpest results.

Maybe someone here knows much more about it than I (I've only looked into it briefly here and there over the years) and correct me or add to what I've said? Although I learned the same thing, there are 2 things going on and we don't want to confuse people. There's lens sharpness and depth of field that come into play when switching apertures. Lens sharpness refers to how 'crisp' the image looks and was likely much more important before the unsharp mask filter in the days of film. Even before digital, a print from a lens set to F8 versus a lens set to F22 the differences in crispness would be negligable to the naked eye unless we are talking huge prints and are actively looking for a difference.

What you would easily notice is the foreground to background sharpness (depth of field/depth of focus) difference between APERTURES and therefore aperture choice with regard to depth of field is far more important IMO especially with shots like this and other macro shots. Kat's method therefore is more correct as a general rule. We normally choose our apertures based on our desired foreground to background sharpness, not lens crispness. There will always be exceptions to the rule but that's my take on it. I too would have shot this shot at F-32 not F8 or F-11 if I wanted the most foreground to background sharpness.

One last thing unsharp masking is actually a film technique but Ed is right, you never really noticed oversharpening like we do in digital.
Hope that helps - Marko

BTW - 2nd shot is much better than the first, huge improvement :highfive:

[kat]

Alright. I think that makes sense to me. I think I was mixing the two in a way.

[ridicwilco]

yeah i find your image a bit muddy in the center and that new image down below def fixed it for me