I just discovered DXO PhotoLab

[Joanna (Joanna Carter)]

@OldSubSailor

This should be a link for the port side photo of the FLEX RESOLUTE, and hopefully all the required files that you need.

Actually, you really don’t need to create the DNG file. PL will link the RAW file and its DOP sidecar to show exactly what you have done in the way of alterations.

I downloaded the RAW and DOP files and can see what you have done and would like to suggest a couple of things…

At the moment, you are using the “1 - DxO Standard” preset as your default for new RAW images. This then does a lot of unnecessary stuff, which you can easily end up having to undo. I would suggest that you change it to “2 - DxO Optical Corrections only”, which will not affect what you see half as much.

I am guessing you have tried to “sharpen” up the image by using ClearView Plus at a level of 50. In a word - don’t do this! ClearView Plus is quite aggressive and there are other tools like fine contrast that are much more subtle and controllable. If you still think you need to use ClearView Plus (on things like fog, etc) only use it at less than about 12. But, in this image, it isn’t necessary and only serves to degrade the image.

@OldSubSailor

If I did things correctly, the latest links were shot at f8. and as Joanna said, even I can see the difference between the f8 and f16 shots

The shot I downloaded was taken at f/8 but this isn’t what might make it somewhat soft. Unless you mean that the f/16 shot was softer.

You say you focused at about 650m (0.35nm) with a focal length of 120mm, which would give you a depth of field at f/8 from about 59m to infinity - this should not cause any noticeable softness on the ship.

But I would ask why you are using apertures wider than f/10 - or is it that you are using an ISO of only 64 and want to avoid movement blur? In which case, let me reassure you that, using DeepPrime noise reduction will give you perfectly clean images at and beyond 10,000 ISO, so don’t limit yourself like that.

[OldSubSailor]

I am not sure, but if I remember correctly, I had set the camera to auto ISO mode based on a recommendation in a book that I was reading at the time. That lens is an f4 and again I believe that I had read that had a “sweet spot” at around f8. I then for some reason also decided to ‘play’ around at f16.

Again I seem to remember that in your first post (I think that you deleted it), you had mentioned that at f16 there would be softening, and it is very easy to spot in the upper section of the blowout vent caps.

The ClearView Plus default evidently is 50, so I just thought that the developers thought that was a good place to leave it. I am still too new to all this, because to me it looks nice, so need to learn the finer aspects of what it is that I am degrading.

[OldSubSailor]

Here is a tanker that I photographed in a Sea Fog. I maxed out the deHaze in Lightroom Classic before when posting on the Maritime sites, and still pretty much with my old eyeballs like it maxed out with ClearView Plus:
https://www.swisstransfer.com/d/cb9f876e-d899-48df-9996-224d07c5553c

[JoJu (Joachim)]

@Joanna, your “sweet” (or weak) spot is this funny f/10. That’s fine, but it’s not necessarily everybody else’s. First, I don’t believe you’d notice a big difference - if at all - in this ship images. It’s a ⅔ f-stop and to me it’s ridiculous to ride on f/10. It’s not forbidden to use apertures wider than the one of a smartphone. On the contrary, as it would reduce shutter speed a bit and get rid of some motion blur. So, I gonna ask you now why you always come up with f/10? Why do you believe everybody wants to have a so called maximum depth of field, reducing sharpness and diminishing resolution? And later on sharpen up what you lost because of diffraction? Wouldn’t it be easier to use a smartphone if “sharp from close to infinity” is priority and print size is 8 × 10 inch max.?

But as we’re now already talking about maximum DeHaze to make things clearer, who cares about diffraction?

[JoJu (Joachim)]

First, I’m curious to know why you didn’t use the full resolution of the sensor? Your NEF is 33 MP, the D850 goes up to 45 MP and the 70-200/4 is a good lens. There are also 7 spots on the image. Or more but the ones in the sky are clearly visible… I don’t think it’s dust but it might be some droplets. It also appears to be a bit underexposed?

Here’s my interpretation

And the DOP file (I made a virtual copy of your image)
DSC_2052.NEF.dop (22,5 KB)

[OldSubSailor]

I do not know why it was not at full resolution unless at that time I had chosen a smaller RAW image size; but what is shown is between the two save options on my camera. So, I have no idea as to how that particular size got that way, Lightroom cropping is supposed to be non-destructive.
It was a wet day with Sea Fog, and there could have been some larger droplets in the air.

AND speaking of nondestructive, did I miss something, or have not read far enough, however, it looks like, and unlike Lightroom Classic, if one removes a photo from PL it also removes it from one’s hard drives also.

[OldSubSailor]

So what did you do to get the bright orange to pop out again? Originally with Lightroom Classic, I had to go to maximum dehaze, and with PL I had to use high levels of Clear View to get it to come out like that.

[OldSubSailor]

For a change. Tanker at evening shot with the little Nikon mirrorless Z 50. I use this rather than my iPhone when I can when I go places.
https://www.swisstransfer.com/d/5e402f26-e8b1-4bc2-ac2a-11ae2bb5ef5b

[JoJu (Joachim)]

Try “vibrancy” (it’s in the colours tab, I think) The rest is in the DOP file. I used the gradation curve a bit and also the “DxO SmartLightning”. Suggestion:
Make a copy of the original file (like DSC_2052_DxO.NEF)
Put the DOP file into the same folder
Rename the DOP file (like DSC_2052_DXO.NEF.DOP)
This DOP file contains your settings and a virtual (= non-physical) variant with my settings, so you should see two images. One has a small M (for Master), the other a small 1 (for variant 1)

So you can see what I did.

[OldSubSailor]

Oh, ok, thank you, I was wondering how to use it!

[Joanna (Joanna Carter)]

@JoJu

@Joanna, your “sweet” (or weak) spot is this funny f/10

It’s not “funny”, it’s carefully calculated rather than assumed from lens reviews, etc.

George Douvos has done a lot a research on diffraction and has written an iOS app called TrueDoF-Pro, which allows me to set the blur circle diameter based on the pixel pitch of the sensor.

@JoJu

It’s a ⅔ f-stop and to me it’s ridiculous to ride on f/10

Aperture setting isn’t limited to what are known as “full stops”, they are just easier to remember, so many people tend to ignore the fine tuning that can be had at intermediate values simply because they can’t easily work out ±1 stop from them.

@JoJu

So, I gonna ask you now why you always come up with f/10? Why do you believe everybody wants to have a so called maximum depth of field, reducing sharpness and diminishing resolution? And later on sharpen up what you lost because of diffraction?

I don’t believe that everybody wants maximum DoF, but if they do want as much as possible, then it is important to think about when diffraction kicks in. As it happens, on a full frame, high-res, sensor like the Nikon D850, the pixel pitch is around 4.34µm, which makes the minimum blur spot diameter around 9µm, although I round that to 10µm. This then means that, for the ultimate sharpness for as large a print as possible, the calculated optimum aperture is f/5. But, since f/5 can be quite limiting for DoF and is only really useful if you want to print to somewhere near A1 paper size.

I have an A2 printer, and so, for me, I know that limiting my minimum aperture to f/10 will give me sharper results with less diffraction, based on a 20µm blur spot diameter, which gives me an ideal compromise and a hyperfocal distance of 5.2m for a 28mm focal length, meaning everything is acceptably sharp on an A2 print from 2.6m to infinity.

But, since most people don’t seem to bother with larger prints, they can base their minimum aperture on a 30µm blur spot diameter, which means that diffraction starts to get noticeable on an A4 print, held at arms length, when taken at f/14. And, of course, for images only ever shared on screens at reduced resolutions, apertures as small as this or smaller can be quite acceptable.

Unless, of course, you take a shot at a smaller aperture and then someone wants to make a larger print, you may find that it is not as sharp as it could be at that larger size. I think of it as contingency planning.

On the other hand, when I am doing portraiture with my 85mm lens, then I go for f/1.8.

[OldSubSailor]

I did not have to change names; I have various external drives. If I did it right, here is what I saw:

If so, most instructive!!

[Joanna (Joanna Carter)]

@OldSubSailor

did I miss something, or have not read far enough, however, it looks like, and unlike Lightroom Classic, if one removes a photo from PL it also removes it from one’s hard drives also.

PL doesn’t keep or make any physical copies, it simply reads your files from where you put them on your disk. So, if you remove the master from PL, it will delete it from your disk. However, you can delete virtual copies without touching the file on disk.

I have a self-imposed rule to always make a virtual copy before I do any editing, then I can compare the work I have done with the master at any time.

[OldSubSailor]

I see that now. Almost a painful lesson learned, fortunately I deleted photos of files that I did not want any longer. AND I would not have to reset the photo when I am done posting etc. Excellent suggestion.

[JoJu (Joachim)]

Like every dogma, the f/10 also falls short in reality, sorry. I’m not buying *the truth" of any “diffraction only” based app, no matter how much research was done by one person to that. It condenses in the phrase “perfectly acceptable sharpness from x meter to ∞”. This dogma hinders more than it helps, it smells like all compromises. And if you’re happy with f/10, so be it. I just doubt you’d see a real diff between f/8 along til f/11. More important to me than an obscure f-number is what I want to see as sharp as possible and that sometimes means f/4 on a fast lens.

[Joanna (Joanna Carter)]

@OldSubSailor

AND I would not have to reset the photo when I am done posting etc

Why would you ever reset a photo after exporting it? (unless you made a total mess of it and wanted to start again )

Unlike other software, where you have to save all your edits to another file format, PL only creates DOP sidecar files automatically and, should you want to create an alternative edit, all you need to do is base a new virtual copy on another version and play away (it’s a bit like snapshots in other software).

I sometimes create a colour version of an image and then create another version or more for B&W - then I can compare the tonal effects between those versions and when I find the “best” one, I simply delete any experimental copies.

[JoJu (Joachim)]

@Joanna

I sometimes create a colour version of an image and then create another version or more for B&W - then I can compare the tonal effects between those versions and when I find the “best” one, I simply delete any experimental copies.

But if I understood correctly, in that case you need at least two virtual copies, as these are only a collection of various parameters you like PL do to their exports? I cannot delete the edits I did to the master? In my thinking, the master is the RAW file itself and virtual copies are virtual “childs” of the first edits / presets or whatever I started the process with?
In C1 I can also use virtual copies but here I need to choose wether I want to start from scratch or take the current edits with me and start modifying them in the child-copy. “New variant” or “Clone variant”. and both of them let me delete the “old” variant without deleting the RAW. Only if I delete the last remaining variant, I then have the option to delete either this last variant out of the collection or out of the catalog and still the physical RAW can remain on my drive. If I empty the trash-bin, I can “kill” the RAW. I made a shortcut to move the file immediately to the trash of C1. It sounds cumbersome, but I appreciate the reduced risk to delete stuff accidentally.

[Joanna (Joanna Carter)]

@JoJu

Like every dogma, the f/10 also falls short in reality,

Nothing that I’ve said implies a “dogma”. @OldSubSailor was questioning how to get everything sharp on his long distance shots of ships and my suggestion for f/10 is intended to be the answer for that kind of shot, with the additional benefit of not incurring diffraction whilst still maximising DoF.

And, as I have mentioned, it all depends on what size you are going to reproduce the image. Limiting minimum aperture to f/10 is only relevant when…

• you want to have the maximum DoF
• you don’t want diffraction softening the image
• you are printing (or might print) bigger than 10" x 8"

Obviously, you can use any aperture larger than that without incurring diffraction, as I do all the time for creative purposes.

There are also times when it is going to be impossible to avoid smaller apertures, like macro photography.

@JoJu

I just doubt you’d see a real diff between f/8 along til f/11

Well, I posted this some time ago but, for @OldSubSailor’s benefit, here’s a comparison series I made for a course I gave on depth of field for our club photo…

f/5

f/8

f/11

f/16

f/22

Focus was parallel to the strings and on the strings. You can see how, as the aperture get smaller, the “flare” caused by diffusion gets greater. This increasing lack of sharpness might not be as evident without the flare but the point of this series is to demonstrate that it is there and can start to soften or muddy fine detail.

Of course, this particular subject only really needed a relatively large aperture and, as you can see, f/5 would have been perfectly adequate since it creates a lovely background bokeh inside the guitar.

[Joanna (Joanna Carter)]

@JoJu

But if I understood correctly, in that case you need at least two virtual copies, as these are only a collection of various parameters you like PL do to their exports?

I create as many VCs as I want or need and delete them if they are no longer useful.

@JoJu

I cannot delete the edits I did to the master?

Of course you can. It’s just that I prefer to keep the master “pristine”, so that I can create another VC from scratch in two clicks.

@JoJu

In my thinking, the master is the RAW file itself and virtual copies are virtual “childs” of the first edits / presets or whatever I started the process with?

The master is possibly more accurately described as the first VC, since the actual RAW file never gets edited, only adjustments get added to the DOP file. You are free to work on the master only if you wish - it’s just that I find it useful to have an untouched version easily available to compare other VCs to.

@JoJu

In C1 I can also use virtual copies but here I need to choose wether I want to start from scratch or take the current edits with me and start modifying them in the child-copy. “New variant” or “Clone variant”. and both of them let me delete the “old” variant without deleting the RAW.

And it’s the same with PL. You can make any existing version the basis for a new VC and delete any version whenever you want. The only caveat is that deleting the master deletes the physical RAW file along with any remaining VCs.

Not forgetting that, at least on a Mac, the original RAW and its accompanying DOP are both moved to the trash and can be recovered intact in case you deleted the wrong file or something.

[JoJu (Joachim)]

I see more blown highlights and some kind of halo on the strings towards f/22. That’s amazing and shows the effect of diffraction really well. On the other hand, f/5 also has hints of chromatical aberration? If so, I think it’s an old Nikkor 105/2.8 (with old I mean the current F-mount one). I used to think it’s a sharp lens but once I had to take some focus stacks of small metal parts and the CA and contrast of the 105 Micro Nikkor could not come close to a Laowa Apo 65/2.8 for APS-C.

But to stay with @OldSubSailor ship images my reasons to question f/10 are:

• motion blurr can do more damage to sharpness than diffraction - and with blurr I mean my own tremor, mirror slap, movement of the ship and the waves
• aperture closing down means longer shutterspeeds and / or higher ISO. Noise because of high ISO is nothing I’m afraid of thanks to DeepPrime, but dynamic range becomes smaller.
• the distance was far enough to get away with wider apertures.
• most of my lenses (at least for Nikon F) start at f/1.4. Their resolution peak is at 2-3 stops closed, f/2.8 or f/4. After f/5.6 it might happen to see some softness increasing. In challenging situations I will use focus-stacking (not for the ships…) Don’t want to promise too much, but maybe I’ll use photostatistica or the statistic plugin of Excire to find out a bit more.

In general, I don’t know many pictures I like because of a super deep DoF, I find them usuall more distracting and think, the photographer could not make up his/her mind which was the important part. But that’s personal taste.