However, upon closer inspection, the image still seems a little soft and wouldn’t be good for larger prints. (If that were the intent I would have likely increased the sharpening amount during conversion, but for this test I did not want to go beyond the small amount used.) Converted JPEG If it had a different subject, it might even be printable at smaller sizes, say 4×6 inches, with no further processing necessary. The converted JPEG image looks acceptable. I set luma smoothing to 20 to counter the small amount of ISO noise, and left color noise reduction and sharpness at the default settings of 25. I converted to 8-bit sRGB, added +0.65 exposure compensation, picked a custom white balance with the eye-dropper on the lower right window pane. For those who don’t shoot in RAW, this step is usually done by the camera.įor this example my image was converted using Adobe’s Camera RAW converter in Photoshop CS. I typically apply a small amount of “capture sharpening” upon conversion from RAW. This one was shot with a Canon 10D using a 70-200mm f/4L lens at 131mm, exposure at f/5.0 for 1/1000s, ISO set to 200. I keep a folder of “test shots” that I save for trying out new post-processing techniques. It costs US$50, and at this time is only available for the Windows platform. Now that I’ve gotten my hands on a review copy, I’ve decided to put it to the test.įocalBlade is compatible with most of the popular imaging editors, including Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, PhotoPaint, PaintShop Pro, IrfanView, PictureIt, PhotoExpress.
Having already tried Nik Sharpener, modifications of Fred Miranda’s old EdgeSharpen action, and numerous other techniques, I wasn’t fully satisfied with any of them and expected FocalBlade to also disappoint. As I was quite satisfied with my sharpening workflow at the time, I was hesitant to pay for yet another program claiming to be the holy grail of digital image sharpening. It works with 8bit and 16bit RGB images.”įocalBlade has been around since 2003, and met with favorable reviews early on.
It is a Photoshop-compatible plugin which can be used in dozens of graphics applications including Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, PhotoImpact, Photo-Paint, Fireworks and Photoshop Elements. “FocalBlade lets you sharpen your photos for screen display and print as well as produce great looking blur, soft focus and glow effects. In this review article, we take a look at the FocalBlade sharpening plug-in, published by Harald Heim at “The Plugin Site”.
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