Sharpening - What should I be looking for?

[jakerepp]

I'm still new to this. I'm at about a 50% acceptance rate, which I'm okay with since that seems to be around the overall acceptance rate. But I'm typically running into issues regarding sharpening, as are a lot of people, I assume.

More specifically, I have issues figuring out what I should be looking at. Where should I be looking on an aircraft for it's sharpness? Should I be using the Detail, Radius, or Masking slider more? I realize the answer is probably 'it depends'. Ha!

Here's a recent rejection that I appealed (and it may have been a snarky sounding appeal comment, since I received what I thought was a sarcastic response, so I apologize if my comment was perceived as such. It's hard to tell tone on the internet). Anyways, here's the photo https://www.jetphotos.com/viewqueued_b.php?id=10327055. I typically look at the tail and the branding on the fuselage (crops attached).

Attached is another photo I'm working on but I've pushed the sliders so far and it still doesn't look super sharp to me. Maybe it just isn't a sharp enough original or the lightning wasn't super helpful. Cropped but otherwise original attached as well, if someone wants to try their hand at it that would be cool. I'd just pass on it but it's a hot photo and I've yet to see a Glastar.

Thanks!

[kaiplanes]

in my opinion, for sharpness your plane has to sort of stand out from the background.

[Aldgyte]

in my opinion, for sharpness your plane has to sort of stand out from the background.

I think reviewers expect a bit more as I get quite a few "soft" rejections. At least check that the reg is sharp and any lettering. Be careful not to over-sharpen causing pixels to form circles on close inspection.

[cmorton]

Hi

Sharpening is one of those things that is really hard to get correct all of the time. The Alaskan 737 you have linked is really soft, hence the rejection for being soft. When sharpening, you need to ensure just the aircraft is being sharpened, and not the background or the foreground as you want to draw attention to the aircraft. In photoshop I sharpen mine using the unsharp mask tool as this provides superior control over the process of sharpening your image versus the basic sharpen tool.

The image of the Glastar almost looks like it has some motion blur in the image, which will increase the difficulty of the sharpening process considerably, almost to the point when it can't be saved. I would check your camera settings to ensure you are shooting at the most optimum settings; such as your f-stop number and shutter speed.

Hope this helps

[Aldgyte]

Hi

I would check your camera settings to ensure you are shooting at the most optimum settings; such as your f-stop number and shutter speed.

Hope this helps

This is a very good point. All lenses have a sweet spot and the phenomenon of diffraction means that this is never at the narrowest f stop.