How To Sharpen Your Digital Images

Let’s face it, we all come across a great shot which was taken at a unique moment in time but for some reason, it just isn’t sharp enough. “What did I do wrong?” we often say to ourselves. Sharp images aren’t that elusive! In fact, they are dead easy if you know how. This particular article gives you many insights to sharpness that aren’t that obvious, in fact, it’s a strategic approach to the issue in many ways. I think you’ll enjoy this one…


How To Sharpen Your Digital Photography Images

Let’s start this digital photography lesson by looking at the digital camera. All digital cameras photograph images which have a normal pattern of pixels that make up this image. In some digital photography images a moiré effect is created. To avoid this, modern slr digital cameras come with an in built filter that givens a softer effect to the image.

When you are faced with having to sharpen a noisy digital photography image you’ll find that some photos are easier to sharpen than others. This might be caused from having a too high ISO. The usual way of adding sharpness to a digital image has it problems too; it can actually increase the noise in your image quite a bit. To clarify this point, what is actually happening is the noise isn’t being increased as such, it’s being enhanced.

There is a way to sharpen noisy digital photo images without going into the noise itself.

To begin with its important to understand colour modes in Photoshop. The easiest way we remember colour modes is when we think of RGB mode. This is a “channel” of colours which are Red, Green and Blue. As I was taught by my good friend Lyndie Jeffry, there are more colour modes where your digital photo can be altered, adjusted and sharpened.

When I was first learning about digital photography Lyndie taught me that you can involve the CMYK mode which uses four colour channels. This stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. (Yes I know, “Black doesn’t start with a “K”.)

Lyndie explained to me that the best one to use for this purpose is the L-A-B mode. LAB mode really just related to the 3 channels it uses. In a nutshell Lab stands for the individual channels. The “L” really means “luminance”, “A” the green-red aspect “B” the blue-yellow aspect. When working in LAB mode you can modify the brightness of your digital photo and keep the saturating and colours the same. The way this is possible is because practically no image information is depleted or lost when you convert to Lab mode. It also stays good when you convert back again, which is extremely handy. (Especially with highly valuable photos such as other peoples wedding photos.) Not everyone uses this, but it’s a neat trick with some digital images.

In some digital photography images you can simply choose to sharpen the L channel in LAB mode. By doing this much of the noise in the image is in the other channels that are usually not affected by this sharpening effect.

Now this may not work for every single noisy digital photography image you have. But in some situations it works very well. I suggest you try it to see the effect you give. I’ve used it a few times and it’s saved my ‘you-know-what’. So if you’re in a tight spot with a noisy image, give this a go, you might be surprised with the results!

By Amy Renfrey

Published here by Roy Barker. You should look closely at this device, very handy indeed – instantly improved photo images (also comes with a trial) **It will be very handy when time is not on your side!“

Point and Shoot Camera Tips

When taking pictures with a point and shoot camera, you can be very limited with your creativity and flexibility. However, you can still take great shots as long as you follow the tried and true compositional techniques for visual images.

Compositional techniques are not only used for photography, they are used for videotaping, painting, and any other visual media. If you can master composition in photography, you can easily take any other field that is similar. A point and shoot camera is what? A visual capture device and although it doesn’t have the bells and whistles of SLR cameras, it still is very powerful.

Many people assume that because it’s a point and shoot camera they won’t take good pictures. People use this as a crutch and blame the poor images as the result of bad quality cameras.

Not True at all!

Think back in the day of the pin hole camera. They took nice photos and all they had was a hole that exposed the image. Nothing else.

 Here is a very useful compositional tip that can help you immensely.

Keep it simple. Working on creating simple compositions means isolating the subject, reducing the background clutter, and making the subject of interest very easily viewable. The viewer should instantly be able to know what he or she is to look at.

You can achieve simpler photos by:

-Moving in closer
-Using the depth of field to blur the background
-Focusing on, for example, one flower instead of five
-Leaving unnecessary information out of the frames of the border.

You can take great photos whether you use a point and shoot camera or a digital SLR. The photo is not made by the equipment but by the eye of the photographer.

Shooting in Av mode (Aperture Priority)

If you have been useing your DSLR (Digital Single Lens reflex) camera in auto mode then here is a lesson for you.  

First an explanation about aperture and how it affects your final photograph.  

Inside your lens there is a diaphragm that controls the amount of light reaching the image sensor. The diaphragm functions much like the pupil of the eye – it controls the effective diameter of the lens opening. Reducing the aperture size increases the depth of field, which describes the extent to which subject matter lying closer than or farther from the actual plane of focus appears to be in focus. In general, the smaller the aperture (the larger the number), the greater the distance from the plane of focus the subject matter may be while still appearing in focus.  

Higher diameters (lower f numbers) alow more light to pass through but have a shallow depth of field, while smaller diameters (higher f numbers) allow less light through but more detail farther away from the point of focus will be sharp.

Your camera measures aperture in F Stops ( F/N.N ). The n.n represents the F Stop Number.  The lower the numbers are the the wider the diameter and higher numbers mean a tighter diameter. 

For example: 

You are taking a photo of a bird and there are some grass in front of the it that you want to blur out a little but still keep the bird sharp. What you want to do is use the lowest aperture possible that will keep the bird in the best focus.  

Exposure: 

For proper exposure of the image a precise amount of light striking the recording media is required .  At lower F Stops this light will accumulate faster than higher ones.  Here is where the shutter speed comes in.  

In aperture priority mode the camera will you chose how long to keep the shutter open.  You

can usually adjust the exposure either with a wheel (optimal) or with a set of up and down buttons.

Try focusing you camera on the bird and taking a shot.  Keep adjusting until you get the result you are looking for.  Yes maybe until it flies away, but keep practicing you will get the hang of it.