P: Focus mask / image sharpness

[areohbee]

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.

[samuelm64545694]

It would be nice if Lightroom could calculate image sharpness (as in, camerashake) programmatically.

This would help my workflow because there are frequently cases where I took several copies of a shot at slow shutter speed, and want to see which is the sharp one, without having to manually compare them. (I would also like a quick way of spotting 'blurred' shots right away in general.)

It could be a number ('on a scale of 1 to 100, how sharp is the sharpest bit of the picture'), which you could set to appear as a badge on the image thumbnail, or else a visual display such as a colour-map of which areas are sharp (green = really sharp, red = soft, or something like that). The latter could also indicate what's in focus. Should be available from the main library screen so you don't have to look at the photo to see how sharp it is.

[Royi A]

I'd like Photoshop to have a "Depth of Field" filter which creates a mask according to the distance (Which is evaluated relatively to the "Focus").
It can be done.

[naestyoh]

It can be done if you have a stereo setup...

[Royi A]

It can be done using 1 image only. Though results are inferior.
The OP, and I for that matter, are not after accurate map of distance from the camera. We're after a measurement of Focus Level / Sharpness. This can be done using single photo.

[naestyoh]

For that, I think you just need to look at the spatial frequency response of the image or subimage.

[Royi A]

I don't think that would do. The method I know and have implemented estimate the blur parameter using Maximum Likelihood Estimator. I'm sure there are better and simpler methods.

[jarnoh]

I've created a Lightroom plugin for this:

http://www.capturemonkey.com/focusmask

[Ross Dillon]

Capture One reportedly has a new feature where a green mask is overlaid where the picture is most in focus (thumbnails as well). As an action shooter (sports, airshows, etc) that would greatly help identify OOF shots for disposal.



Note: This topic was created from a reply on the Lightroom/Camera Raw: Display camera focus information topic.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Lightroom: Automatic focus checking when comparing hunderts of images from a session, like Capture One does. This allows the pro who's working with high volume to quickly sort out misfocused frames or motion-blurred frames.

[someu27168340]

It would be very useful if Lightroom could display where the focus is sharp on an image. Much like exposure clipping, turning white to red and black to blue, focus mask would color the area of the image that is most in focus.

This would make it very quick to find the best in focus image in a series of pictures.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

It would be interesting if the implementation was similar to the focus peaking points used on film sets by focus pullers.
This has also been recreated by the guys at Magic Lantern for DSLRs.

Any focus mask feature would make such a speed difference for me after my shoots.

[someu27168340]

Great plugin btw. I use it when I can but having the focus plane evaluated while Lightroom create the preview image would be ideal.

[Jarno__]

Focus Peaking is the right feature. It shows areas of the photos that are in focus (i.e. are sharp). This can be calculated from sharpness in the image. There SW that can do it already.

This should be available in Library and Development modules to enable fast image picking and filtering.

[someu27168340]

I just read the information about Lightroom 5 and I'm really sad that Focus Mask is not part of the release...

I work with a 12fps dslr and when shooting sport I can burst 10-15 images each time I press the shutter button. It's not an option, it's MANDATORY for me to check the focus of images before retouching them.

Focus Mask is long overdue and would be much much more useful than a lot of other features.

[Jeff Ultimate]

In Grid view, it would make culling so much faster if we could have some sort of Focus Mask (like Capture One).
Please add something to easily see if a photo is properly focused without having to zoom in on it. Thanks!!!

[naestyoh]

This topic is 4 years old (don't all LR feedback comments start this way nowadays?). I agree with people that say LR could benefit hugely by a full recode from the ground up. Make it a priority to create tools that make editing FASTER, but even more importantly Adobe needs to add intelligence to the software to ASSIST us, not just sit there waiting for us to move a slider.

[bryn_f]

I don't think it needs a full recode. That implies that the code is what is slowing down development efforts. It's still an excellent tool. It just has lagged in development especially in the organizational workflow lately due to the focus on mobile tools. the develop module continues to take advantage of the camera raw team's work, and it does amazing job to make near real time changes to large images. However keywording and sorting through images, stacking and grouping and reorganizing clearly isn't a priority as little has changed since lightroom 2 and 3.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Focus Mask/peaking via microcontrast detect is a great idea like seen in Capture One

[CromCrom]

YES, this is exactly what we need in LR. Great suggestion!

[fionngrosse]

Sometimes I'm taking portraits with a 1/60s of a second. In order to get one sharp photo, I take a whole row of photos. Most of them are a bit blurry, so I just have to find the most sharp photo.

Now my idea:

Would it be possible to analyze all photos by their sharpness and give a value how sharp a photo is?

---> That would be the easiest way finding the most sharp photos of a series.

Very often I do have that "problem" and so I have to scrub through the photos, sometimes even getting into the 1:1 magnification. Especially annoying since Lightroom ist not the quickest software on planet earth.

Pleeeeease bring it 🙂 Would be "future" for the library module!

Greets from southern Germany
Fionn

[garyrowe]

Adobe is making so much money from the new subscription model, but seems to be giving so little back to us ... 

I've been with Lightroom from its inception, and have steadily upgraded. With the diminishing returns from each of the later newer versions, I only upgraded to v6 for its promoted speed improvements (silly me ...). I should have learnt by then, but with the speed issues from the past still lurking I was desperate.
And it didn't offer any improvement speed-wise to me.
And I had to start the subscription model to get the DeHaze functionality.

It is issues like this (as well as their slug-like speed in doing anything about the too-many-to-list long-standing poor DAM features) that really make me annoyed, as there is so much they could do to improve things (and now they certainly can't use cost as an excuse!) such as this kind of feature. I'de LOVE it.

I never use Photoshop now (even though it's part of my subscription) and instead use Affinity Photo (and the rest of the family can use it also as part of my license!). If someone comes up with as good a competitor to Lightroom, I'll jump ship ...

Unless, of course, they start giving us what we need in the Desktop version instead of just adding more ands more online/mobile phone stuff. I understand that that's really good for a lot of people, but for heavens sake, Adobe, please don't keep ignoring those of us that still want what we got into Lightroom for in the first place - we're seeing so many new features (like this) available in other software now, and LR just isn't keeping up.

[Todd Shaner]

If the portraits were all shot using the exact same subject composition, lighting, aperture and ISO speed setting the image with the largest file size should be the sharpest. Use right-click  'Show In Finder or Explorer' to quickly check the file sizes.

[naestyoh]

Unless you are shooting against a high-frequency backdrop and the camera missed subject focus and brings that background into focus. 

[Todd Shaner]

Agreed, but *Fionn Großeseems to indicate the portraits are blurry due to slow shutter speed (1/60sec.). Of course that begs the question of why not shoot at a higher shutter speed? Even my 2004 Canon 300D has a 1/200 sec. flash sync speed, which would reduce blurring due to camera shake. Just a suggestion. ;>)

[naestyoh]

If there was no ambient... I think someone mentioned implementing a blur estimator as a solution.