#tack sharp

Tack Sharp Photos

While it is quite well known what a tack sharp photo is, let me give my two cents worth into this.  A photo, seen at say 50% of its full size may appear tack sharp.  Zoom to 100% you will see all sort of fuzziness - like color/luminosity noise, blurs etc.

A photo must be completely well-defined in terms of detail, contrast, separation, levels, luminosity etc. at 100% of its resolution will no noise (or at least, acceptable noise which does not deteriorate the overall image).   You cannot get this in Photoshop by sharpening the image (which anyway you will do as a final step) or by other manipulations.  It must happen while taking the shot - period.  Contrary to popular belief, this has nothing to do with the sensor size (megapixels) or even the camera.  You can get fantastic tack sharp pictures with even a good compact camera.  I personally love DSLRs and use them extensively, but I think they are overrated.  Photography is a scientific-art.

I always zoom to 200% of the image to look for deterioration in detail.  If will be there at 200% - but if the image is tack at 100% and acceptably deteriorated at 200%, I would consider the image tack sharp.  For portraits, I would look at the eye.  For other images, I would look at the focus point and the focus neighborhood - that should be tack sharp.