Wavelet Sharpening Plugin

[Denis de Gannes]

When using this plugin is it advisable to turn off the regular default sharpening in ASP.

[bananahead]

When using this plugin is it advisable to turn off the regular default sharpening in ASP.

Yes. And the default settings are quite aggressive. I have a preset that has much lower values as a starting point.

[MeneM]

Would it be possible to share?

I'm still trying out the settings, and I simply don't understand it well enough..
Why two wavelets? What is a gradient, etc.

So any settings you have would be appreciated!

[ogrizzo]

Why two wavelets?

So that you can apply it twice with different values.

What is a gradient?

It balances the softness induced by the AA filter.

Valery Landon has written up an excellent explanation here: http://bibble-photos.org/wavelet-sharpen

[Denis de Gannes]

When using this plugin is it advisable to turn off the regular default sharpening in ASP.

Yes. And the default settings are quite aggressive. I have a preset that has much lower values as a starting point.

Thanks for the heads up.

[spoilerhead]

Please see : http://support.bibblelabs.com/forums/vi ... 417#p99417

Me, too. uum, wait, i wrote that 8O

Usually I just use "Sharpen 1", i.e. the upper Wavelet controls.
Radius 0.3 Amount 30, Edge 100 gives a good starting point for me.

Be sure to turn off ASP sharpening first, else WaveletSharpen will resharpen the already sharpened edges.

When we get a dedicated ASP Forum i'll create a plugin thread including some explainations there.

Meanwhile:

Gradient sharpen: this is a very special sharpening to counter basic AA unsharpness. It doesn't work well with every camera, but wonders on others. Shipping defaults are good settings for it.

USM This is classical USM Sharpening with large Radius settings.
Best used with: Radius 50, Amount 0-100, clarity mode checked. This gives a decent Local Contrast enhancement, similar to the much asked "Clarity" function.

"clarity mode" means that the changes get applied with a luminance based mask, i.e. 100% at mid luminances, and less on darker or brighter one (and 0 on pure black or white)
this might also be desirable for sharpening.

Wavelet Sharpen is, well, wavelet sharpening, a (superior) algorithmn to USM.
Amount is Amount, Radius is Radius.
Edge is very special, as the WS plugin includes an edge detection algoritm, so the WS only gets applied to edges (setting@100) This avoid a lot of sharpening artifacts. If you set 'Edge' to 0 the edge detection is disabled, settings in between are blends of that 2 extremes.
If your image contains fine structures in low contrast areas you might want to turn it down to give more sharpness to those structures.


Just Set amount to 200 and then play with the edge slider to understand what it does.

[claudermilk]

When referring to the old Bibble board threads, keep in mind the settings may not translate exactly. I am finding that my settings on Wavelet Denoise are radically different than before (I tend to use both Wavelet plugins together). Still trying to come to grips with the changes on these & ASP.

One of the first things I did was set the defaults for the stock sharpen & denoie to off.

[ashmoore]

just to point out, that post was written four days ago by Spoilerhead specifically about ASP, its location in the still in use Bibble forums does not change its validity.
I would also presuppose the plugin author to be a good source of information, just saying

[nyukuri]

Hi,
going through this forum, again and again one is advised to switch off the standard ASP sharpening and to always use Wavelet Sharpen instead. Of course the non-flexibility of standard ASP sharpening is disappointing, but I still find it gives great results!
The Wavelet plugin is of course superior with its many options and it is great on architecture I think, but anything with foliage in green nature/landscape, I mostly prefer the standard ASP sharpener.
Am I just "too blind" to see what is good or does anyone have a similar view?
I do love Wavelet Sharpen, but when I compare it's results on foliage, I never get the same good(!) result as with the standard sharpening, no matter how much I tweak around...

[afx]

Am I just "too blind" to see what is good or does anyone have a similar view?

It very much depends on image content.
The old Bibble 5 sharpening was never a killer, but mostly ok. In AS they messed it up, so it can create color artifacts making it not that trustworthy.
Therefore using WS instead is often the safer route.
if you then also like to beef up micro-contrast for which no native method is available in AS, WS starts to become the default.

cheers
afx

[herman]

Am I just "too blind" to see what is good or does anyone have a similar view?

I would say it depends on your camera, Bayer filter, AA filter, ISO setting (noise!), lenses and personal taste.
For my current camera and lenses I tend to agree with you, the standard ASP sharpening gives (in the absence of noise) pretty good results.
For my previous cameras the situation is different, they need other methods for sharp results.
However, with my current camera and lenses I prefer actually not to sharpen at all

[nyukuri]

independently of my cameras, I find the ASP sharpener ON FOLIAGE much better than Wavelet!

Wavelet sharpening creates LIGHT Halos, even with clarity mode enabled, edges are enhanced more or less by white lines..
the original ASP sharpener enhances edges more through dark lines...

now on foliage the darker edges just seem to be shadows the leaf is throwing; the white edges of wavelet sharpening look unnatural on foliage. Note, I am purely speaking about foliage! in images of architecture etc, I prefer the Wavelet plugin too!

[andysalay]

Wavelet sharpening creates LIGHT Halos, even with clarity mode enabled, edges are enhanced more or less by white lines..
the original ASP sharpener enhances edges more through dark lines...

now on foliage the darker edges just seem to be shadows the leaf is throwing; the white edges of wavelet sharpening look unnatural on foliage. Note, I am purely speaking about foliage!

Interesting. Could you please post some samples for comparison, and if you don't mind, even your RAW for trying it out?
Thank you. Maybe someone would call me pixelpeeper, but I too look at these details carefully, and I love nature and landscape shooting.

Regards,
Andy Salay

[nyukuri]

Just on foliage I prefer ASP sharpener
even if you are not "pixel peeping" you can see that Wavelet Sharpen renders the whole image a bit lighter due to the enhancement of light edges, while ASP sharpener more or less keeps "exposure"

I do prefer Wavelet sharpener when it comes to artifacts with ASP sharpener, then I switch to Wavelet...

[richards]

I remember reading something on the old Bibble forum about different Wavelet 1 starting settings for different cameras. Are there any suggestions for ASP? Cameras are Pentax K-5 and K200D.