I’ve often told the tale of my best camera upgrades in the quest for sharpness:
A retina (high dpi) screen.
PhotoLab.
For so many years, including many with Lightroom, I just assumed my camera gear (in conjunction with my own skills) was not up to producing truly sharp images.
I’ve now proven to myself that my 6 megapixel camera from 2005 was perfectly capable of sharp images. Lightroom just isn’t really capable of rendering them. Then add noise, and it is further constrained.
I watched a YouTube video a few days ago that sought to answer a question the creator had been asked… “How can I deal with a high ISO image only with Lightroom?” He showed one example in a 12 minute video.
My thoughts on sharpness and noise have really evolved over the years. I care greatly about focus and having what I want to be in focus in focus. Modern AF systems are really impressive in this regard. But I care far less about overall sharpness than I used to. And I don’t mind noise either if it is the right kind of noise—luminance rather than color. Of course, all of this is entirely a matter of preference and depends in part on what you shoot. I would feel differently, for example, if I primarily shot macro.
Agreed!! With all the assistive AI capabilities, it is astonishing that DxO PureRAW does not have subject detection for local adjustments. Lightroom has it. Topaz has it. Sometimes they are bang on, but when they aren’t they offer a good starting point, which means less time spent ‘painting’.
Now we’re 2 years on. Auto masking has improved a lot since this idea was launched. I really like the quality of edits in PL, but even in cheap tools like Zoner Studio, AI masking is working like charm. Also Affinity has added AI masks.
