I didn't apply any sharpening, just a focus stack of two images with some masking and some selected clarity in LR, does it look too sharp, would it look nice printed?
Sashi wrote:
Not the water, as such, but yes, the rest of the image does appear over-sharpened to me.
Thanks for your report, I will have to rework it, I took off some of the red cast off the background rocks which looked too intense, I have to take it back a little and unsharp the pebbles, rocks and left side structure, besides that would it make a nice print for a present?
IMO, there's a bit of softness overall in the image that I believe you are trying to correct. I would go easy on how you are attempting to recover the details, but otherwise, the image does look good.
There are halos around the rocks. That can be a sign of too much contrast/texture/clarity which will contribute to the appearance of too much sharpening.
It is a nice picture. It could look nice as a print.
StephenS_CP wrote:
There are halos around the rocks. That can be a sign of too much contrast/texture/clarity which will contribute to the appearance of too much sharpening.
It is a nice picture. It could look nice as a print.
Can you help me see the halos? I always struggle to determine when I've used too much clarity.
The halos are mostly from the long exposure, I figured I have to go and take the shots again, these were three photographs with focus on the pebbles, the foreground rocks then the background ones, I don't think two would make it and if I use a shorter lens vs the 50mm I used for this stack I risk to change the perspective of the background which I want to be clearly visible in the details.
It is also a matter of getting the right atmospheric conditions and the sun only casts that light for a limited amount of time a year before it starts to go back behind the cliffs.
Post processing wise I take three series of shots, focus on the foreground and three exposures 1 stop apart from each other, focus on the middle ground and then on the background for a total of 9; basic retouch like highlights and shadows, sharpening threshold, eventual spots (...), clarity on the rocks, even the sky out and add/decrease saturation where it needs, average the exposure of the three shots, then stack the three averaged ones on layers, align, crop, mask the sky, the concrete and the rocks then the foreground and then back to Lightroom for final details, it is a lot of time but a fun process.
Responding to vbnut:
The halos are visible along the right and upper edges of the rocks as a narrow white, very even width border between the dark of the rock and the blue of the water. I think the white top border of the foreground gravel may also be halo effect.
Responding to Giovanni;
That is a quite sophisticated process you used for this seascape. I found your explanation of focal length selection to maintain the perspective personally instructive. Nice work.
I think I'm differentiating between the soft borders along the base of the rocks due to slow shutter speeds and the narrow, hard, white borders along the right and upper edges of the dark rocks which is what I'm referring to as halo effect.
I think I can see Sasha's point that you may be trying to compensate [clarity] in post processing for not quite satisfactory sharpness achieved by your use of focus stacking. Additionally, your need to use HDR-like exposure bracketing combined with your need to use highlight/shadow adjustments, primarily shadow recovery, would make you vulnerable to halo effects.
I think I did a better job at merging the exposures and layers with this one even tho I like the color cast of the previous one better, waiting for your comments:
My son too approved the second one, by looking at it the composition is more balanced as well as the exposure and it looks sharp enough but not over sharpened.
The other one is "cleaner" as the horizon is flatter and gives more of a sense of peace but overall I think the second does better, now I have to convince myself it being worth printing and as a present, thinking of a 20x24 print on PhotoRag paper
I prefer the composition of the 1st and 3rd with the rock further in the distance and the dark horizontal lines in the water. Don't like the clouds in the 2nd very much. But I do like the color of the distant rock there, but there's a halo. When I look at the first image and focus on the distant rock I don't really notice the sharpness of the foreground and vice versa. So I think the focus stacking worked out that way.
I think I am gonna go for this one, might crop to 5:4 and take a bit of the pebbles off or leave it as it is, I just want to send it to print and deliver to the recipient, I can go down there over and over but will never get the kind of light, ocean and sky I am looking forward to, need to complete the task and move on, yours all comments were precious and always a boost to try and do better.
By the way, three stacks, focus on the pebbles and three exposures -1 0 +1, same for mid ground and background rocks, kind of a subtle HDR to have the best dynamic range from every area, select and mask in PhotoShop and retouch the edges.
This one been shot with Nikon D850, Nikkor 60G f2.8 Macro at f8, Kase magnetic filters.
Grazie
Giovanni
p.s. shooting on a reflex, even tho the D850 is a monster capable of a camera, compared to the ease of use of a MirrorLess makes it more challenging but also more rewarding
