What is a simple and effective method to sharpen for web output in Photoshop?

Question

In Photoshop, I've got a master PSD image file with all mask and adjustment layer treatments, but no sharpening at all. I save for web and create a JPG at 1200px. Now, I bring that file back into Photoshop for some sharpening.

What's a quick and effective way to sharpen? I've read that using Filter -> Sharpen twice is good, but to me the outcome looks a bit over-processed. Is Smart Sharpen a better tool than just Sharpen? What about Sharpen More, Unsharp Mask, and Sharpen Edges?

Asked by RaffiM

Answer

There are a number of different lines of thought on this issue, and it seems that each one vehemently defends itself as the "one true way" to sharpen your image. In my experience, it comes down to personal preference and the specific image that you're working. Keep in mind that "sharpness" is really just an area of high contrast along an edge or line in your image. There are three primary methods that people use, but each have the fundamental effect of increasing this contrast:

1. Unsharp Mask - As I understand it, this was the "old" method for sharpening photos. Without going into too much detail, this method creates a blurred copy of the image and compares it to the original to determine where the edges are that need to be sharpened. This method has three options, Amount, Radius, and Threshold. Amount controls the intensity of the sharpening, radius controls the distance from edges that will have the sharpening applied, and the threshold controls how "different" two pixels have to be to be considered for sharpening. The unsharp mask in my experience tends to have a stronger effect than other methods, which I prefer, but some people don't.
2. Smart Sharpen - This method is the newer method for sharpening photos, with a bunch of different options. The Gaussian Blur option behaves similarly to the unsharp mask, but it also has the option to remove lens blur and motion blur. It has similar options to the unsharp mask method. I use this when I want to try to remove lens or motion blur, but I find that its Gaussian Blur sharpening isn't quite as pronounced as the unsharp mask.
3. High pass filters - This method is different than the other methods; it actually creates a second layer, and uses blending options to get a sharp effect on the edges. I don't like the appearance that the high pass filter gives to images, but I know a lot of other people prefer them.

The other filters (Sharpen, Sharpen More, and Sharpen Edges) I find to be less useful, because you have much less control over how they are applied to your image. But in some circumstances they may be appropriate.

This website has a really nice comparison of the high pass filter to the unsharp mask, and Ron Bigelow has a really detailed series of articles on each of the different sharpening methods. But I think the best thing to do is open up a few different copies of an image, apply different sharpening methods to each, and see which ones you like best.

Answered by David

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What image dimensions are used for 500px?

Question

The name is 500px.com, but what is the image resolution for which to optimize before uploading your photos there?

Asked by Marius Butuc

Answer

From their relevant Support page: width 880px for photos in landscape orientation, height 900px for images in portrait orientation. Even when you submit your images in that size, they will still get resized for display in thumbnails, and on iOS devices. Oh, and your carefully prepared originals in correct size are still recompressed into smaller files.

The name is a leftover from early days of digital photography, when 500 pixels was a suitable size for longer edge of images distributed over slower-than-today connections and displayed on CRT monitors.

Answered by Imre

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Online Printing API?

Question

tl;dr: Is there a way to have SmugMug-like + printing service integration hosted on your own website? (The API to the printing service is the piece I am missing)

I am looking for an automated ordering process, but SmugMug and co are not really to my liking because I want it to be self-hosted and 100% customizable.

What I have in mind:

1. I upload pictures to my website as an album or for a specific client shoot.
2. Client goes to the album
3. Client orders some prints
4. PayPal / other means of payment approve the money is received
5. I send the specifically sharpened/resized image for the output format to the printing-service (automatically, I don't have to do it myself for every order)
6. The images are printed and shipped to the customer. The printer charges me.

I can code 1-4 myself. The problem I have is what printing service offers an API so I can automate the ordering completely?

Solutions like a shopping cart with manual ordering is nothing I want to do because I may be on vacation or at a conference where I do not have access to all the tools I need.

Any suggestions? Also I prefer to use services like MPIX or eZprints over a local printer because they usually offer a wide range of products and also usually at a cheaper price.

p.s.: Yes, I will filter for high volume orders and check them myself before I fire out an 2000prints order to /dev/null. But the occasional 4 pictures from the last event order is nothing I want to handle myself every single time.

Asked by mmlac

Answer

Have a look at Pwinty http://www.pwinty.com . It's a nice simple API for ordering photos - and you don't need users to leave your site like the other options suggested.

they offer world wide shipping.

I don't think Peecho offers much in the way of prints and posters and doesnt't look like fotomoto offers what you want either

Answered by tgallard

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Is there any site with photos of photography masters?

Question

Is there some online collection of really great photos of great photographers, maybe with some comments giving hints on the reason of their greatness?

Asked by Paolo

Answer

If you want well-known masters of photography, then here are two sites.

Profotos has a lot of narrative about the photographers, with links to photographs.

Masters of Photography has a lot of images, but the site is littered with pop-up ads, so may put you off

Answered by MikeW

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What should I look for when choosing a stock web sites to sell through?

Question

I was reading Are stock photo sites a viable source of income? and thought I might give it ago.

However what are the things to look for when choosing a stock photo sites to sell on taking in to account:

• Range of seller features
• Submission Rules
• Submission Process
• Range of customers
• Ease of use
• Levels of payment
• Feedback

Also should I post the same images to each of the sites or focus on one?

Asked by John

Answer

This is hugely subjective. The 'best' for one person may be anathema to another. Personally, I would avoid micro-stock sites, that have vast collections of images from amateur photographers selling at a couple of quid each. You'd have to submit hundreds of images just to appear in searches, let alone make any sales.

I use Alamy for my photos, though I don't make regular sales. When I have sold a photo, it's usually been for about £100 or more. They will take any photo that is technically excellent (i.e. they don't filter by percieved artistic merit) and you specify when you upload the image whether you want to sell royalty-free or licenced.

A lot of newspapers get their images from Alamy - one of mine ended up in the Guardian. They do appear to have a significant customer base, however most of the time you won't know who has purchased an image. The only reason I knew of the one in the Guardian was because I came across it by accident - that was a nice surprise!

Anyway, they do pay well - they take 40% commission (though that increases to 50% for 'Novel Use', and 60% for distibutor sales), meaning you get more than half of the sale price for the majority of sales, and they allow you to see views, zooms and purchases of all your images on a day by day basis, including the keywords that were used when finding your photos, which helps in getting your keywords right. You can change photo details at any point after uploading (except the licence type), and you can indicate whether you have model and/or property release on photos that require it.

Check the BAPLA website for a comprehensive list of photo libraries in the UK.

Answered by Nick Miners

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Is it possible to embed a clickable url in an image? [closed]

Question

Is it in any way possible to add URLs or hyperlinks to photos? It's for adding to a web page. I know there is an image map option. But is it possible using any tool to directly add it to the image?

Asked by zapping

Answer

If I understand the question, you want embedded in your image a clickable URL. ChrisF and Mike have explained how to provide links in HTML, but what you are after is something permanently embedded in your image. Even an image map is an HTML construct that isn't permanently embedded in your image.

Adobe Flash and PDF files can contain clickable URLs if you want to do some work. PDF isn't ideal as it isn't universally accepted, and even Flash isn't available on all platforms.

I think you're best to rely on people see your website URL and typing it in themselves, unless you can ask web masters to link your images back to your site for you.

Answered by MikeW

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Is there an online Encyclopedia of Photographic Methods/Techniques, better than that in Wikipedia?

Question

Looking for a listing photographic methods/techniques just like this one on Wikipedia, but possibly better, any suggestions?

Answer

Online? Well not quite yet but hopefully this site will get there after a few years.

In the mean time The Focal Encyclopedia of Photography is a good read.

References.
Book review
Amazon books
Google Books

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What are good websites to buy second hand/after market lenses?

Question

Besides the obvious eBay and Craigslist, are there any good sites for second hand lenses?

Answer

KEH and B&H Photo would be the big two in the US. Other big camera dealers like Adorama also sell used gear.

B&H offers a 90 day warranty on used gear. KEH has a 6 month warranty and 14 day no questions asked return policy

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How to avoid jpeg compression artefacts when saving photos in web resolution?

Question

When I save a web-resolution image (for example, 1920×1024px), flat areas tints often have damaged shades of color. I'm saving in Photoshop CS4 with quality 2 in standard mode, because I need the files to be less than 300k. How can I make my JPEG images this small without the compression artefacts?

An example: http://www.screencast.com/users/capsize/folders/Jing/media/f858e229-1f05-431c-98ce-5334918aa1f3

Answer

If you save a JPEG image with an extremely low quality level, you WILL get compression artifacts. Its just a simple fact of JPEG lossy compression. If you wish to avoid compression artifacts, use a higher quality setting than 2. You won't need to save at maximum quality, as most images can be saved with a fairly low quality setting without noticeable loss in detail or visible artifacts.

One thing to note is that smooth gradients and JPEG do not mix well. JPEG compresses small blocks of the image, and when it comes to smooth gradients, it tends to make all the pixels in a block the same or very similar colors. This creates distinct banding (posterization) that can be quite visible. The only way around this is to use a higher quality setting, however that will obviously increase your file size.

An excellent article that might be of help can be found here:

• An Analysis of Lightroom JPEG Export Quality Settings

The above is for Lightroom, however the fundamental concept still applies to Photoshop. The important point from the article above is that the lower range of quality settings for JPEG tend to have a minor effect on image size, and it is only when you get to the upper few brackets that image size starts to climb by any significant degree. I would suspect that you could change your quality setting from 2 to 5 and only incur a small hit to your image size.

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Good websites to buy second hand/after market lenses

Question

Besides the obvious ebay and Craigslist are there any good sites for second hand lenses?

Answer

KEH and B&H Photo would be the big two in the US. Other big camera dealers like Adorama also sell used gear.

B&H offers a 90 day warranty on used gear. KEH has a 6 month warranty and 14 day no questions asked return policy

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What is a Picasa alternative for posting to a website?

Question

My love/hate relationship with Picasa just permanently tipped to hate I'm afraid. For no reason I can discern Picasa decided I didn't really mean to add yesterday's photos to an album and right in front of my eyes they disappeared. I don't want to waste any more time with Quirky Picasa.

What PC / web software is good for posting reduced-size (1600 pixels max width), tagged pix to the web? Cameras include iPhone (jpeg) and Canon DSLRs (jpeg & raw). The site's goals include:

• Family & friends should be able to see the photos I've added since their last visit, as well as show a guest the photos tagged "Aunt Gurty".
• People should be able to contact me to use photos for commercial purposes.

Answer

Lightroom is a great app for organisation and workflow and from version 3 you can set up your Flickr, Smugmug/Facebook, whatever sharing accounts, and post directly from within Lightroom once you're happy with your photo :-)

EDIT: Lightroom features website -- has a little video on there of publishing photos to external service. Flickr would also give you your ability to restrict access and use tags as you requested.

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Is it safe from a privacy and security point of view to display identifiable EXIF data on a public web site?

Question

Whenever I compare the exif data displayed by Flickr or the data on Lightroom (3.4), I can't avoid getting my mind blown for the simple fact that I never come to a software tool (for windows) with a nice interface that can display all the exif data that flickr does.

Related to that I have a bit of an uncomfortable feeling on this matter and wanted your opinion on this:

Is it safe from a point of view of privacy and security to display the lens serial number on the exif data?

I ask this because for one side I think it's secure to have this info on the picture, but I found a bit of privacy evading having that info displayed. Since I can not see this info in Lightroom I've no idea on how to edit or hide it.

Answer

I'm answering the more general question about EXIF data, rather than the specific question about the lens serial number.

It probably depends on how paranoid you are, and how much you have to hide (for example if you have a security clearance or are committing activities that might be illegal (or could become illegal in the future) or violate social norms, such as trespassing to take pictures inside an abandoned building). If you regularly post your activities on sites like Facebook, Twitter, or FourSquare, you probably don't need to be worrying about what the EXIF data in your photos might reveal. If you're more jealous of your privacy, you may care.

Time and date info in EXIF data can be an issue: someone mining your EXIF data could establish patterns (you go for a photo walk, away from your home, every Saturday afternoon; you regularly pass through an out-of-the-way place on your way to work/school/church; the length of your typical photo vacation could be calculated), or prove that you were at one location when you were supposed to be somewhere else (your boss or HR checking up on your activities when you call in sick; an insurance company questioning why you were on a moderately-strenuous trail when you're supposed to be resting after a workplace accident; a potential employer looking to see if you frequently take photos that would interfere with your working hours).

Someone could identify targets that carry lots of expensive photo equipment by looking at the range of focal lengths used or perhaps lens-identification in EXIF data, or by deeper analysis like, "this shutter speed at this time of day requires a tripod and filters, and since the wind was clearly gusting it must have been a high-quality tripod").

I'm sure that more sophisticated analysis (such as learning about your personality or habits based on commonly-used focal lengths, white balance, or other settings) could be done, too, but that's not something I understand well enough to be able to comment on.

If you regularly include EXIF data and then one time you don't include the EXIF data, that could indicate that you're trying to hide something.

If you're concerned enough about privacy or security that you want to strip EXIF data, you may also want to consider falsifying the EXIF data, which of course is a lot more work.

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How can I use the images on Bing legally?

Question

I would like to use the images that appear on Bings homepage, can I just use these or will I need to link to these, publish them with a photo credit, or have written permission?

Answer

No. See the ⓘ symbol in the lower right corner of the image on Bing, right next to the arrows for previous and next image? That shows you the copyright information for that particular image. You could follow that information and get a license — most of the images are from stock photo agencies and I doubt Bing has an exclusive right to them.

Note that clicking the ⓘ doesn't take you to a licensing page. It takes you to a web search for the title of the image, which tends to lead to all sorts of different places. You'll need to investigate each rights-holder a little more closely on your own.

Note 2: this is really off-topic for this site. I'm voting for it to be closed as off-topic even though I hope this answer helps you.

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Where can I find posing guides & resources online?

Question

What resources are available online to give ideas for poses. Is there some type of catalogue of common poses?

Answer

Firstly: I strongly second @kacalapy with his recommendation of Digital Photography School.

Second, here are a few sites I've found:

• Free Digital Photography Tutorials have a couple of nice pages (lots of clear examples nicely explained here and here
• Jonathan Souer has a step-by-step guide here
• I know this isn't online, but my go-to reference is actually a book on wedding photography, The Master Posing Guide for Wedding Photographers by Bill Hurter. He explains lots of principles and practice with plenty of example images. Anything by Bill is worth considering in this area.
• To answer your request for a catalogue of poses, another book: 500 Poses for Photographing Women by Michelle Perkins.

Finally, I carry a cribsheet with me which contains the following advice:

1. Check BACKGROUND
2. Stand subject THREE QUARTERS to light
3. WEIGHT on back foot
4. FACE 7/8 to camera
5. HEAD tilt slightly (near shoulder for ladies, far shoulder for men)
6. EYES -> camera
7. ARMS away from body (lift elbows / hold something / hands in pockets)
8. SHOOT slightly down on subject

I hope that's some help.

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What software do I need to create a panorama inside a cylinder to publish on the web?

Question

Googling I found on the net reference to sphere panoramas, but I'm not interested in looking up or down, just to the front. My image is a just rectangular, a very wide panorama and I wanted to create a view of it, as if one is inside a cylinder and the inside walls have the texture applied to it. If possible I wanted to publish it to the web.

Answer

Found a way to it with WebGL library threejs, demo here: http://nunocruz.me/panorama/ Feel free to view the source code of the page and use it if you want to do the same and if you have any questions about it just ask!

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What are the main advantages of purchasing Photoshop over the free online version?

Question

What are the main advantages of purchasing Photoshop (subscription or one off payment) over the free online version?

I am aware that:

• Internet Access it required
• The "heal" tool is not fully automatic (like CS5)

Personally i prefer the online heal tool, as it makes it easier to select a source area.

I am asking if anyone knows of any formats not supported, size limits (pixels or bytes), or any other deal breakers for you?

Answer

Well, first thing I saw when trying to upload an image is a dialog saying that it only supports JPEG images of at most 16 megapixels, so I guess it answers the most part of your question.

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What solution should I use for cataloging photos for private sharing?

Question

I'm seeking a solution for cataloging many thousands of images. Each photo will be tagged and categorized to become searchable by a small group of private people. I've considered any combination with Lightroom, a custom Wordpress theme, and a private Flickr gallery. Does any one have any additional suggestions?

Answer

Picasa Web Albums work best. It meets the following of your requirements:

• You can catalog a large number of photos (you may need to purchase additional storage from Google based on image resolution, but its relatively cheap)

• You can tag individuals and add categories.

• You can customize your privacy settings and sharing options.

• It's really easy to set-up, use and share.

I have experimented with SlideShowPro, Flickr and Facebook but found Picasa the best option for private sharing.

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What web-based expert resources for Nikon are similar to The Digital Picture for Canon?

Question

I've followed Canon photo products for years and I can't go past this great expert resource on Canon cameras, lenses and few other accessories photographer should know about and read before buying anything new.

I used Canon non-digital SLR for years, and never really bothered to buy myself a digital version. But I decided to do so this spring.

The thing is that I can buy second hand Nikon DSLR. I know the owner so I know that camera is tip top and not much used. But I'm hesitant on Nikon lenses. Which ones provide good value for the money etc.

That's why I'm looking for similar web expert resources but focused on Nikon products.

Answer

Try Thom Hogan's site. He is a professional photographer who uses Nikon gear and writes a lot about them and I do mean a lot. Unlike another Nikon photographer, his opinions are usually very well balanced.

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How can I ensure proper color rendition with browsers on wide gamut displays?

Question

When editing for the web, everyone will recommend you to use sRGB, since a lot of browsers don't offer color management, and most browsers will interpret all images as being sRGB anyway.

This is correct for browsers used on normal gamut displays, which live in sRGB themselves.

Now enter wide gamut displays. These live in AdobeRGB color space, and to my dismay on a wide gamut display browsers without color management will interpret image data as being in AdobeRGB color space, too. What happens if sRGB image data is interpreted as AdobeRGB? The colors are off, too strong, it looks gaudy.

The problem even continues when using a browser with colormanagement like FireFox, but viewing pictures without embedded profile: the pictures will be interpreted as AdobeRGB instead of sRGB.

In short: since I got my wide gamut display flickr looks awful.

Any ideas how I get my browsers (Internet Explorer and FireFox) to use sRGB instead of AdobeRGB for color rendition as default?

I'm using Windows 7.

Funny thing, when I download the images to the local drive and use a file viewer to view them, the color is correctly interpreted as sRGB.

Answer

Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do that is practical. To get what you want, you have to set your system profile to sRGB.

The behavior of image color rendition for images with no attached profiles is undefined. Browsers don't guess what color space an image is in, if no profile is attached. The operating system handles that.

The proper way to get color rendition correctly, is to attach a profile to the image. Obviously flickr (and smugmug thumbnails) do not give you this option.

So you have two choices: one, set windows to use sRGB as your monitor profile; then all non-tagged images will look like sRGB, but tagged images will look like crap, and your color management will be wack.

Or, just deal with the fact that unmanaged images are the devil and there is nothing you can do about it.

Perhaps there is a firefox plugin that can auto attach a color profile, but outside of that, it's just a plain old suck that is known as color management.

I've had to deal with this same issue with Smugmug. My images all have attached sRGB profiles, so they look great (in color managed browsers), but thumbnails looks oversaturated. It's because the thumbs are autogenerated, and smugmug refuses to attach a color profile to them, because it doubles the size of the thumbnail. So the thumbs render in whatever the way the OS decides to render them.

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What software shows the most accurate version of a photograph for web viewing?

Question

I have a photo (photo_A.jpg), taken on a post-sunset beach, for which I want to reduce some noise. I do so using the luminance noise reduction technique from Adobe Camera Raw, open the image in Photoshop CS5, and save another version (photo_B.jpg) of the photo. The settings used to save the JPEG were: maximum quality (12) and the Baseline("Standard") format option.

Now when I observe both the versions using Picasa 3, I see that there is quite considerable color loss in photo_B. But when I compare them using Windows Photo Gallery or even Photoshop CS5, I don't see any color loss!

In fact, the only change I see between A and B is the exact noise reduction that I'd hoped for. So, I decided to upload both the pics on Flickr and see what it looks like. And guess what... I see the same color loss for photo_B on Flickr as well.

As a result, I have the following questions:

1. Should I trust Picasa more than Photoshop to 'view' my images?
2. What would be the best software to view the images, so I can expect that that's exactly how they'll look online?
3. Am I missing something very basic while saving the images from Photoshop?

I hardly dabble with color profiles etc. and hence have little knowledge about them.

Answer

Since you can't do anything about the color management of other people's monitors, the best you can do is:

1. Make sure your own system is properly color managed (see color-management). That way, you are at least certain that you're starting from a known point. This is really worth doing even though it takes some effort and probably a small expense (which could perhaps be shared with a friend.) If you're hesitant to go down the whole rabbit hole, both Windows 7 and Mac OS X come with basic tools for visually winging it — better than nothing. (Or use http://displaycalibration.com/.)
2. Work in the sRGB color space. I know this seems uncool given that there are wider-gamut spaces with names like "Adobe RGB" or "ProPhoto" (and pro must be better, right?), but I find it best to work in the space that is the target. That way, you don't get surprises due to gamut clipping or shifts when you go to make your final output. (See note below.)
3. Save in sRGB. This is the defacto standard — that is, by industry agreement, it is the assumption that any uncalibrated setup should do a decent job of displaying sRGB images to a reasonable approximation of the original. Sometimes the approximation is awful enough to make color fanatics cringe, but that's the cruel reality of the world.
4. And then, make sure you look at your images in various web browsers on as many different systems as you can to make sure they're okay. Or at least approximately okay. Uploading to Flickr and looking at it there is exactly the right thing to do, if you expect the photos to be viewed on Flickr as the final presentation. To answer the "what software" question directly, the answer is the software that will be used in the end — a web browser.

Oh, and in case it the above doesn't make it clear, my guess as to what's going on is that your JPEGs (either originally from the camera or from a setting in the RAW conversion) are using a color space other than sRGB — probably Adobe RGB, since that's the most common alternative. The programs where the photo looks as you expect understand how to properly deal with that, and the programs where it looks wrong are rendering the data as if it were sRGB.

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_{Footnote: If you're worried about working in the constrained sRGB color space instead of a wider gamut, keep your RAW originals. Then, you can redo this decision later for a different output medium. There are good reasons for the other color spaces and I don't mean to disparage them or their use. They're just not what you want here.}

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