How Sharp Do Your Photos REALLY Need to Be?

Tack Sharp, Tack Sharp, Tack Sharp !!!

Everyone tells you your photos should always be tack sharp at 100% (1:1).  

But is tack sharp really necessary?

My answer is: depends.

NOTE: I'm not proposing sloppiness or bad technique, just sometimes getting tack sharp photos may prove difficult.  That can be OK.


Your photo needs to be as sharp as it needs to be, and that depends on your plans for it.  Most people aren't going to zoom your photo to 100% (1:1) or zoom at all.

Viewing Photos Electronically or Sharing in Social Media

Tack sharpness is likely the least concern in these cases.  Does the photos look sharp on your monitor?  Good enough, in my humble opinion.  One caveat: photos of items you are selling online.  Potential buyers may zoom those photos, so zoom before you post, making sure the zoom looks sharp.

Printing

Most will insist tack sharpness at 100% (1:1) for printing photos.  Again, not necessarily.  Re-size a COPY of the photo to the intended print size, and view the photo at that size on your monitor.  Don't fill the monitor.  If you plan to print a 5x7 inch photo, view it at 5x7 on your monitor.  If it looks sharp, try a test print.  Look good, great. 

Selling Photos / Entering Contests

ALWAYS strive for tack sharpness at 100% (1:1) in these cases.  If selling, people assume you are professional.  Contest judges are very detailed and, yes I'll say it, picky.  Rightfully so in both cases.

Non-tack sharp photos sales or refunds.  Not only that, you risk a bad reputation as a professional photographer. Judges, among other criteria, WILL zoom your photo to 100% (1:1), maybe more.

In these cases, learn all the techniques for getting tack sharp photos and use them: top notch lenses, tripods, camera hand-holding, focusing techniques, etc.

Achieving Tack-Sharp Photos

Here's one link on getting tack sharp photos: PhotographyCourses.biz Technical Videos. Just open the site and check off Image Sharpness.  Oh, Mike offers NUMEROUS other free videos as well as excellent paid courses, but start with the free ones.

As usual, if you have any questions, comment on this blog or email me at Brett@BrettOssman.com.

COOL Way to View Your Photos !!!

You Take Great Photos and You Want to Enjoy Them

I like viewing my photos.  I have an electronic picture frame, but frankly, I forget to turn it on and it just takes up space on my desk.  I looked into options for displaying photos on my PC.  Obviously, I can set up a screen saver to play a slide show, but I probably won't watch a screen saver.

I discovered a way to set up a slide show on my desktop display !!!

Here's a screen shot of my desktop:

My desktop changes the photo every 10 minutes.

How did I do this?

Set Up the Windows Desktop

Now, these are Windows 10 instructions, but I understand earlier Windows versions, back to Windows 7 I believe, have the same type of features.  I suspect Mac computers can do the same.

Create a folder for your desktop photos.  My folder happens to be F:\Laptop Monitor\Laptop.  Next step is to set up the Windows desktop to display a slide show.

Right click on your desktop, and click Personalize:

• Select Themes
• Select Theme Settings
• Select Desktop Background

 

• Set up your desktop as you wish. At minimum, set:  
• Background to Slideshow
• Album to the folder you created above
• Change Picture Every: how often you want photos to change
• I recommend Choose to Fit set to Center.

 Here's my settings.

 

Prepare Desktop Photos

OK, now prepare and store your photos for your desktop display. 

Don't overwrite the original photo.  Save a copy to your desktop photo folder.  You may want the original for another purpose later, like printing.

Re-size and save photos for your desktop display. 

Re-sizing isn't absolutely necessary, but I didn't want my icons on top of my photos, nor did I want Windows sizing them for me. 

As most of you will use a variety of photo editing software, I won't get into details for re-sizing.  Re-sizing, when available tends to be VERY simple, so check your photo editor.  BUT, if you need some help learning how, let me know which software by name.

For my 1440x900 laptop display, I found re-sizing to 1296x810 pixels worked great.  Experiment with re-sizing for your monitor, display and layout.  

HINT: Set up some sort of preset or automated action you can easily apply to future photos you want to include.  For example, in Lightroom, set up a Preset, or Photoshop an Action, to re-size and save future photos.

Save the re-sized files to your desktop folder. Save as a JPG/JPEG file.  IF you can set quality, try 6-8 out of 10 or mid-range.  If quality isn't an option, don't worry about it, just save JPG. :-)

Manage Slideshow Folders

Want to change the photos displayed?  Simply re-size and save new ones, or delete one from the desktop folder.  No need to mess with the desktop settings anymore.

Any questions or help I can offer, let me know.