[IanF]

Screech raised a query in another thread about the techniques that I use when processing my photos, so I thought I'd add something here. I certainly don't profess to be an expert at such things, but I have worked out what usually works for me.

I dislike sitting at the computer and having to tweak photos, but I do find that just about if not every digital image that I take needs at least a little sharpening - certainly in the case of the longer zoom bird photos where you try for as much detail as possible.

My main processing software is ThumbsPlus 4. It has several basic manipulation tools which in the main for my use are Rotate and Resize, Crop, Adjust brightness/contrast/saturation and the sharpening filters - either Sharpen or Unsharp mask. There are quite a few others too, but I seldom if ever use them. normally it's just crop/rotate and resize/sharpen and optimise file size in that order, but some images need a little more work.

In addition I use NeatImage for optimising files sizes for web use and reducing noise and Paint Shop Pro for optimising file sizes. Photoshop I occasionally use where chromatic aberration is a problem as it's an easy tool to use.

I have attached a couple of before and after photos to show what improvements can easily be made in just a few seconds. Photo 1 and 3 are unadjusted other than to reduce to the site limit of 800x600 and optimised for file size.

So to it :

Photo 1 - a Goosander taken on a very dull overcast day against the light from about 12' away. It was so dull that I had to boost the ASA to 400 which meant for grainy images, but enabled freezing of the bird and water at 1/125 sec f2,8 with +0.7 EV compensation - not quite enough to lighten the bird. This is a full sized shot taken with the Olympus C2100UZ+Tcon14+Tcon17.

As you can see it's rather dull and grainy. Quite often I'd bin such an image but as this is the closet I have ever managed to get to one of these birds, I thought I'd give it a tweak.

Photo 2 - the result. The C2100UZ gives a 1600x1200 image straight out the camera. As you can see in photo 1, with the teleconverters in place there is still some vignetting. Normal practice is first of all to crop to size with the aim of removing the vignetting and in aiding composition. I try to compose photos when taking them but as in this case a swimming bird on a moving river and shutter lag mean you don't always get it right.

Back to the job in hand. First of all the image was simply rotated )with the 100% setting for resize) +3 degrees to level the shot (water horizon) and then cropped to 800x600 to remove vignetting and aid composition. It's worth getting into the habit of using fixed cropping settings like 1600x1200, 800x600, 640x480 as these are standard photo dimensions which are easy on the eye. Dragging a corner can resize the box to fit the shot. Then having zeroed the Rotate setting I set the resize to 640x480. Resizing small always gives an apparent sharpening to an image and more megapixels to play with when you come to sharpen. The 'adjustment' tool was used to lighten the shot and reduce contrast to bring out the head and eye detail and colour saturation increased to compensate for reduction in contrast. Last process in TP was the sharpening tool was used to add crispness - but also noise.

Next come NeatImage a wonderful program first brought to my attention by SarahC - even better it's available as a free download! It has several uses, but primarily it's reduces noise - amazingly so - though overuse can render a photo looking more like a painting than a photo. Other useful features are that it reduces file sizes and has it's own sharpening adjustment. Each setting is adjustable. The result is photo 2.

The same technique was applied to Photo 3 and 4 of a Bullfinch.

Other photo software carry the same tools as I use, but it's the order they're used that makes a big difference ie. Crop - resize - make adjustments - sharpen and then optimise file size for web.

[Screech]

Thanks Ian, your goosander @400 ISO really cleaned up nice. Bullfinch is a beauty!
I have never used "optimise" as an option, I use Mihov freeware which does the same thing. I'll try optimise and see if I see a difference.
Thanks for time and info, much appricated. bob