PP expert....IQ assistance required please.

[Dave in Wales]

I'm going nuts.:banghead:

I have top quality gear and glass, Olympus M4/3, LR6, PSE13 and Oly Viewer 3.

I shoot raw, processed in in LR6, exported as a TIF to PSE13 for final resizing/sharpening for forum/s display.

They are uploaded to flicker as jpg, size 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768.

But I consider my displayed images are CRAP compared to the RAW and even the Large Superfine jpg OOC that I start with.

Example...
P6180919-Edit-1 by Dave in Wales, on Flickr

I was reading a blog by Robin Wong.........http://robinwong.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/olympus-om-d-e-m1-review-shooting-with.html
I have tried RW's PP recommendations but it don't work for me.

How on earth does he achieve displayed images of that quality.......WE USE THE SAME KIT.....

 

[GardenersHelper]

Do I understand right that the images look good in Lightroom/Elements but when seen at Flickr they look bad?

In what way(s) do the image look bad to you? e.g. sharpness, colours, noise?

It's difficult to assess the image quality of the posted image because it is so small, and at Flickr it is marked as private. Could you make a larger version available so we can take a closer look at it and play with it? If you could upload a raw file somewhere such as Dropbox that would be even best, but a larger JPEG would be fine.

 

[Box Brownie]

Quick question, you mention exporting to PSE as a tif but no mention of what file format you are uploading to Flicker or other fora. Is it jpeg and and if so at least quality 8?

If however you are uploading a tif.....it is possible the site image processor is adversely affecting the image???

 

[Ploddles]

If you are uploading the TIFF then you are leaving it to Flickr to convert it to JPEG as that is what Flickr displays, JPEGS. Try doing your own conversion and see if it makes any difference.

This from the Flickr site.....
Flickr officially supports JPEGs, non-animated GIFs, and PNGs. You can also upload TIFFs and some other file types, but they will automatically be converted to and stored in JPEG format.

 

[Dave in Wales]

The modified RAW image is exported into PSE13 and arrives as a TIFF.
The image has the border added, is resized and sharpened then save as a high IQ jpg for uploading to Flickr.

My problem is one of sharpness, the image posted is nowhere near as sharp as the image prior to uploading.

Look at Robin Wong's shots how on earth does he achieve that IQ.

 

[TimmyG]

The image has the border added, is resized and sharpened then save as a high IQ jpg for uploading to Flickr.

Resizing and sharpening could both be factors in this. How are you doing these two tasks?

Of the 2 images posted the first is the worst, it looks out of focus to me. I'm not sure how it compares with the RAW file, but I would hazard a guess the original was OOF and subsequently had sharpening applied. Unfortunately, it's not something any amount of sharpening will help. I can't see your EXIF data to see if there are any recommendations for ways to improve the initial sharpness (missed focus, diffraction or camera shake could be some of the possible causes), but I would examine the raw file closely and decide if it is of suitable quality to begin post processing (especially the focus on the bug. I would say the focus has overshot and lies somewhere around the silhouette of the petals rather than the subject).

The second looks to be in focus, although this isn't as critical as with close-up shots. Again, without being able to pixel peep, it looks fine for a web display although not brilliant, and there may be a little noise or other artifacts creeping in as a result of post processing. It looks to me like there is some pixilation, so I would review your re-sizing process to see if this is at fault, alternatively it could be a combination of how the forum and flickr are displaying it. Other than that, did you get the exposure right in camera or have you adjusted this in post (either through adjusting the exposure itself or by lifting the shadows/blacks at all)?

I'm making a lot of assumptions with the above, so apologies if I'm way off the mark.

 

[Dave in Wales]

Resizing and sharpening could both be factors in this. How are you doing these two tasks?

Of the 2 images posted the first is the worst, it looks out of focus to me. I'm not sure how it compares with the RAW file, but I would hazard a guess the original was OOF and subsequently had sharpening applied. Unfortunately, it's not something any amount of sharpening will help. I can't see your EXIF data to see if there are any recommendations for ways to improve the initial sharpness (missed focus, diffraction or camera shake could be some of the possible causes), but I would examine the raw file closely and decide if it is of suitable quality to begin post processing (especially the focus on the bug. I would say the focus has overshot and lies somewhere around the silhouette of the petals rather than the subject).

The second looks to be in focus, although this isn't as critical as with close-up shots. Again, without being able to pixel peep, it looks fine for a web display although not brilliant, and there may be a little noise or other artifacts creeping in as a result of post processing. It looks to me like there is some pixilation, so I would review your re-sizing process to see if this is at fault, alternatively it could be a combination of how the forum and flickr are displaying it. Other than that, did you get the exposure right in camera or have you adjusted this in post (either through adjusting the exposure itself or by lifting the shadows/blacks at all)?

I'm making a lot of assumptions with the above, so apologies if I'm way off the mark.

Many thanks Timmy I'll read and digest this later, but I think I may have got an answer.

The picture above was resized to 743 x 600 but I think it's being displayed larger than this, pulling it up and showing the pixels.

The picture below was resized to 1024 x 768 and I believe is displayed as such, not being pulled up.
I think it looks sharper, one only has to look at the hairs at the bottom of the picture to see the difference.

Both pictures originate from the same TIFF file.

P6180919-Edit4 by Dave in Wales, on Flickr

 

[TimmyG]

The picture above was resized to 743 x 600 but I think it's being displayed larger than this

Yes that makes sense. 743 x 600 seems small to me, and obviously if it gets displayed larger the IQ will drop off. The latest post does indeed look sharper, but I also think there is scope to improve this further with better technique.

If it helps I tend to export to flickr as high quality jpeg (80%), at 2048 pixels on the longest edge and at a resolution of 96dpi in sRGB colour space. I haven't done anything particularly scientific to arrive at these settings and I forget now how I settled on them, but they seem to be adequate for my purposes.

HTHs

 

[Dave in Wales]

Yes that makes sense. 743 x 600 seems small to me, and obviously if it gets displayed larger the IQ will drop off. The latest post does indeed look sharper, but I also think there is scope to improve this further with better technique.

If it helps I tend to export to flickr as high quality jpeg (80%), at 2048 pixels on the longest edge and at a resolution of 96dpi in sRGB colour space. I haven't done anything particularly scientific to arrive at these settings and I forget now how I settled on them, but they seem to be adequate for my purposes.

HTHs

This is the method of sharpening I use in LR6...
https://photographylife.com/how-to-properly-sharpen-images-in-lightroom

 

[ChrisR]

I use Aperture (for now) rather than Lightroom, so this comment may not make sense. But why use a separate program for resizing? I found indications that though Lightroom doesn't specifically have a resize button, you can resize on export.

Putting an image through multiple programs unnecessarily presumably has a potential negative effect on IQ. Also you suggest you are sharpening in both LR and PSE, surely an issue to query?