Still playing with my Aptus 17. I shot a product box with my A17 in similar light to a previous transparency which I scanned at 2800dpi. The Aptus image is fantastically sharp but somehow the DB has magically added a black outline to the red type and white outlines to the black type.

See the attached image.

The settings were as set by the vendor:

ISO 100
Gray: A17 Daylight
D Curve: A17 Portrait
Color Look: A17 Product 5
Saturation: Nil
Grain: A17 default
Moire reduction: Nil
Sharpening: A17 Portrait.

I presume it is the sharpening setting that has added the "extras" but I had assumed that A17 Portrait sharpening would be gentle. Your thoughts would be appreciated.

The other point of this topic is to ask where do I find what the presets mean and the differences between them. They are not described in the manual. For example, what does "A17 Group" mean for sharpness?

Roger

Roger,

In LC11, go to Help>LeafCapture help>Adjusting>Sharpening an Image

You will find there explanations to how each function works and how it affects the image.

I hope this helps

Yair

Roger,

I have found that the sharpening presets in LC11 are all far too strong for practical use, I have an Aptus 22. I usually have it set to no sharpness or use portrait and pull the sliders back a notch or two.

I think the best workflow is to add just a small bit of capture sharpening in LC11 and then more sharpening later on in PS. I find the sharpening in LC11 to be less sophisticated than other apps. It attacks edges far too much, halos too quickly at low settings.

Roger,

I too don't use sharpening at all with LC11. I keep it turned off. The sharpening that I do is done in PS at the end of post work, before I save it. As for contrast, it depends on what I'm shooting. I use the Product curve a good deal of the time, but more often, I use Portrait and then bump things up as needed in PS. I'd rather keep the detail in the capture I guess.


Dave

All my images are process with No Sharpness. If you try portrait sharpness setting and process it as JPG's you end up with unusable images where hair look like syntetic material.
No sharpness as a rule and adjust in PS.
Andre

Thank you all for your help. I reshot with sharpness off and the outlines are gone.


The Help is great for explaining what you can do but there is no explanation of what each preset does. How do I find out what "Group" (Sharpness) or "Even 5" (Color Look) or "Open" (Develop Curve) mean?
Roger

Nobody knows, this question has been posed more than once. There have been more complaints (maybe better wonder) about the cryptic descriptions of Leaf.

I have just tried most of them under different circumstances and eventually knew which one to pick that would serve my needs at that time.

Unless Leaf has changed this in the last 6 months I guess the descriptions are still the same.

Try and see what works is your best option. You should do that anyway since nobody can make accurate descriptions that will be perceived equally by everybody else.

Gidday,

Personal I only use Leaf capture 11 for the preview using the colour look ProPhoto RGB.
After that all my post is done in Adobe Bridge CS3 as the Leaf soft wear as with most camera manufacture's is freakishly slow and unuser friendly.

Cheers

Simon

Roger you do not have to re-shoot it. These are RAW files so you can just change the parameters to "No sharpness" and re-process them.



I have a attached some snips fro the old V8 help guide, which offers some wider view of what each parameter does and that is relevant for LC11 as well.

In general:

Profiles:
There are 2 for product shots: product and HS which stands for High Saturation.
For Portrait there are several profiles. HS is High Saturation and YS is Yellow Saturated (for asian or olive skin tones

Curves:
Portrait is less contrasty than product and "Open" has lifted midtones and shadows

Sharpness:
Group refers to group shots where there is more sharpening required when going to print.

A comment to everyone:

Please note that all our factory presets (profiles, curves and sharpening) are written and optimised for INK ON PAPER and have more than 40 years of pre-press experience behind them.

Judging any of them on a computer screen requires some experience in what the output is going to look like...

In general I would say that for commercial magazine-style press or for inkjet. What look a little bit TOO sharp on screen, is going to be fine on paper.

Also, if your images are going to go into Photoshop, for retouching, scaling, cropping etc. I would recommend leaving them on "No Sharpness" and leaving the sharpening to the last stage before going to print.

Yair

[Misapprehensive post deleted.]

Thanks, Yair, for clarifying that the presets aren't just a software team's partly-baked idea.


-H.

Another vote for 'No Sharpness' in LC.
I get an exasperated phone call and re process demand from my retoucher if acidentally, I have it on!

I wouldn't go so far as to say dont apply any sharpening at all.
I think just adjust the sliders so that it is to your liking and/or needs.
There is a "Grain" function to the LC sharpening which gives the appearance of detail and sharpness
that I have not been able to easily replicate in Photoshop.

As a "Capture Stage Sharpen" I think LC does a good job if you reduce the preset amounts.
And then extra sharpening designed for the output device should be then applied in Photoshop.
I suggest give that a go and see for yourself.
regards
A

While I usually also go "No Sharpness", there is some nice functionality in the Advanced Sharpening Mode. You can adjust by individual color channel and you can also isolate highlight and shadow sharpening. Make sure to click on the arrow at the upper right of the sharpening tab to enable Advanced Mode. It is in Standard Mode by default.

Also, Leaf should change the terminology from "No Sharpness" to "No Sharpening", because there's certainly plenty of the former.

Steve Hendrix
www.ppratlanta.com/digital.php