Fuji Thomas Fitzgerald Sharpening Presets

[jloden]

I did a search of the forum and did find a mention or two of Thomas Fitzgerald's LightRoom presets for X-Trans sharpening but no separate thread, so I thought I'd start one.

http://blog.thomasfitzgeraldphotography.com/2014/02/updated-x-trans-sharpening-presets-lightroom/

I have no affiliation with Thomas or anything like that, but romi.gilles here on the forum had posted a link to his site a while back where Thomas discussed various sharpening algorithms and the improved results he was able to achieve in Adobe products with X-Trans files. I finally got around to trying out the LightRoom presets and I'm finding some very positive results on my own files so thought I'd put up some feedback.

The basic gist is that Thomas suspects the X-Trans processing artifacts that show up with Adobe products has less to do with the demosaicing process as most people have assumed, and more to do with LR's default sharpening not doing a very good job with X-Trans files. In fact, according to the blog post, he's seen similar issues with LR default sharpening on A7R files and suggests it may be more of a generalized issue working with cameras that have no AA filter.

At any rate, Thomas has been able to achieve much improved results by setting LR sharpening to 0 and doing the sharpening with a more complex process in Photoshop. The presets for LR aren't quite as good of a final result, but are designed for users that want to stay in LR without adding in PS (you can count me in that group, I dislike needing a multi-step editing workflow when I can avoid it).

I tested the presets on some photos of my own and I can definitely see *much* sharper resulting images, without hitting ugly artifacts like I would just using my standard sharpen presets that I use for other cameras. Very pleased with the results so far, and would love to hear feedback from anybody else that gets a chance to try them as well.

 

[jimmy1]

His LR presets are decent and I use them a lot - like you I prefer a simple workflow in one program. However if your planning on printing you will be much better off using iridient or his PS presets.

 

[jloden]

His LR presets are decent and I use them a lot - like you I prefer a simple workflow in one program. However if your planning on printing you will be much better off using iridient or his PS presets.

Yeah, the examples Thomas has posted indicated the PS actions and multi-step process is the better option, but not something I'm likely to bother with in most cases. It's great to have a LR preset that at least improves what I've been getting.

I've actually printed 11x14" X-Trans images with the standard LR sharpening and been happy enough with the results, so I imagine this will only be an improvement in that sense

I'm keeping the PS method (or PhotoNinja, Iridient etc.) in my back pocket should I ever have a need for an exceptionally large print where quality is paramount.

 

[chipbutty]

I bought his new Monolith Lightroom presets. They're pretty good. Which other ones do you have and would recommend? I see he has Film Candy and Quick Lux.

Apologies to the OP for going off topic.

His LR presets are decent and I use them a lot - like you I prefer a simple workflow in one program. However if your planning on printing you will be much better off using iridient or his PS presets.

 

[Stephen S]

I like Thomas' presets quite a bit as well; the sharpening ones are my favorites; I also like the Quick Lux. Still undecided on the Monolith; they seem a bit overly contrasty or dark to me.

The new Replichrome II presets emulating slide films is quite wonderful, though. You can see some examples on my Replichrome thread in this forum.

 

[Stephen S]

Yeah, the examples Thomas has posted indicated the PS actions and multi-step process is the better option, but not something I'm likely to bother with in most cases. It's great to have a LR preset that at least improves what I've been getting.

I've actually printed 11x14" X-Trans images with the standard LR sharpening and been happy enough with the results, so I imagine this will only be an improvement in that sense

I'm keeping the PS method (or PhotoNinja, Iridient etc.) in my back pocket should I ever have a need for an exceptionally large print where quality is paramount.

I'm hoping that Adobe is still working with Fuji to improve Fuji .RAF files demosaicing and sharpening, because it still cannot match Capture One or Iridient Developer for processing Fuji RAW files. The new version of Iridient Developer that integrates in plug-in fashion to Lightroom is great, because it makes the workflow that little bit easier.
For "mission critical" images, I still find Capture One to provide the best conversion quality, as well as the most natural-looking with respect to color.