How you determine sharpness in your raw pics

[samester]

Hi,

I have been shooting slide film for a few years now and with my 8x and 22x loupes along with my light box, i could usually pick out the tack sharp pics without too much hassle.

Now with the D70 though, i'm not too sure what a tack sharp pic looks like.

To clarify, some pics look awesome at 25% but then at 100% they appear a little soft. Not too sure if my monitor/desktop res are working against me here.

So how does everyone guage how sharp a raw pic is - for example should facial features will ultra sharp at 100% as you scroll across a portrait for example.

Is there a particular image size and desktop resolution that gives a good overall feel for raw sharpness prior to any post processing ?

Would love to hear how everyone checks to see how sharp their pics are straight off the cam.

Cheers,
Sam

[Link]

I usually check sharpness by viewing the photo at 100% on my computer screen - it's easy to detect if an image is out of focus or too soft. That gives me an idea of the overall technical quality of the shot (ie, can it be printed large and remain sharp). Ideally, facial features should be sharp even at 100% but in practive it depends a lot on your lens. I personnally found that if it looks sharp at 66%, it's usually good enough for a 12*8 print.

And a soft image will still look good printed at a smaller size...

Link.

[Onyx]

I guess this one comes down to practice, and your personal preferences of what's acceptably sharp. Keep in mind the 0 sharpness setting on the camera or in Capture doesn't mean no sharpening applied. So many of the images you'll be looking at have been artificially sharpened.

[sirhc55]

I touch my screen and if the photo cuts my finger then I don’t apply any USM

[Glen]

I touch my screen and if the photo cuts my finger then I don’t apply any USM

[Matt. K]

Ultimately sharpness should be determined by evaluating a print. Keep in mind that most computer monitors display at a resolution of 72 DPI. You can get an aproximate idea of the sharpness from a monitor but a print produced at 300 DPI will reveal far more information.