Sharpening

GSE Global sharpening (Global Sharpness Enhancement)

The GSE feature is an advanced unsharp masking method. Recommended value is about 50.

GSE Trigger level

This is the threshold (or trigger) level of the GSE unsharp masking method. Recommended value is about 2. With the trigger level you can prevent sharpening of scene parts with no details. A good example is sky. With a trigger level of 0 you sharpen the whole image including the sky. In the sky sharpening does not bring any advantage. It will only make noise more visible. Just set the trigger to a value so that sky noise will not be sharpened. If you sharpen very much then you will sometimes see that single pixels or small pixel groups will be sharpened and the neighbourhood not. So if you sharpen very much then sometimes it is better to set the trigger to zero because the difference between image parts which are not sharpened an parts which are sharpened become very well visible.

For very strong sharpening also a combination of GSE with trigger=0 and our local sharpening LSE is sometimes good.

GSE Radius

This is the Radius of the GSE unsharp mask in pixels. A value of 0 means that the radius is automatically fitted to the pixel size of the image. This is the best for automatic processing as you can not change this parameter manually for every image. If you have the same image in high resolution and once in low resolution then for the same visual sharpness impression the radius must be adapted. So if a radius of 1 is good for 1000x1500 pixel you would need a radius of 2 for 2000x3000 pixel.

The bigger the radius the stronger are the white halos around edges. Normally at higher radius settings you will have to reduce the sharpening level.

GSE Limiter

This setting will limit the halo effect around edges. It will so also limit the visual impression of the sharpening. So if this value is set at 0 you will not have any sharpening. When you make tests it is always good to set this value high (1000) at the first moment and only reduce it when you see halos which are too accentuated.

Attention: always set this value first at a high value (1000) to be able to really see the effect of sharpening.

LSE (Local Sharpness Enhancement)

Local sharpness enhancement (LSE) will sharpen images locally depending on the image subject. So for example vegetation and edges are sharpened much more then sky or skin. LSE is mainly good when you print images. For this you have to make print tests to find the best setting. It is possible to combine GSE with LSE for best results. For example GSE=50, LSE=100

LNR (Local noise reduction)

The local noise reduction is preventing pixel noise in the shadows when using the LSE Local Sharpness Enhancement feature.