Blurry rejection. Where?

[Grewup on the CW]

I got blurry rejection but I dont see it? I figured it would get the "distracting shadows" or common power. Do you see blurry? If so where and can it be fixed? Yes it might be boring NS dash 9 common power but I'm looking to learn and for future pics.http://www.railpictures.net/viewreje...77&key=5869261

[John West]

Definitely needs to be sharpened (more). It is close enough that the lack of sharpness may not be obvious, but when I first looked at it my eyes had to "struggle" to deal with it. So I downloaded it, sharped it up a bit, and it looked fine.

[Grewup on the CW]

Thanks John. Is always best to resharpen after it is sized down to meet RP requirements?

[John West]

Originally Posted by Grewup on the CW

Thanks John. Is always best to resharpen after it is sized down to meet RP requirements?

Sharpening is quite an art form in its own right and I don't pretend to be an expert. Somewhere one of the many folks who know more than me suggested it is good to resharpen (or at least check the sharpness) after converting from tiff to jpg and/or resizing. But over sharpening is also not good.

[JRMDC]

Originally Posted by Grewup on the CW

Thanks John. Is always best to resharpen after it is sized down to meet RP requirements?

Unlike John, I will authoritatively say YES As these are just words on the web, no reason to believe me.

[Grewup on the CW]

I will make a practice of rechecking the pic after sizing down. I don't particularly like sizing down as it takes quality away from the pic, unless I am doing that incorrectly. I can zoom in on the original and the pixels/quality is there but not on the resizing pics for RP.
Here is my failed second attempt, which got blurry again. I just don't see it anywhere on the pic. Is there a specific spot to which you all see the blurry?
http://www.railpictures.net/viewreje...35&key=9462452

[conrail1990]

Almost the entire right side of the image is soft, but the entire left side is sharp enough. I would suggest doing a re-crop tighter on the right side to see if that helps any.

[Mberry]

Originally Posted by conrail1990

Almost the entire right side of the image is soft, but the entire left side is sharp enough.

I see that as well.

[Rich K]

Originally Posted by John West

Sharpening is quite an art form in its own right and I don't pretend to be an expert. Somewhere one of the many folks who know more than me suggested it is good to resharpen (or at least check the sharpness) after converting from tiff to jpg and/or resizing. But over sharpening is also not good.

I certainly would not call myself an expert, and I do get my share of rejections, but they are rarely for sharpness issues.

I first sharpen my RAW image (I do shoot always in RAW) using Adobe Camera Raw. Then, after I have made whatever additional adjustments are needed in Photoshop (cropping, hue, saturation, leveling, contrast, etc.), I reduce the image size to usually 1024 x 683 and I give the shot a final sharpening using the high pass technique.

Works for me, and it's the way I have done this for several years with good results.

[John West]

FWIW, the sharpening routine I typically go through is the following. First I make a high rez "master" and after cropping, adjusting color, and so on, the last thing I do before pushing the save as button is increase it to 100 percent (actual pixels) and do an initial sharpening using the smart sharpen tool. For slides that have been scanned I typically start with a radius of 1.0 pix and an amount of 150% and adjust from there until it looks right. With digital originals which tend to be sharper since they haven't had to go through the scanning process, I usually start with a radius of 0.5 and 90% and adjust from there. No magic in those numbers, they started with somebody smarter than me and I have adjusted them "by feel" over time. To post stuff I convert the master to jpg at 100 percent (minimum compression) and resize, typically to 1000x700 px. After that I check the contrast and resharpen ever so slightly, usually 0.5 at about 20%

While I have gotten input from others, the above is basically a process that I have muddled into by trial and error, and so far it seems to work reasonably well. One of these days I should probably review with a more knowledgable technician. But my sense it that Photoshop gives you a lot of ways to skin the cat, and no one way is necessarily better than another....the best way is what works for you.

[miningcamper1]

It's much simpler to sharpen until the pic looks oversharpened, then back off.

[miningcamper1]

Originally Posted by Grewup on the CW

Here is my failed second attempt, which got blurry again. I just don't see it anywhere on the pic. Is there a specific spot to which you all see the blurry?
http://www.railpictures.net/viewreje...35&key=9462452

Looks like depth-of-field is lacking. Since "blurry" and "undersharpened" are different problems, more sharpening may be futile.

[John West]

I would agree with the lack of depth of field. My earlier comments were based on focusing (so to speak) on the nose of the locomotive. I'm a bit surprised by the lack of depth of field because with the high ISO's of digital (compared to say ISO 25 for a lot of Kodachrome) usually depth of field is rarely a problem these days. Hopefully it is not a lens problem.

[Grewup on the CW]

Thanks to all I do see the blurry now after looking at other shots that I took while the train was approaching. They are clear or not blurry across the whole picture, unfortunately with the time of day and the angle on those pics, the nose has too much shade on it and every pic I ever tried like that setup gets the back lit rejection. I tried a crop like that was suggested but I did not submit it as I still see blurry on the last car. So on to the next adventure

[John Russell - NZ]

I have had several rejections for image being "blurry." I realized it was a focus issue - partly me being too fast for the camera but also using a heavy 18-200 without USM. I replaced that lens with a lighter 24-105 USM lens and learned to be more careful that sharp focus had been obtained before taking the photo.

[wds]

When I get blur or fuzziness on one side of the frame only (but the front of the locomotive is sharp) I suspect that it's one of three things. First, it could just be a finger smudge or something similar on the front or rear element. Second (and you just hope this isn't it) an internal problem like a loose or misplaced element from an impact to the lens, like by dropping. The third and often overlooked cause when shooting trains is drifting heat distortion from locomotive exhaust. Do some minor detective work. First clean your lens. Shoot something static with fine detail (like a leafless tree on a calm day against a backdrop of sky or snow). If the image is sharp all across the frame then you can breathe a sigh of relief, it's probably just heat distortion. Don't forget that on a hot day you can get heat distortion rising from the ballast and possibly other landscape features but normally that will be evident on both sides of the frame and if there's enough of it even in front of the locomotive. Generally the more distance from your lens the more distortion you're shooting through and the more evident it becomes. There may also be other factors at play (like focus/depth of field issues as mentioned above) but these are the first things I'd look into.

[John Russell - NZ]

Apparently it is now possible using edge focus techniques to salvage digital images with minor focus issues. I don't know how and would like to know if anybody in this forum knows. It is a time-consuming process that a calendar editor here in NZ says my RPN rejected photo in following link is a worthy candidate for (especially as it was probably a never to be repeated photo opportunity.)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/139637...posted-public/

Since posting this I decided to start a thread in Digital Photo Processing Forum since that would be the appropriate forum for it.