Lose sharpening on export

[Birdseye42]

I should know the answer to this but I have been puzzling over it until I'm bug-eyed.  I have a photo to which I have applied an unsharp mask which has worked well.  I have also applied a couple of other adjustments, e.g. HSL adjustment, white balance adjustment etc.  It is currently an afphoto file and I want to export it as a jpg or a tiff file.  When I do this I lose the unsharp mask.  I have tried flattening, rasterizing but to no avail.  Am I totally wasting my time or is there a way around this?

[walt.farrell]

When you were applying the Unsharp Mask, did you verify its effects at a 100% zoom level? That's the only way to be sure what effect it really had.

[Rick G]

I just applied an unsharp mask to a photo and exported it to both PNG and JPG and theffect was maintained. I did run the contorls all the way up

[Birdseye42]

Yes, the effects at 100% are fine.  Rick G - can you explain what you mean by "I did run the controls all the way up."?

[Rick G]

52 minutes ago, Birdseye42 said:

Yes, the effects at 100% are fine.  Rick G - can you explain what you mean by "I did run the controls all the way up."?

They were all at 100% to see of the effects of the unsharp  mask were exporting. The next logical step would be to keep dropping the settings and see where the problem shows up. It may be softening the effect somehow You are exporting to the same size as the original are you not?

[Birdseye42]

Thank you, Walt and Rick - I have found out that if I apply the unsharp mask before any other adjustments and export that as a jpg the sharpened picture exports correctly.  I can then open the exported file and apply the other adjustments.  Rick, to answer your question I had cropped the picture so it was different to the original.

Thank you very much for your input.  Many heads better than one!

[walt.farrell]

You're welcome. Glad you've found a workaround.

I don't think you should need that extra export step; it would be good to know what's going on.

 

[Birdseye42]

Walt - you've triggered an interesting point.  If you have a photograph which is marginally out of focus and would benefit from using the unsharp mask, try the following: Apply the unsharp mask, make an HSL adjustment, make a brightness and contrast adjustment, make a white balance adjustment. (These are the processes I applied).  Now either export the result as a jpeg or just flatten the result.  If it nullifies the unsharp mask and goes back to its out of focus state, then perhaps this is something that the Affinity experts need to look at?

[Ron P.]

On 8/26/2020 at 6:15 AM, Birdseye42 said:

Walt - you've triggered an interesting point.  If you have a photograph which is marginally out of focus and would benefit from using the unsharp mask, try the following: Apply the unsharp mask, make an HSL adjustment, make a brightness and contrast adjustment, make a white balance adjustment. (These are the processes I applied).  Now either export the result as a jpeg or just flatten the result.  If it nullifies the unsharp mask and goes back to its out of focus state, then perhaps this is something that the Affinity experts need to look at?

What do you consider Marginally out of focus? Sharpening is not a substitute for making an image that was out of focus, in focus. Out of focus or blurry images can be caused by several things. From lenses missing focus, to camera shake. I've tried using sharpening on some of my images that were not tack sharp, or out of focus, and I've found that the sharpening just enhanced the out of focus blurriness. I will use LightRoom and the Focus Point Plug-In to check where the camera/lens said the focus point was. Couple this with the aperture setting to see if it was the lens missing and should be sharp. Fast lenses can be difficult to get tack sharp images due to their narrow planes/ DOF.

EDIT

I've played around AP, using your recipe, with an image I converted from RAW (CR2) in LR to TIF, and just opening the RAW file in AP. In the TIF image i had to watch during the flattening, to see it loose some sharpness. With the RAW image using AP to Develop through to flattening, again, I had to watch at 100% while flattening to see the loss. Yes there is something happening in AP where it's loosing the sharpness applied. 

[Birdseye42]

Ron, I may have been a little 'free' with my description.  When I said 'out of focus' - I think the correct term might have been 'soft'.  I attach a picture taken forty years ago which I am using in a presentation shortly.  You will see that, being an old photo a lot of detail has been lost and the photo isn't very sharp.  Using the AP unsharp mask I achieved a really good result (see afphoto file) but I need the picture as a jpeg or tiff and exporting in either of those formats causes the photo to revert to the original 'soft' look.

I think, as both you and Walt are suggesting, that there is something going on here in AP.  I think we've probably exhausted this thread now, but it has been interesting and I thank you for your input.

Me_DavidF.afphoto