Image sharpening

[surenj]

I know there is volumes written on this complex and bewildering topic on the net etc etc

I mostly post on the web so select moderate sharpening on LR 2 before I export to flickr. The few times I print (Large), I am at a loss how much to sharpen and sharpen a 'little' at high magnification to see a minor change and cross my fingers.

I am keen to know what YOU do with what for different purposes. Is there a secret formula?

Thanks for your opinion.

[chrisk]

i'm a sharpening noob...i have a 15/5/0 USM setting in my batch processing and thats me. there are much better ways so look forward to reading some info.

[Wink]

I 'mostly' sharpen in the develop module using either of the 2 sharpening presets that came with LR3. If I change the values after the preset has been applied then I'm usually adjusting the masking slider while displaying the mask to reduce the sharpening in areas of lesser detail.

I do have a couple of other presets that I've made that have sharpening in them as well as a few other subtle tweaks, which are only used for certain types of images, such as my car light painting.

Sometimes I'll add selective sharpening too with the adjustments brush to say the eyes, hair etc.
Then I'll export and add export sharpening for the desired end product (print or screen).

There's been a fair bit on LightroomKillerTips.com about sharpening and there's a video being made on the subject now.
Some time ago Matt did a video about demonstrating the differences between the different export sharpening settings. The video showed there's little between them and they're not very aggressive.

[biggerry]

Search for progressive sharpening here on DSLRusers.

What I use for web resizing is a simple CNX2 batch script;

Step 1; resample image at a samll size/resolution, typically 50% of the original.

Step 2: Sharpen using unsharp mask with the following values:
Radius 3
Intensity 15%

Step 3: Fit photo, basically to the final size, 775x800 for DSLRusers or 800x800 or 1024x1024 for other forums.

Step 4: Sharpen using unsharp mask with the following values:
Radius 3
Intensity 25%

This basically takes care of the fine grain sharpening, now you can also add in another unsharp mask using a larger radius if the image is slightly (and only slightly) OOF, I find typically radius of 75-80 at no more than 7-10% can salvage well.

[Murray Foote]

Although I perform most tasks in Lightroom, sharpening is one thing I mainly do in Photoshop.

I use Lightroom defaults for capture sharpening. Then for selected images, usually after most of the other Lightroom adjustments, I launch to Photoshop for creative sharpening.

For this I use PK sharpener which generates two pixel-bearing layers for light and dark area sharpening. I assess the effect of overall sharpening and for the two layers on the particular image. I may accept the effect, hide one of the two layers, reduce the opacity of one or both of the sharpening layers, adjust highlight intensity and halos with Layer Style Blend If. Often I use masks to restrict sharpening to particular areas and sometimes I also use a surface mask generated with a Utility from The Light's Right. In general terms, I find focused regional sharpening far more effective than overall sharpening. Even with recent improvements to Lightroom, including masking and the possibility of regional sharpening with adjustment brushes, I do not find Lightroom nearly as effective.

In Photoshop, prior to the sharpening, I may reduce noise with Neat Image for high ISO images. This has a bearing on the amount of sharpening you can undertake. Noise reduction in Lightroom is quite useful but I think not as powerful.

Then, back in Lightroom, I use Lightroom for output sharpening when I print or export to the web. I could also use PK Sharpener here but find Lightroom much easier (especially for images en masse) and see no reason to doubt it here.

[Alex]

Another vote for the PK sharpener. I use it mostly for the photos I want to print though. For the web sized photos I sharpen in LAB colour space using L-channel only.

Alex

[biggerry]

Just for kicks and giggles I had a play with an image to compare sharpened and unsharpened images. Now the following image is pretty darn sharp anyway, however this is an example of progressive sharpening for the web

below are the two images, the first is a nef file that was made to fit 775x800 then saved as jpeg at 84% quality, the second is the same nef with my batch file described in the previous post.

no sharp


progressive sharp


and a zoomed in version of the two to compare

[biggerry]

and just for reference, crop from the nef file, no sharpening, either in camera or PP (other than what happens when converting to jpeg )