Just got the trial version of the PL8 and I can’t find the sharpening tool (I am a PL6 user).
So help, please!
Name changed. It is lens softness now.
It makes sense, since it is not suposed to be a sharpening tool, but a correction of lens softness weakness. Sharpening has to be done at the end of the process (not in photolab) depending of the use of your image.
You still have unsharp mask, but better not use it in photolab unless your lens is not recognized.
All that lives in detail tab.
EDIT : be sure your optic module has been loaded.
I did a fresh install of pl8 (not an update from pl6 but I dowloaded installer from DxO website) and some modules don’t load automatically now. I have to load them myself (from “DxO optics modules” menu). I didn’t try to find why.
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Why wouldn’t you use unsharp mask for some sharpening? That’s what it’s there for isn’t it?
As I understand, soft lens uses an algorithm to correct for lens sharpness (or lack thereof) selectively. IE it corrects more in the corners vs the middle.
Unsharp mask sharpens the entire image equally.
Am I misunderstanding this?
Tom
The unsharp mask is only recommended for sharpening use when a lens profile is not available. If you have a available lens profile for a lens you should be using the Lens softness reduction tool which is the preferred method of sharpening. I would avoid using the unsharp mask is possible… It is way too easy to oversharpen and create haloing and other oversharpening artifacts with it
Mark
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What I understand is since softness tool is supposed take into account the irregularities inherent to your lens and has adjustable parameters, it is better to tweak those settings (according to kind of image you do and noise reduction you do - since you generally don’t want to sharpen noise), than to add an uniform sharpening (with maybe less sophisticated algorythm).
Then when you need final sharpening adapted to the use you intend to make of your images (print sharpening, adapted to reduced resolution for web usage sharpening) or artistic localised sharpening, it is better to do this in an other software than photolab and know techniques adapted to your usage.
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