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areohbee
areohbee
Legend
June 20, 2011
Open for Voting

P: Focus mask / image sharpness

  • June 20, 2011
  • 45 replies
  • 4027 views

Like a topographical map, except instead of showing altitude, show sharpness/in-focus-ness.Would allow one to see at a glance where the focal plane lies, and how well focused is the photo at the focal plane (and everywhere else), and what is the depth of field.PhaseOne took a whack at this in CaptureOne. I think their implementation has some weaknesses: shows focal plane, but no indication of how well focused at the plane, and gives no sense of depth of field, but is still quite useful.See http://feedback.photoshop.com/photosh... for a related idea, that would go nicely with this one.If you like this idea, please remember to click the '+1' button below.

    45 replies

    E
    Eric Bowles
    Participating Frequently
    December 13, 2020

    Increasingly cameras are providing Focus Peaking highlights to show the portions of the image that are in sharp focus.  I'd like to see something similar as a Lightroom View option.

    Being able to see the in-focus areas of an image would be a big help in editing images.  It would make it easier to apply local adjustments to increase sharpness of in focus areas while avoiding sharpening areas that are soft or out of focus.  It would also make it easier to apply blur or noise reduction to areas that are out of the focus plane.

    In addition, when testing lenses and gear for AF accuracy or fine tuning, it can be hard to see the focus plane.  Showing focus peaking highlights would make this much easier.

    In cameras, focus peaking is currently just shown before the photo is taken for mirrorless cameras.  With software, this could also be evaluated after the photo was taken on both mirrorless and DSLR cameras.

    I'd like to see two functions.  I'd like the ability to turn this view on or off when editing - probably with a check box or menu option.  Ideally I'd like to be able to adjust the relative depth of the focus plane or depth of field with a slider.  Mirrorless cameras allow you to adjust focus peaking highlight width, and the same idea could be applied to software. 

    This would be useful in both Photoshop and Lightroom Classic.

    F
    FeedbackCommunityMember
    Inspiring
    October 3, 2020

    Try FastRawViewer software, it has focus peaking and details highlights.

    Antoine HLMN
    Antoine HLMN
    Known Participant
    April 25, 2020
    Going for the gusto:  In Survey mode, being able to hit a button (if necessary) to have LR automatically determine which of the images currently being displayed has the best focus.

    That's the feature I'm hoping the most for: picking the sharpest image out of a selection or stack. I think this would be huge for portrait photographers. AI could easily detect the eye as the camera does (+ AF info is in the raw file).

    I shoot wildlife and often come come home with tons of burts. Having some help for sorting the images based on sharpness would be very helpful. I've also suggested to stack the images based on the camera's burst information. Still waiting 😕😕
    F
    FeedbackCommunityMember
    Inspiring
    November 23, 2019
    The Focus Mask plugin from Capture Monkey works great, but is stopped (at least on Mac) at Mojave since it is a 32-bit plugin compiled in Lua.  It would be wonderful if the developer (in Finland) could update the plugin to 64 bit so it would run on current operating systems.  I still have one machine running Mojave so I can keep using it on that machine.  It shouldn't be that hard if Adobe had the will.  Focus Masking is integral to Capture One and On1 RAW, but each require an exit from Lightroom or PS to see masking.  Not a great solution.  It would be far better if it were integral to Lightroom Classic 9 and Photoshop, especially with all the AI running around.

    D
    dwterry
    Known Participant
    November 23, 2019


    It feels like new features are getting fewer and further between, but I have a request that is unlike anything out there which - for me at least - would be a big boon to productivity, and that is:

     Focus Detection

    Photoshop is already able to figure out on its own what the subject is in an image.  Pull that capability over into Lightroom.  Now with a little more tweaking to the AI have it check to see if the image is in focus and have some kind of indicator as to how "in focus" (or out of focus) an image is.

    As a wedding photographer I spend a LOT of time culling images (probably more time culling than editing, sadly enough).  For me focus matters a lot.  And without zooming in 100% it's hard to compare two images to figure out which one has better focus.  And at smaller sizes (where you can see the full image) and even worse, in Survey Mode with multiple images on screen (which I use a lot to compare images) it's next to impossible to determine that an image is less than ideal.

    So.... easy win:  After import, have LR flag every image that obviously has nothing in focus.  I could quickly delete all of those images without a second thought.

    Next level help:  Have LR determine which images appear to have a subject in focus and have some way of indicating that it thinks the focus is less than ideal.

    Going for the gusto:  In Survey mode, being able to hit a button (if necessary) to have LR automatically determine which of the images currently being displayed has the best focus.
    F
    FeedbackCommunityMember
    Inspiring
    September 28, 2019
    I wonder why wouldn't Lightroom let me see the file size right in the grid view. Or anywhere in the interface, for that matter.
    circleB
    circleB
    Participating Frequently
    May 26, 2018
    Any plans for this plugin to be updated?
    Antoine HLMN
    Antoine HLMN
    Known Participant
    February 22, 2018
    I agree! A tool to quickly select the best image out of a bust of (almost) the same image would be great! A huge timesaver.
    I know the compare module,allows to do this manually, but it’s very time consuming and the previews are not rendered in max quality. Only in the devlop module (except if this has been modified recently...)
    Antoine HLMN
    Antoine HLMN
    Known Participant
    February 21, 2018


    It would be very useful to select the sharpest image out of a selection.
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