Help needed with pic

[Spartan13]

I love to take really tight shots like this, but the problem is I can never get them to be clear enough. I either always sharpen them to much or not enough. Can you guys give me some advice. Feel free to play around with the pic I provided, if you would like the original let me know. Thanks.

[Alfred_Zeller]

Yeah . I think its a great pic , why dont you send me the original at [email protected]

[Kyuss]

Nice shot, but it's a bit oversharpened. I can't edit it any further, as you can't undo sharpening. What USM settings do you use (if you use USM)?

[Spartan13]

Yeah . I think its a great pic , why dont you send me the original at [email protected]

I'm about to send it to you.

[AC888YOW]

It's a great pic.

From the original, try:

USM 0.5, 250, 0

increase the 250 if needed. If you find these settings too much then try:

USM 0.4, 400, 0

increase the 400 if needed. One of these two settings should work nice.

Finally, use Neatimage (or similar) to blast the noise.

If you'd like me to try the orig, PM me and I'll give you the email addy.
________
BMW 3 SERIES (E36)

[Kyuss]

Spartan13: If you tried that, make another edit and try this:
USM "50, 0.3, 0", three times. (no need for NeatImage...)

[Spartan13]

I tried it again.

[Kyuss]

Hmm... Which method did you use? (doesn't look like 3x USM 50, 0.3, 0)
Another tip, select only the airplane when sharpening, not the sky.
Is there anywhere where I can pick up the original for editing?

[Alfred_Zeller]

Heres my try at it.Let me know what you think

[Spartan13]

Alfred I like yours. When I tried it the second time I used the USM setting you said to try, the only thing different I did is I used those settings after sharpening the image. When I use USM should I not use sharpen?

[Kyuss]

That's right.
The USM IS the sharpening. Don't use the "sharpening" tool in my method. Take your original, play with the levels until you're happy with that, resize it to 1024x.... and then do USM 3 times like I described. (You can also, to put the icing on the cake, deselect the sky by using the lasso selector before you use the USM).
If 3 or 4 times USM still leaves you with a soft picture, it means that your original shot isn't sharp...
Good luck!