Film vs Digital

[Lin Evans]

I was thinking the digital had finally caught up with film in print quality. Was I wrong - or could my test be invalid?

Hi Ron,

Actually, there must have been a problem either with the setup or with the lack of post processing. The camera itself has numerous settings which affect sharpness. The default for most all dSLR cameras is a lower contrast lower sharpness to allow the photogapher the option of setting up for the type shot desired.

Let's look at a couple possibilities. With a film camera such as a 35mm and a portrait in mind, we often use filters to soften the image and avoid distinct skin pores, blemishes, etc. With digital we can simply leave sharpening off and get similar results. For ultra sharp images we can either set internal sharpening higher or we can post process. There are several ways of increasing sharpness in a digial file. The most common is called Unsharp Mask, a term from the film days but in essence a means of enhancing edge contrast which gives the very real illusion of a quite sharp image. Then there is anticonvolution or "deconvolution" which actually shifts the pixels to control the edge roll-off or the number of pixels at the edges between transitions from subject to background. Both of these methods may be used independently or in conjunction to produce incredibly sharp prints.

For a simply print test of the out-of-camera image, have the clerk set the sharpness to maximum, but for your own use later you will want to set it low and selectively sharpen images to fine tune for optimal results.

Bottom line is that digital images from the D70 will actually be superior to what you will get from 35mm film prints in the majority of cases. There will be zero grain so that images will have greater fidelity and in most cases will support enlargement beyond what you can do with 35mm fine grain color film or transparency.

Best regards,

Lin

[JerryF]

RonE wrote:

...They printed these photographs and also gave me a CD
of them. I took the CD to the local one hour Wal-mart for them to print also.

Another thought was: How did they save the pictures on CD? Were they a direct copy from the CompactFlash card or a "Save" from some software? If the pics are JPG, you might have some loss of "sharpness" in your photos because each time a JPG is saved, you lose the quality of the pic.

[The Doctor]

Actually, using the USM is one of the poorer ways to sharpen. It often causes a "halo" effect. Most images from digital cameras need some sharpening. But try using the High Pass filter. http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tu...arpening.shtml

[jackrussell]

The Doctor wrote:

Actually, using the USM is one of the poorer ways to sharpen. It often causes a "halo" effect. Most images from digital cameras need some sharpening. But try using the High Pass filter. http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tu...arpening.shtml

Nice tip Doctor, i've just been playing with that method. You learn something new every day. :-)

[eric s]

I wouldn't say that USM is one of the worst ways to sharpen, its all in how you use it.

I know of several ways to sharpen that leverage USM. They just don't do stright USM directly to the picture. They sharpen different channels of the picture. Check out this thread about different sharpening techniques:

http://www.stevesforums.com/forums/v...mp;forum_id=11

Don't write off USM directly... it's just a tool. And it's as easy to hit your thumb and the nail.

Eric