5.2.18

[Ferdinand]

+  The Viewer supports separate sharpen settings for the 100% and zoomed views. This enables you to dial in different sharpen settings for the fit-to-window/zoom display modes and the 100% view. You can also sharpen one more and disable sharpen for the other mode. Some users prefer to not sharpen at 100% view in order to better assess the inherent sharpness of the file.

Hallelujah!  I am still downloading this release and so haven't installed it yet, but won't believe the joy of reading this.  This issue has been a really serious annoyance for me and I was trying to muster the courage to raise it yet again, and here I read that you've dealt with it already.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!

[Mario]

Let's hope it does what you want 

[Ferdinand]

OK, after a quick test, the answer is yes, it does.  The ability to see a fit-to-screen view sharpened while being able to dive zoom to an unsharpened view will be a real aid to my workflow, and many others as well I imagine

The gold standard for me for on-the-fly sharpening remains BreezeBrowser Pro, and I still think that its algorithm is better.  You get a better idea of the potential of the image to have detail enhanced, but without creating artifacts.  I'll create a separate thread illustrating this point.

Which is not to sound ungrateful - I am very grateful indeed.  There are some things best done in IMatch and now I can.

[Mario]

I don't know BreezeBrowser very well, and I'm sure Chris will not share whatever algorithm he uses to artificially add sharpness to a file.

And, your personal preferences of course may be totally different from other users. Users have different approaches to sharpness. I only ever judge sharpness at 100%, and never use display sharpen or only very little at all. I see if an image is sharp or not - and I know my primes and zooms very well and what to expect under which conditions. Other users will have different demands, naturally.

IMatch uses a rather advanced post-Cubic sharpen algorithm which gives pretty good results over a wide range without introducing too many new artifacts or emphasizing existing noise in files. But displaying an image at something <> 100% will always introduce some blur or artifacts because pixels need to be added or removed. And how to counter than by artificially sharpening an image afterwards is not a science but often a matter of taste. I have friends who just laugh at the attempts of the "smart sharpen" in PS/LR, others swear by it. Others again favor how QImagePro sharpens files. And many don't care. I think Kelby by now has written 12 books on how to sharpen images 

[Ferdinand]

I know that wars have been fought over this, although probably only minor wars compared to some.

I have a specific interest in this.  I shoot a lot of RAW in low light at relatively wide aperture.  In the shortlisting process, it's tricky to determine what images are really sharp and which ones I didn't nail focus on or someone moved too fast.  Well, I can import them into the RAW converter and check, but it's faster and more efficient to cull in BBP or in FPV or in IMatch, now that it has split viewer sharpening.  The on-the-fly sharpening in BBP brings our those fine details like eyes and provides an excellent guide to the potential of the image, and really speeds up the culling process by giving me confidence that my selections really are the sharp ones and the rejects are not, without having to dive-zoom on everything.

I'll try and post some examples.  You might decide that it's not worth the trouble or can't be done or ...  But it's worth a look.

Again, thanks for the split sharpening options.   

[ddprat]

Added a separate sharpen setting for the 100% display

Thanks, a very nice feature.

Bravo. 

André

[Frank]

Thanks also form my side

Frank

[JohnZeman]

Mario thanks from me for adding this as well.  I'm still fine tuning my viewer sharpening settings but now the sharpening balance between the sized to fit and 100% images definitely looks better than before.