Focus Mask - sort by

Implemented

Michael Ustinoff

• August 13, 2020 08:49

A feature that would save 90% of my time culling images would be to sort images by focus mask, I spend most of my time just culling images that aren't sharp, if images could be sorted by some generic measure of sharpness like % of image area that registers as sharp, then I would only have to look at the images that  actually have a chance of being selected.  Shooting sports in particular I end up with thousands of images so a feature like that would make an insane difference and I might actually care about making the images look pretty if I didn't have to spend the majority of my time sieving though the trash.

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  SFA

  • August 13, 2020 11:31

  Michael,

  That's an interesting idea but I rather doubt that the Focus Mask is a useful tool in that respect and I'm not sure that a user provided % sharpness area would be of much benefit either. If one wanted just a target (i.e. small sharp area, blurred background)  but the entire area was sharp, including the subject, would you want it rejected?

  If you got the right % but the wrong subject, would the assistance help you?

  Now if the camera manufacturers could provide a "hit or miss" rating based on their out of camera data (so a known distance to target focus point (or average if not using a spot point) compared to a depth of field estimate based on lens settings one might have some better feeling for which images are worthy of attention. My guess would be that they could do that but either don't want to make it too easy to assess the accuracy of their systems (as a principle since applying it to one excellent flagship model would imply they could do it for everything ...). Or they have looked at it and decided that it might be useful in specific use cases (like yours) but totally useless in others and thus potentially misguiding for many users who might not take the the time to understand the nuances involved.

  In addition there is the question of what will be the eventual use of the image.

  Accurate focus may be less significant at source for an image that will be used as a low resolution jpg or a small print for example.

   

  Nevertheless the idea is interesting. Perhaps there are already some applications that consider this? Although I suspect that applications that set out to make "soft" images appear sharper might be a more popular commercial route for software developers.

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