Sharpening images

[gecko]

Hello everyone

I have shot my first RAW images over the weekend and downloaded Nikon View to have my first play with PP.

I was amazed to see what a difference the sharpening tool made in Nikon View.

So, my question is.... is it possible to have too much of a good thing?
(chocolate and wine are of course automatically excluded - too much is never enough )

Can you OVER-sharpen an image?

Many of the images submitted in this forum are super sharp - how much PP sharpening is the norm? (I imagine it will vary from image to image, but is it a standard correction that most D70 owners make in PP?)

I plan on making some prints with different degrees of sharpening to see what difference it makes, but I thought that I would ask here first.

Thanks
Gecko (maybe that should be the Chocolate Gecko)

[Manta]

Hi Gecko.

There are a couple of other threads relating to this - if you do a search on "sharpening" or "USM" you should pick them up.

As you've already surmised, each image will react in its own way to sharpening. Yes you can over-sharpen but the result will be obvious.

As a general starting point: make sure you have your image at 100% view, so you can see the consequences of your sharpening then try setting 120-150%, 10-15px and 0-2 levels of threshold.

That seems to work pretty well for me but other members are MUCH more skilled in the dark art of sharpening and I bow to their greater wisdom....

[pippin88]

Over sharpening will result in halos around edges.

Bump up an image to maximum settings possible and look closely at some edges, there will be a glow or halo around the edges often.

[gecko]

Thanks Manta

Are those setting you have suggested for Nikon View?
I don't have it on this computer to check....
I also downloaded Raw Shooter Essentials today and plan on taking it home to play with tonight....

Cheers
Gecko

[Matt. K]

Sharpen conservatively and you'll have a head start on those who rush in and over-sharpen all of the time. And don't forget...you can select a part of your image and sharpen it in isolation. You can sharpen various parts of your image at different levels of sharpening. There are many different methods of sharpening in PS and they all have their place and time. Go 1 step at a time for the getting of wizdom. (A good tip in portraits is to select the eyes and slightly oversharpen to add some intensity to the image).

[Matt. K]

Sharpen conservatively and you'll have a head start on those who rush in and over-sharpen all of the time. And don't forget...you can select a part of your image and sharpen it in isolation. You can sharpen various parts of your image at different levels of sharpening. There are many different methods of sharpening in PS and they all have their place and time. Go 1 step at a time for the getting of wizdom. (A good tip in portraits is to select the eyes and slightly oversharpen to add some intensity to the image).

[Manta]

Thanks Manta

Are those setting you have suggested for Nikon View?
I don't have it on this computer to check....
I also downloaded Raw Shooter Essentials today and plan on taking it home to play with tonight....

Cheers
Gecko

Sorry Gecko, I should have stipulated: they were for UnsharpMask in Photoshop. I'm afraid I don't use Nikon View so others would be best placed to advise you on that.

[gecko]

OK Thanks Manta

I am a newbie to PS and I have the elements version 2, which I think won't accept the RAW plug in thingy (have not tried this yet).

I only downloaded RAW shooter software today, so I'm off home to see what it can do - maybe it will allow me to get the file into PS?

Maybe tomorrow I'll have some pic to post and get feedback....

Cheers
Gecko

[Aussie Dave]

Hi Gecko
perhaps another tid bit of advice. I always do the rest of my PP first, then use USM at the end. I find that if you start applying filters or changing levels, saturation etc, these can/may affect the sharpness of the picture. Using the USM last, you don't need to worry about that.

I wouldn't take it as gospel, but I find it works for me....

I have also read that some people use just a tiny bit of USM at the very start of PP, especially after resizing, and then again later towards or at the end.

Whatever works for you is what you should use !

[Frankenstein]

Gecko,
I was comparing different forms of sharpening on the weekend, and the one particularly like is by using the LAB mode and sharpening the lightness channel - check out this link to The Luminous Landscape (one of my favourite photographic websites):
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/instant_photoshop.shtml

I sharpened an image using this method, plain USM sharpening, and sharpening using levels and the high-pass filter, and the RAW channel mode appeared to my eyes to work best.

Frank

[Onyx]

But remember - in the end, USM sharpening is merely creating the illusion of greater detail and resolution by magnifying the difference in lightness and colour along an edge.

[digitor]

Thom Hogan has a pretty good intro to sharpening on his web page somewhere - I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to track it down! I think he also discusses the use of the unsharp mask for contrast enhancement, a neat trick I use sometimes with good effect.

Cheers