Photo Tip for JPEG Shooters

Hey everyone,

I thought I'd pass along a tip to help those who shoot jpeg images. I shoot Raw (sometimes) but, surprisingly, most of my professional work is jpeg. So, here's a tip to help you jpeg shooters sharpen your photos:

First of all, you'll need to find the photo profile menu on your camera. Once that's done, you will want to turn your Noise Reduction (NR) down as far as it will go. Noise Reduction on your camera will smear the image like finger painting and make the image look less sharp; so turn it all the way down (unless you're shooting at ISO 6400 or higher). The second thing you'll need to do sounds counter-intuitive. You must turn the sharpness all the way down too. You see, the sharpening feature amplifies the noise (speckles) in the picture. And if you dislike the speckles in your pictures, this would be a wise move. By turning DOWN the sharpening you are making the image "sharper" and more professional in appearance.

I hope you enjoy this wonderful tip and that you will employ it. To see the effects of these steps, take a few pics with the NR and Sharpness at their usual levels and then take a few with them turned down. You can then zoom in on the images and compare the results. If you took pictures of fabric or anything where there is LOTS of detail, you will notice that the images recorded will have an improved detailed result over the normal settings on the profile menu.

Mark:)