Soft Images

I use CS4 to edit images in iPhoto. When I move the image from iPhoto to the burn folder it is no longer sharp.

If you crop, you do not have the same image quality as the original since you threw some of the image away with the crop.
It is also possible that you specified a new image size when you were using the crop tool.
There are many ways that an image can be trashed. Without seeing what you started with and what you ended up with, it is difficult to give pointers on what went wrong and how to avoid it in the future. That is why you should always work on a back-up. Do you use Apple's TimeMachine backup tool?

Similar Messages

Soft images in Bridge/ PS CS4

Hi, I'm wondering if anyone here who uses PS CS4 & Bridge can help me with an issue that has been bugging me for a while. I am at the point where I am considering selling my gear and reinvesting in something else, both in terms of software and hardware.
I shoot with a Sony A700 and a number of lenses (nifty fifty, sigma 24-70 DG HSM, Tamron 90mm 2.8) and have noticed that no matter what I shoot the images look a lot bright, softer and fuzzy when i get them onto the PC (even considering that the pc screen is so much bigger than the a700's screen).
I have noticed that when I view the images in Bridge, there is a short period of time before bridge has loaded all the images that the image thumbnails themselves appear nice and sharp (as i see them on the cameras screen), then a split second later they are changed so that they all look brighter and a lot softer. If I "purge cache for selection" then the thumbnail appears nice and sharp again. Then when I open the image - which takes me to ACR in photoshop the nasty processing is reapplied.
Is bridge applying some kind of processing or profile to all the images before i even get round to processing them myself? It is ruining my pictures and I am at my wits end with it.When the images are opened in ACR the brightness has been ramped up (although i cant remember the exact settings that are listed as i am at work and my pc is at home), and changing the settings to "As shot" makes no difference at all.
What am I missing? What settings are being applied by the software (this also happens when i load the images straight from CS4 and cut out Bridge altogether) that makes the images look so much worse than they should? I'm fed up with the images loading all soft and a fair bit brighter than they should be. Trying to manually get the images back to where they should be in terms of clarity and brightness/ contrast has so far proved to be impossible, for me at least. And besides, I shouldnt need to be doing this in the first place!
I should also note that I am obviously talking about RAW images and not JPEGS!
Look forward to any suggestions as to what is going on??!

What you are seeing here is the processing, or lack of processing, of the Raw image. Raw is just that it is unprocessed. The image you see on the camera and for a brief instant in Bridge is the jpeg image (embedded thumbnail) the camera generates.
The is a lot of stuff in ACR that could affect this, and I am no expert. I recommend you copy and post this question in the camera raw forum. http://forums.adobe.com/community/cameraraw?view=discussions
When you get a concise answer that gets you sharp images please post it here so others that come across this thread can benefit.
Message was edited by: Curt Y Shooting Raw is not for everybody as it does take more effort to process than a jpeg. Just depends on the subject matter, what you want to do with final picture, and how much you like to tinker with the image. If you find you like the pictures as shot, then use Raw only for tricky exposure shots that might require more manipulation to get a good image.

Soft images in Slideshow

When I go to view my images in View>Slideshow they are very soft almost blurred. The thumbnails are fine as are the preview images in Bridge.
If I left click on the image in slideshow and zoom on the image it becomes sharp, when I right click to zoom back to full image it becomes blurred again.
This is very annoying as I have used the manual slideshow in CS3 to quickly assess and rate my images with no problems.
What am I doing wrong? Please help

Most of the problems in slide show are realated to the video card or driver. Make sure you have the latest driver installed.
If this does not work in advanced preferences click "use software rendering" and see it that solves problem.

Exporting a Frame yields soft image

I've been using CS4 for about 2 months now. So far I've been happy with it. Can anyone tell me why the resulting exported frame from my Timeline ends up soft or blurry? I've tried following the manual instructions and have tried all the different formats to no avail. Everything works except it ends up soft. I used this feature a lot in Premiere Pro 1.5 with no problem. I would appreciate any help very much.
HP x8600
Microsoft Windows xp
Service Pack 3
3GB ram
2.83 Ghz
Matrox RT.x2
NVDIA Quadro FX3700

First thing that I would do is to set my Program Monitor to 100% or even 200% and judge the footage there, before Export to still image. How does your chosen frame look there? The sharpness of a frame of Video will depend on several factors, such as subject motion, camera motion, type/size of camera sensors and effective shutter angle. When looking to Export a still, I always judge frames in that area of the Clip, to pick the best one.
To date, I have never had an issue with the quality of the ExportedFframe - it looks just like the one that I chose to Export.
Most of the problems with Export Frame in CS4 had to do with it being moved to the AME sub-application. CS4.1 moved it back.
Good luck,
Hunt

External Editing Soft Images

I import Canon Raw files from my 5D's into Lightroom on my Mac. I have noticed that when I edit them in Photoshop that the grain in the image which I have deliberately put there is too soft in the resulting Tiff. If I export as a DNG then edit that as a tiff through Bridge the resulting Tiff is very crisp.
Can anyone help?
Robert

Ihave tried the save thing and it makes no difference.
Here is what I do.
1. Import Canon raw file.
2. Turn it to greyscale.
3. Alter the channels until I get a grainy image
4. Right mouse click and select Edit in PShop
5. The grain in the resulting image is very soft
If I:- do steps one to 3 then
4. Export as dng
5. Open dng in Bridge
6. Open dng in PShop
7. resulting file has sharp crisp grain.

Soft Image after rendering

Hi,
First time poster, long time reader.
I shot something in regular 24p mode and edited it in Final Cut Pro HD. After putting on a 1:85 filter and adjusting the framing of the footage, some of the shots went soft. I've noticed that there was also color correction done to some of the shots.
A friend recommended that I upgrade to 5.1 since HD and 4.5 seemed to have bugs in it. I did. Image is still soft. Racking my brain for days. Ca do without the color correct. but framing change is a must.
1. Does anyone know about this problem, or has encountered it before?
2. Is there a way to go around this problem outside of the normal fcp
schematics?
Any help or advice is appreciated.
Thanks,
Marcel

Are you judging any of this on an external monitor, or the computer monitors? Never use the computers monitors to judge quality of your image.
Shane

Soft images in Bridge full screen preview

This has seemed to plague Bridge for a couple of years now… thought that the CS6 update would fix it. This is reproducible on a variety of Macs with and without external displays, all running the latest OS and Adobe updates.
With 100% previews selected in the preferences and a recently purged cache, browse to a directory of images.
Preview the first image by selecting it and pressing the space bar:
Arrow to the right to preview the second image in the folder. Then arrow left to review the original image:
Notice how blurry it becomes. And subsequent images are rendered blurry.
Hit the escape key to exit and space bar again to re-enter the full screen preview.
There is possibly some non integral sub-pixel calculations going on, making the image blurry. Clicking once on the image brings up a 100% label at the top and the image almost corrects itself.
This should be a priority one fix.
What is Bridge? Adobe® Bridge CS6 digital asset management software is a powerful photo and design organizer that provides centralized access to all your creative blurry assets.

Welcome to my world. If you search a bit, you should find a few discussions on related topics.
Your problem sounds like something I see intermittently. Occasionally, Bridge seems incapable of generating a decent full-screen preview. I generally work around this by purging the folder's cache and/or restarting Bridge.
CS6's Bridge has been reworked quite a lot. It's now 64-bit, and the internal database has been changed to a different system. However, I still see Bridge generating thumbnails and previews unnecessarily, which suggests to me that more work needs to be done.
One thing I learned recently is that Bridge uses the graphcs hardware to generate previews, so it may be worth trying the Use Software Rendering setting in Preferences (if there is one on CS6 for Mac), to see if it makes any difference. If it did, you may have an issue with your graphics cards and/or software and/or settings.

Quick Preview toggle - images appear very soft?

I have noticed that when using Quick Preview to run through images in my projects all images appear sharp, however if I toggle quick preview off and then back on again the image never sharpens.
This is similar to the effect you would get on first view, i.e. an initial soft image that sharpens when loading completes.
Has anyone else noticed this?

Hi guys:
I came searching for this same problem and only happened upon a solution (at least for me) very accidently. In my case the "softness" doesn't seem to be actually linked to the "quick preview" toggle.
When I pull down the "view" menu from the top of the screen, I pass the "quick preview" command and go down to the bottom to "Proofing Profiles". The profile for the proofing was set to one of many of my printer's profiles, which was not calibrated, yet, for my mac. I selected, instead, a previously saved calibration setting (one that I made using the simple calibration wizard under the monitor system preference) specifically for my monitor, and the viewer image changed to look exactly as the one in Browser thumbnail; sharp and detailed.
I certainly hope that this may help you. As I said, this is not based on in-depth knowledge of this program, just trial and error, so may not apply to your situation.
Good Luck
Arcody

Images exported using Leopard are soft compared to Tiger.

I've been working on exporting images for client preview and noticed that the images I'm exporting under Leopard seem a bit soft. I checked my export settings and everything looks the same as it did under Tiger.
For comparisons sake, I exported several images that had previously been exported under Tiger and there is a definite difference. Side-by-side, the images exported using Leopard are much softer than the images exported using Tiger. The edits on these images were all previously done using Tiger.
Has anyone else noticed this?
I'm using 1.5.6 on 10.5.1.
Thank you!
Cheers,
Anthony
Message was edited by: Barbatto - Fixed Subject Line

Janet Taylor wrote:
Everything looks fine for me from Aperture and LR. I did a clean install of Leopard and all my apps on a Macbook Pro. Are you looking at images in photoshop to compare them? Preview is not a reliable way to check for sharpness right now, since some rocket scientist decide it would be cool if you couldn't scale in set increments anymore, and the randomly scaled rendition can be very soft. As a follow-on to that thought, are the images on your web site displaying at the size you exported them at? If they're being scaled on the web page, and safari is using the same rendering engine as Preview, it's possible that it's making the images look soft.
hope i said something useful.
Hi Janet,
Hmmm, perhaps the fresh install is the way to go? I'm using Photo Mechanic view the exported images, not Preview or Safari. I only mentioned Preview in an earlier thread because in other discussions I've found, Preview appears to exhibit some of the same softness that myself and a few others are experiencing with our Aperture exports.
Here's a screen grab of two images rendered side-by-side in PhotoMechanic. The top image was exported using Tiger while the bottom image was exported using Leopard. The actual edits on the image (white balance, sharpness, etc) were done previously in Tiger. The only thing I did to the image in Leopard was export it.
http://www.barbatto.com/misc/comparison.jpg
In this example, it's pretty obvious that the image exported with Leopard is much softer. Also note that the file size is slightly smaller for the Leopard exported image.
As for the images on my website, most of them were exported with Aperture under Tiger. Since I've upgraded to Leopard and have been experiencing soft images, I've been using Canon's Digital Photo Professional to export any newer shots I've placed on my site.
Regarding Lightroom, I installed the trial and its exports were flawless. They don't exhibit any of the softness I am experiencing with Aperture.
So, right now, I'm at a loss. I experience this softness on both my MacPro and MacBook Pro. It should be noted that both machines were upgraded. Perhaps I should take some time and do a clean install on one of the machines and see if my results are any different. Or keep my fingers crossed that 10.5.2 will solve my problems
Thanks for your comments!
Cheers,
Anthony

Optimizing Images directly in Indesign??

Is there an option to optimizing your linked images directly in Indesign? I'm looking to select an image and have Indesign take its layout scale and apply that to the image file optimizing the linked image to constrain it's proportions to that which it is sized on the page in the layout in Indesign. I know that I'm able to have the option to edit original file and then do this sizing in Photoshop. But with hundreds of photos that have a multitude of different layouts and scales in contrast to their original files and to one another there must be a way to quickly have Indesign recognize the image's scaled size in the layout and optimize the original file to be that in proportion with its scaled size within layout, right??

When you output the file to PDF you can use the Compression Settings to automatically reduce the Resolution of the image to the size - basically it optimises the image size and resolution while making the PDF.
When you resize an image to fit a particular resolution and size in Photoshop - InDesign uses the exact same method.
The only problem with this is that when resample an image you usually need to Sharpen the image a small bit - or sometimes not at all - it's purely down to the sort of image it is - if it's a soft image then you probably wouldn't need to sharpen it, if it's a hard image with lots of detail and edge contrats then you probably would need to Sharpen the image when you resample it to a different size and resolution.
In about 10 years - I generally don't resample an image in Photoshop for output - I set the Compression settings in InDesign and let InDesign do the work - for the type of images I usually use I would never need to sharpen them as the difference is neglibile for the audience reading the material.
Howver, there are times like in Art catalogues or very high-end printing I would need to sharpen the images - and that's the only time I generally resample Images in photoshop.
There are some plugins that will do go through all the images and resample (not sure if it gives the option to add a sharpening filter?) but there are some out there - this one springs to mind
http://zevrix.com/linkoptimizer.php
But I don't think for the general public it's very important to add the sharpening filter - perhaps architecture, art, fine magazines etc where quality is an absolute must - then yes.

How to up the DPI on exported images from Final Cut

Is there a way to export stills from Final Cut that are 300 DPI, I think they are exporting at 72 DPI?
Catherine

DPI is a measure of density of pixels. It tells us nothing about the printed size of the image (width in inches x height in inches)
A 1200 x 900 image @ 300 dpi yields a 4" x 3" image when printed.
That same size (in pixels) image printed at 100 dpi will yield a 12" x 9" print.
The number of picture elements (pixels) is exactly the same between the two prints but the one in 100dpi image are 3x larger - which will yield a softer image when viewed from the same distance as the 4"x3" 300dpi image.
However, if you view the 300dpi 4"x3" print from 2' away and view the 100dpi 12"x9" print from 6' away - they will appear the same.
Discussions of finding meaning in DPI is difficult without knowing how the final will be viewed.
fwiw - I've made poster size prints at 75 dpi that looked just fine when viewed from 10-12'.
x

Image processor script and image interpolation setting (cs3)

Hi all,
I'm using Bridge & Photoshop CS3 (mac) to process batches of photographs. I've discovered that the script "Image Processor" does not take into account the "image interpolation" setting of my General Preferences in Photoshop.
It's very painful, because I cannot use "Image Processor" any longer, as it produces soft images where I need sharp ones (my default for "image interpolation" is "bicubic sharper".
Any idea/workaround?
thanks
Patrick

This is the change I made in CS5 fit image
    // resize the image using a good conversion method while keeping the pixel resolution
    // and the aspect ratio the same
    //app.activeDocument.resizeImage(newWidth, newHeight, resolution, ResampleMethod.BICUBIC); Commented out JJMACK
    if ( newWidth > app.activeDocument.width || newHeight > app.activeDocument.height ) {
        if (!limit) {app.activeDocument.resizeImage(newWidth, newHeight, resolution, ResampleMethod.BICUBICSMOOTHER);}
    else { app.activeDocument.resizeImage(newWidth, newHeight, resolution, ResampleMethod.BICUBICSHARPER); }
Note: Adobe choice to use BICUBIC is probally the best choice for users in general. For I find an images has been sharpened before its downsizes, downsizimg it using BICUBICSHARPER is not the best choice then.

How to open an SGI RGB image file.

I have some old SGI rgb files that I would like to open in Photoshop Elements. I now have version 8. I used to have an older version and were able to open these files.
Looking at the doc for 8, I see:
In addition, Photoshop Elements can open files in several other older formats: Photoshop 2.0, Pixel Paint, Alias Pix, IFF format, Portable bitmap, SGI® RGB, Soft Image, Wavefront RLA, and ElectricImage. You can also save files in the following formats: Alias PIX, IFF format, Photoshop 2.0, and PICT Resource.
So, it sounds like this should work. But, it doesn't. What must I do to open these files?
I found the quote here:
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/PhotoshopElements/8.0/Mac/Using/WSae2ea3b149d0c3591ae939f10386 0b3d59-7f2c.html
Note, I am on a Mac.
-John

As far as i know that's a misprint in the elements manuals.
Here's a plugin that should work for sgi files:
http://www.telegraphics.com.au/sw/info/sgiformat.html
Even though it says photoshop it should work with elements.
MTSTUNER

Does Photoshop CS6 autosharpen resized images?

Hi all,
I've been using Photoshop for my Photography for quite a long time and I have recently upgraded to Photoshop CS6. Whenever I resize my images in CS6, I get the feel (from looking at the images) that the application has autosharpened my images! I am quite sure about that effect because my resizing principles have remained the same since using CS5. And in CS5, whenever I resized to that same size I am resizing in CS6, I used to run the Unsharp Mask Filter to get my images look at their best! So there must be something going under the hood in CS6, or am I missing something obvious? Basically, I want to be in total control as to how much sharpness I want to apply to my resized images!!
regards,
Ali

In fact Adobe added the new interpolation method Bicubic Automatic new in CS6 and Adobe change Adobe's default Photoshop's Interpolation preference setting to the new method. However Adobe did not do a good job adding the new feature. If you leave Photoshop Preference set to Bicubic Automatic you may run into problems if you use scripts that transform things. For if the script tries to retrieve, change and restore your Photoshop Interpolation method Photoshop will wind up with an internal error. There are many bugs in CS6 this is one Adobe has not address yet.
Bicubic Sharper may work well on large un-sharpened soft images. It does not work well on images that have been sharpened.
Adobe scripts like the Fit Image Plug-in always uses Bicubic interpolation. Layer Transforms prior to CS6 always used Photoshop Preference Interpolation method. That is why the script I write retrieve this setting change it to Bicubic , transform then restore the Preference. CS6 now let the user set the interpolation method for some forms of layer transforms not all.

Loss of resolution when using color

I have been sending my project to color and when it arrives in color it is noticeably softer and when it returns to FCP and is put next to original clip it does not have the same resolution. I am sending it using the AJA Kona LH 720p 23fr 8 bit codec and not changing the settings in color. If I take all the original clips and make 10 bit movies of them and put them on a timeline they go over and back with the same resolution, however if I try to export 10bit from the timeline I still get soft images. Is there something I am missing in this process? Also the color is vastly different between FCP and Color so I am always guessing what it will look like when it gets back to FCP I am using a Panasonic BT LH1700wp High defintion monitor. Thanks for your help.

Always a challenge to start approaching a situation like this that appears to have some global problems -- ie, its probably not the application, because it works for so many other users in a completely predictable manner, so ... we're left with guesswork.
I'm not sure if I understand that the AJA Kona LH 720p 23fr 8 bit format is a "codec" per se. Is it DVCProHD or not? Or are you actually trying to send some form of RGB?
Seems like something is happening when 10-bit is exported that COLOR seems to have less of a problem with. When you export 10 bit... is that Uncompressed? Is there any "scaling" going on? Even if its in the background, ie 720 up to 1080, not recommended, especially if there is an anamorphic conversion going on.
If there is a vast color difference, then using an external grading solution doesn't appear to be the right choice in this instance. In effect, its a direct violation of 'do no harm'... guesswork is not acceptable. I don't know what a BT LH1700wp is, what it looks like, or how its fed, or what its calibrated to, or what its doing internally... If you are also monitoring the FCP output with the same path and the picture being fed to it still reproduces differently, (even eliminating possible internal FCP settings which may not be working in High Precision), there is not much to go on here...
Keep stabbing away...
jPo

Soft Images

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