The great advantage of using frequency separation is that you don’t have to worry about finding similar tonalities for the clone source and the target, since the structures and colors of the image are separated in two layers, hence the name of this technique. Layer “Frequenztrennung” (Frequency Separation): Due to this technique, which is usually used for retouching portrait images, I was able to clone in fine moss and leave details in areas that - despite being treated with the most aggressive sharpening method - didn´t show enough definition. For “Veil of Water” I had to do the following: The whole workflow I have explained so far is the same for every picture, but now it´s time for individual corrections, which may differ vastly in the kind of treatment and the effort you have to put in. Please have a look at the following pictures for a better understanding of this problem: During my tests I found out that one of these algorithms usually gives me the best overall result, while others may deliver a more convincing outcome in certain image areas. Besides the standard settings, you will find one for architectural pictures, one for painted/computer-generated images and two others for low resolution or heavily compressed files. Once the target size is determined, you will have to choose one of the four provided upscaling algorithms, which all have their individual strengths and weaknesses and were designed for different kinds of source material. By the way: If you would like to get such a high resolution image directly from your camera, you will need a model with at least 77 megapixels. The according calculation is rather simple: Target size in inch * Print resolution in dpi = pixel count, which in my case is 36 * 300 = 10800. Since I wanted to offer my prints up to a size of 36 inch - which is almost one meter on the long side - in the highest possible print resolution of 300 dpi (dots per inch), I needed files with 10800 pixels on the long side. The first thing you have to do there is to determine the desired image size. I’ll show, based on the example of my image “Veil of Water", how much effort I had to put in this task and why a 10-day challenge therefore turned into months of tedious retouching work.īecause it appeared plausible to me to enlarge the image before sharpening it, I exported a 16-bit TIFF from Lightroom (without the vignette and the split toning effect) and opened the file in Gigapixel AI. Because these issues were absolutely unacceptable for me, I did not rely on this almost automatable workflow, but changed the order of processing (now sharpening after upscaling) and decided to manually take care of all the little troublemakers. Not only did the upscaling of the already sharpened image result in strong and ugly lines along high-contrast edges, but sometimes the underlying algorithms of Sharpen AI and Gigapixel AI made, despite their overall good quality, some almost ridiculous mistakes in certain areas. If you don‘t examine the files too precisely, you will get the impression of surprisingly detailed and sharp high resolution images, which are well suited for large scale printing, but since I’m rather bad in not looking closely, some unpleasant and unacceptable flaws quickly caught my attention. Theoretically the print preparation task appeared to be an easy one: I was told to sharpen the images with Topaz Sharpen AI before upscaling them with Topaz Gigapixel AI to the desired size, that’s it.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |