I’ve been known to get the Autofocus Settings right; but it doesn’t happen all the time, I’m afraid. Yesterday I also started shooting without extending my 200-600 lens,. And even then I didn’t pick up my target swallow on every frame. This is an example of a slightly missed focus. D6703731.ARW (37.5 MB) D6703731.ARW.dop (10.2 KB)
And here is what I was able to get using Topaz’s Super Focus
Many thanks, @Joanna! It’s honestly difficult to differentiate between what a PL8 expert (oh no, I0m not claiming that’s me!) and Topaz in full “bring it on” auto can do, My brother thought our bird looked a tad moth-eaten, and your version looks very dandy. As ever, I need to spend more time on the PL8 development stage before I send it to Photo AI to get the edges sharpened,
Note that Topaz does not recommend using Super focus for photos under 4 MP. Your crop is only about 2.5 MP. Perhaps this is why the photo looks so overcooked (unnatural to my eyes).
I’ve had limited success using portrait photo techniques for removing skin blemishes. This includes local adjustments of contrast, microcontrast, blur, color and repair tool. A pixel editor which selectively blends layers can also help.
Well, I resized Mike’s file at the same time, which gave me a 40Mpx image and all worked fine. My advice would be to not add sharpening in PL to avoid oversharpening artefacts
I have to admit that I haven’t read the manual for TPAI. Not just because I used to write manuals , so I know how dull they can be
I did see on the tip screens in TPAI that upscaling happens last in the pipeline. Could it be that the 4k threshold for Super Focus derives from the need to feed enough pixels into the upscaler?
Manuals! Manuals you say? Manuals are for whimps!!!
So far, I have found TPAI to be fairly intuitive and haven’t yet found a manual that is as up to date as the beta updates they keep turning out.
Of ourse the ultimate answer is to avoid taking birds in flight at distance with too short a lens
Edit
Another tip I used to great effect is to use multiple sharpening “layers” with differing modes of sharpening for different parts of the image. I once did this to an image to extend the DoF towards the camera, in stages - much more effective than trying to do it in one lump.
The real reason we developers didn’t write manuals is because … people don’t read them, so what’s the point? I leave it up to the reader to insert as many asterisks as desired between “the” and “point”.
Yes, thanks, I know about using different layers with different combinations of selection, method, intensity, and feathering. Here is one I made while playing around with trying to find the perfect 4K rectangle to super focus,
Have to admit I don’t read manuals either. At least until I am troubleshooting. I’ve tried many cropped bird images like this one with similar overcooked results so actually looked at Topaz site for possible help.
I’ve tried several tools to resize the photo before running “super-focus”. The results vary, but always as crunchy results. This seems consistent with the guideline to not sharpen before using “super-focus”. In fact, avoiding noise reduction seemed also marginally better, presumably because denoise usually adds detail recover by sharpening.
Results for recovering faces has been disappointing too.
Focus is rarely an issue IF my subject is large enough to reasonably fill the frame. It’s those small details, and fast-moving birds that are hard.
But, if you are happy with the results - all good.
That’s a very interesting idea (leaving any noise reduction until after TPAI).
This is what I get from:
Smart lighting and crop in PL
Super focus and upscale in TPAI
Overlay signature in PL
Upscale again in TPAI because (darn!) it’s too early in the morning to do the sums
Save to disc in PL
Now I’m not saying it’s perfect, But it doesn’t look overcooked when I look at it on my laptop.
Going to see the Escher exhibition in Asti today, and when I recover my sense of perspective I shall print some 100% samples to compare and contrast the textures.
The inflexible order of TPAI operations is a frequent topic on the Topaz Labs Community Forum. The upscale last feature has drawn special criticism, particularly from those editing cropped images. The suggested workaround is to first upscale and export with no other corrections applied. Then take the upscaled file back into TPAI for a second pass for any other corrections (denoise, sharpen, recover faces, etc.). Better results from this workaround have been demonstrated in several posts. The how-to and when-to use Super focus discussion is ongoing.
Another interesting idea. For some reason my PC doesn’t want to log in to the Topaz Labs user forum, so I haven’t been able to amplify my scant knowledge of how and what to do.
I don’t really understand, though, how changing the batting order can improve things. Aren’t these operations commutative?
You should be able to search and view the forum discussions without logging in.
Topaz staff have acknowledged that this is an issue, most obvious with low-resolution images. A fix is said to be on the way but is not an easy matter, so no, operations are apparently not all commutative.
