That time a pro told me my moon shots were too sharp

I spent months stacking and sharpening lunar images until a guy at the Tucson star party pointed out the craters looked like cheese graters. He said real moon texture has a soft, almost powdery edge when you zoom in, and he was totally right. Anyone else backed off the sharpening slider after getting harsh feedback?

2 comments

2 Comments

johnflores25d ago

Yeah that cheese grater look is a real trap. I had a similar wakeup call when I showed my best stacked shot at a club meeting and someone asked if I had a filter on. Turns out I was cranking unsharp mask way too far and it was making the edges look fake and crunchy. These days I do a very mild wavelet layer in Registax and then back off until the detail barely holds. Also I started looking at real Apollo mission photos more often to get a feel for how the terrain actually behaves in different light.

samwalker25d ago

Ha! Gotta push back on this one. I actually think oversharpening is way less of a problem than people make it out to be, especially for lunar shots where those crisp edges and tiny craters really pop. I've seen plenty of "buttery smooth" moon images that just look soft and boring, and nobody questions those because there's no artificial crunch to notice.