screen vs print

mcarthur · Post by **mcarthur** » Wed Nov 19, 2003 7:26 am

For printing on Lambda, LED and Frontier (among others?), you seem to need more sharpening that a TV/monitor needs (duh say they all

). I'm wondering how to guage how much, and how to use FB to do both with merely the press of the "screen" or "print" button. Is there a way to do this? With PS USM, I may do a final sharpen of 200%/0.4/2 for Web, but want 400%/0.3/2 for Lambda. Even better would be to be able to have a number of "print" outputs and be able to define each one in some sensible way.

The manual says: "That's why FocalBlade sharpens an image much more if you have the Print button activated." (p31) but it isn't clear in what way "much more" is! Is there an explanation anywhere? An equivalence, ignoring surfaces and concentrating on, say, fine highlights, with PS USM would be *great* (hint hint! ).

Thanks
Robert

Post by **HaraldHeim** » Wed Nov 19, 2003 5:43 pm

The Print option in FocalBlade was optimized for Color Laser and Inkjet printers which are used by the majority of users and photo labs. For other types of printers you may need to adjust the settings manually.

Best is to make some test prints and to choose the best settings. For example you can activate a Split View option and press CTRL + OK to render it to the image. That way you only need to do one print instead of five to determine e.g. the best Sharpen value. A future version of FocalBlade will contain even more Split View option for saving printing time and cost when determing the best settings.

Of course you can use the same settings you once used in PS's USM filter. To use absolutely the same values, please deactivate the Compensate check box. You can save these settings as presets to reuse them later.

When the Print button is activated, the values of the Sharpen sliders change. So you can see the difference by activating and deactivating the Print button and observing the slider values.

An equivalence, ignoring surfaces and concentrating on, say, fine highlights, with PS USM would be *great* (hint hint! ).

Sorry, but I don't know what you mean with that.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Nov 20, 2003 3:23 am

Thanks Harald. I tried the compensate off to make it the same as USM and it looks good (to be able to compare) - just to check, you can only make the comparison, I assume, in Sharpen Edges mode? Also, there's no threshold like in USM - is it assuming 0? 1?

I also tried the screen/print to see the values of the sharpen sliders. The sliders do change - but only for the first button press when you change the mode. Try again inside the same mode pressing screen/print and nothing seems to change (either in the sharpness of the picture OR the sliders) - bug?!

The same thing seems to happen with the Compensate as well. I changed to Sharpen Edges, chose max 400% to make sure I could see a difference, did the screen/print a couple of times to make sure it was doing nothing (:-(), then tried compensate a number of times. I could swear that, at 100% in every place on the image I looked at, nothing changed between clicks on/off. This could be another bug, perhaps? One difference was that in pressing screen/print, absolutely nothing happened (no cursor change to indicate processing), while the compensate click on/off did, very very quickly, have the cursor change to an hourglass; however, it was there for a much shorter time than for any actual change to the image.

(I just checked, and in Expert mode, the screen/print did change the sharpen % in both edges and surface "correctly" continuously when asked; so maybe the problem is only in non-expert mode(s)?)

Post by **HaraldHeim** » Thu Nov 20, 2003 3:33 pm

Thanks Harald. I tried the compensate off to make it the same as USM and it looks good (to be able to compare) - just to check, you can only make the comparison, I assume, in Sharpen Edges mode? Also, there's no threshold like in USM - is it assuming 0? 1?

The Sharpen Edges mode only sharpens the edges and not the surface. I recommend to switch to Expert Mode or at least Selective Sharpen (Pro) mode. However, to simulate a USM filter in FocalBlade, please use the Sharpen mode with the Compensation check box deactivated.

The Treshold slider of USM produces salt'n'pepper noise in several cases, so I wouldn't recommend using it at all. Additionally it only keeps some areas unsharp instead of letting you sharpen them gradually. In FocalBlade you have the Edges and Surface tab sheets which give you more control than the Treshold slider and that without side-effects.

I also tried the screen/print to see the values of the sharpen sliders. The sliders do change - but only for the first button press when you change the mode. Try again inside the same mode pressing screen/print and nothing seems to change (either in the sharpness of the picture OR the sliders) - bug?!

Thanks for letting me know about this bug. It only affects the Sharpen Edges mode. I will fix that. The Sharpen Edges mode is only meant for special cases and for beginners. Please use the Expert or Selective Sharpen modes.

The same thing seems to happen with the Compensate as well. I changed to Sharpen Edges, chose max 400% to make sure I could see a difference, did the screen/print a couple of times to make sure it was doing nothing (:-(), then tried compensate a number of times. I could swear that, at 100% in every place on the image I looked at, nothing changed between clicks on/off. This could be another bug, perhaps? One difference was that in pressing screen/print, absolutely nothing happened (no cursor change to indicate processing), while the compensate click on/off did, very very quickly, have the cursor change to an hourglass; however, it was there for a much shorter time than for any actual change to the image.

If you deactivate the Compensate check box the Auto combo boxes will be deactivated automatically thus making the Print/Screen buttons useless. If you choose a setting from one of the Auto combo boxes, the Compensate check box will automatically be activated. The reson for this behaviour is that the Compensate function is an integral part of the auto mechanism. Without an activated Compensate check box it makes no sense for FocalBlade to do any automatical sharpening.

So this behaviour was added by design.