Re: Resolution and print quality

["Bob Frost" <bobfrost@btopenworld.com>]

<x-charset iso-8859-1>Harvey,

I agree that taste plays a large part in deciding how much to sharpen an
image (just as it does in all other aspects of art).

However, in deciding how much to sharpen an image, one consideration that is
not mentioned very frequently is the viewing distance. If an image is to be
viewed from 10-20 feet away, it will withstand and need (in my opinion) more
sharpening than one that is to be viewed from 6 inches.

This then leads to a common problem. Pictures that are meant to be viewed
from a distance are peered at by critics with reading glasses and loupes and
pronounced to have shortcomings that they don't have if viewed from the
distance that the creator intended.

I have a large painting of a waterfall; if viewed from close-up, it just
looks like a mass of strange blobs and streaks of paint. But go to the other
side of the room, and all those strange blobs and streaks become
indistinguishable; they just merge into one glorious image.

Surely it is the same with sharpening; halos or grittiness that is visible
at a foot, just isn't visible at 10-20 feet, but can improve the image
considerably when viewed at that distance.

Bob Frost.



----- Original Message -----
From: "SKID Photography" <skid@bway.net>
>
> And again, I find that photographers get seduced by sharpening producing a
> grainier less photographic results in the process.  In fact, at the Photo
Expo
> last Fall, I found 90% of Epson's display prints objectionably over
sharpened.
>
> There is no accounting for taste though....Yours, or mine.  ;-)


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