Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence are all around us. I firmly believe the future of photography is computational, and we currently have a whole range of companies fighting to make the best progress in AI. Here at DIYPhotography, we’re putting various elements of AI head-to-head to determine the best software on the market. We recently covered AI Noise Reduction, and today we move on to Sharpening.
DxO PureRAW 2 is now 4x faster on Apple Silicon and adds Fuji X-Trans file support
DxO has announced DxO PureRaw 2 which brings with it some pretty big performance increases, with a 50% speed boost on Windows and runs up to four times faster on Apple Silicon-based Macs. The new release also adds support for Fujifilm’s X-Trans files, promising “demosaicing and denoising like you’ve never seen before” that “corrects every possible lens defect”.
Like the previous version, PureRAW 2 uses convolutional neural networks to perform the demosaicing and denoising process. But over its predecessor, it sees a couple of new ways of working. You can pre-process your images from directly within Lightroom, to generate already-enhanced Linear DNG files for editing, or you can do it straight from the Windows Explorer or macOS Finder interface.
Photoshop tip: Can blurring the image help you sharpen it better?
There are several ways to sharpen your photos in Photoshop. However, I believe most of us wouldn’t consider using Gaussian Blur as one of them. Still, it’s also one of the options, and it can give you fantastic results. It’s also pretty simple to apply it, and in this video, Unmesh Dinda of PiXimperfect will show you how.
DxO PureRAW cleans up noise and softness in your photos before you load them into Lightroom
DxO has announced DxO PureRAW, their new software to… Well, I suppose “pre-process” is the best term to describe it. It pre-processes your raw files before you load them into Lightroom, Adobe Camera Raw, Capture One or whatever raw software you happen to use. Its goal is to help improve your starting point with increased sharpness and reduced noise.
DxO PureRAW is not a plugin. It’s a standalone application through which you run your raw files before your usual editing workflow. It claims to remove noise, chromatic aberration, vignetting, distortion and to improve sharpness and clarity using DxO’s DeepPRIME AI tech after which it exports out a set of new DNG raw files for editing.
Can AI sharpening make up for soft lenses?
There’s no doubt that artificial intelligence is becoming more and more used in photography and photo editing. But can in compensate for cheap and not so great gear? More specifically, can AI help you get sharp photos even with a soft lens? In this video, Anthony Morganti addresses this question and shows you how to sharpen your images even if your lens is not the sharpest there is.
Lightroom vs. Photoshop, which one does a better job with sharpening?
There are several ways to sharpen an image, and each of us has our own go-to method. And of course, some Adobe users prefer doing it in Lightroom while others rather choose Photoshop. In this video, Aaron Nace of PHLEARN compares the two programs and all of the available methods they provide. So, which one wins the sharpening contest?
This free web sharpening script will give you perfect results
Greg Benz, who is the developer of Lumenzia, has now produced a web sharpening script which is very simple to use, and it gives some very good results. I got an early release of the script and played with it to see how it performs.
I have a very simple approach to web sharpening, Lightroom’s built in sharpening feature always has been my go-to option. There are several web sharpening scripts out there, but I have never bothered. However, Greg pushed me out of my comfort zone.
Here is the download link in case you want to try it. It’s free to use.
Are you sharpening your images enough?
I’ll own up to this and say that I’m guilty of being stuck in my ways. But age is no excuse for not being as adaptive as I should be to the changing times. But let me explain.
Here’s an easy way to sharpen upscaled photos in Photoshop CC
We have seen a couple of algorithms capable of upscaling low-res images. But you can also increase the resolution of your photos in Photoshop and still keep them sharp and usable. In this video from Blue Lightning TV Photoshop, you’ll learn an easy way of upscaling and sharpening images in Photoshop CC so you don’t lose details in your images.
This is the best way to sharpen your images in Photoshop
No matter what gear you use, sharpening is just a fact of life. Even if you’re using a super sharp Sigma Foveon sensor, or a Phase One Achromatic back, all digital images can benefit from a little sharpening assistance.
Photoshop and other applications offer a million different ways to sharpen your images. Some are more effective than others. And a few are quite versatile, while others are a little more rigid. This tutorial from Phlearn shows the method I’ve been using to sharpen 95% of my images for the better part of the last decade. The High Pass Filter.
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