WOW - this certainly has been a wide-ranging educational experience! I am grateful to all who have responded to my original posting about the methodology used by NG. Your experiences and expertise contribute to make this a great forum!
univac1103

I’m sure that we have been in awe as we looked at the superb quality of the images regularly published on the pages of the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC magazines over so many years. Exotic settings - yes, but outside of that, the artistry and technology in bringing the images to print is always to be admired! We know that these images are for the most part not what you would expect to be SOOC… Can anyone provide information about the technology used by NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC in processing the images that they publish?

Thank you all for your responses to my posting!!! Your wide-ranging comments and illustrations provided the kind of information and guidance which I had been looking for.

Re. "perceived sharpness", I'm thinking of the (instantaneous) appearance and impact of how sharp the images appear to be.

I don’t recall reading forum discussions about the differences in perceived sharpness between full frame cameras having pixel-count between 20 and about 24 MP and those with pixel-count above 40 MP. I’m specifically interested in learning from the users of the high pixel-count cameras how much of an improvement in the perceived sharpness you may have noted in your cameras’ images compared to the lower pixel-count versions. I’m thinking about the non-processed, SOOC perceived image sharpness comparisons. Thank you, and Happy Holidays!