cjc2 Loc: Hellertown PA

Does anyone have any experience with this application and/or any comments to share. It's available today for $ 20 and, for that price, might be something useful to me -- if it actually works! Comments please!

StaneeRae Loc: Lincroft, NJ USA

Sounds similar to Topaz InFocus?
https://www.topazlabs.com/infocus

Or Precision Detail and Sharpen within Topaz Studio?
http://web.topazlabs.com/precision-detail/
http://web.topazlabs.com/sharpen/

Bill_de Loc: US

Just in case nobody here actually uses it, grab the free download. You might get your answer a lot quicker.

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brucewells Loc: Central Kentucky

It looks interesting, Chris. I could find no reviews of it, but did find what seems to be a competitor at https://www.projects-software.com/. They want $89.00 for theirs.

If you download the piece from Ashampoo, let us know what you think, please. Thanks.

Bill_de Loc: US

I believe the are standard and pro versions.

https://www.projects-software.com/sharpen/comparison

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JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

It actually does a nice job -- provided you don't over cook it. I find the auto settings to be too strong. It provides a nice graphic that shows the disbursement of the image and a side box that shows what it has changed it to.

Adding an exercise in using Sharpens Project. Used a Sony A6300 and a Minolta 500mm f8 Reflex lens (mirror lens).

Just to be clear about the last step. I took the Sharpens Project image and dragged the color towards yellow which made it have extra high contrast. Then I loaded that image and the DxO image into Photoshop with the Sharpens Projects as the top layer. Then I did a High Pass Filter sharpening with took the sharper edges of the Sharpen Projects image and used it to sharpen the DxO image.

Don't know how good this method is as I have never read about anyone else doing it. But with all the examples I have tried, it seems to work quite well.

original

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DxO Optics Pro - some improvement

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crop of DxO Optics Pro

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crop after Sharpen Projects plus high pass filter in Photoshop

(Download)

cjc2 Loc: Hellertown PA

Thank you for this information.

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

I am going to show you a screen shot of another example. Took this yesterday and I believe this is a first year sea gull. The original image shows some softness. I then used DxO, then Sharpens Project, and finally a High Pass Sharpen in Photoshop.

And then I will show a screen shot from Sharpens Project. On the right hand side are various adjustments. I mostly work with Correction and watch the Before/After Analysis as well as watch the image. I may touch some of the other sliders and you can see what I touched since all but two default to the center. Note the Before/After Analysis shows a point with some spread which represents what the lens is doing. And the other side show how it is tightened up to a much tighter point.

At the top is a Big Green button to set Automatically. I hesitate to use that button since it is more aggressive than I like. Also, above it are a pull down list of Custom Settings. That is to set the type of Auto processing. But I find just tweaking the sliders, especially the Correction slider is all I need.

I like to always follow Sharpen Projects with Photoshop Hi Pass Sharpening. Seems to improve the end result. I do see a bit of noise in the water, and I could have fixed that if I had been a bit more aggressive with DxO Prime Noise Removal.

One conclusion in using this SW tool is that I can use less expensive lenses and then greatly improve the results from those lenses. For this example, I used an Olympus EM1 with an adapter a 4/3 18-180mm lens with this being taken at 180mm (FOV same as 360mm on FF camera).

Original - some softness evident

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Final

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Screen Shot from Sharpen Projects

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