Does everyone sharpen?

Do you always sharpen your images?

  • Yes!

    Votes: 53 76.8%

  • No!

    Votes: 16 23.2%
  • Total voters
    69
Richard.T

Richard.T

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448
Name
Richard
Edit My Images
Yes
Hey all,

After spending a while browsing and posting on here today, A lot of people sharpen their images by default it seems..

I for one, am a photographer who loves sharp images straight off my camera and any images which aren't to a standard of sharpness that pleases me( obviously hugely different between each 'tog) are usually not even considered, be it for a paid job, for possible sales or just for fun..

I rarely sharpen images unless I only have one of a said scene and I want to show it to others..

What about everyone else?
 
As far as I know, ALL modern digital SLR cameras have an anti aliasing filter, which helps reduce moire (Google if you are unsure on that). Because of the AA filter, you *need* to sharpen the images a little to get back the sharpness that you lose because of the AA filter. Seems really counter productive doesn't it? A sharpened image though shouldn't show up as much moire as an unsharpened image from a camera with no AA filter. There are companies out there which will remove the AA filter for you, but it seems like a heck of a lot of faffing for results which are only just noticeable at 100% (sharpening taken into consideration) let alone at normal viewing sizes.

To answer the question, I always sharpen pics.
 
I've never sharpened any of my pics. In fact I dont even know where the shapen is in CS3
 
I never used too, then someone suggested I should and now I hate all my photo's because whenever I sharpen them they look cack !
 
RobC said:
I never used too, then someone suggested I should and now I hate all my photo's because whenever I sharpen them they look cack !
Click to expand...
Referring to your goldfinch shot, The non edited one looks way better! :)
 
If I've shot in RAW then yes, absolutely.

I have actions for sharpening though so it's easy to do them as a batch.
 
RobC said:
I never used too, then someone suggested I should and now I hate all my photo's because whenever I sharpen them they look cack !
Click to expand...

Then you're oversharpening.
 
trencheel303 said:
Then you're oversharpening.
Click to expand...



Yup, you're right. But then I discovered the unsharpmask fade command, so I fade them and before I know what's happened they look exactly as they did before I started :bang:


It's my eyesight or my laptop or both :bonk:
 
Peter-T said:
Only really use jpg, does this make a difference? i take it the camera does some sharpening
Click to expand...

the camera will sharpen a jpg - you set how much, but you will still need to sharpen if you re-size the image
 
Peter-T said:
Only really use jpg, does this make a difference? i take it the camera does some sharpening
Click to expand...

The camera sharpens in jpg so you could use the shot straight out of camera.
RAW does no sharpening or any other alteration in camera, so all the Raw using folk will sharpen theirs as a matter of course.
 
I shoot in raw and so it goes without saying.. and photoshop does it by default I think in raw
 
Shoot in raw, use a few different methods, one in the raw editing bit and normally followed by a layer, high pass filter various levels, soft light then adjust the opacity to make subtle changes.

All depends on the image, but the above is my most used
 
Working in Lightroom I only sharpen on export, and even then only a tiny bit to make up for re-sizing. I dont do any sharpening as part of the processing.
 
It all depends upon.

what the image is,
where its going,
what camera / back its shot with.
 
If you look at lightroom default settings, Tom, there is a medium amount of sharpness applied anyway as soon as you open up the image in Lightroom.
 
Jimmy_Lemon said:
Working in Lightroom I only sharpen on export, and even then only a tiny bit to make up for re-sizing. I dont do any sharpening as part of the processing.
Click to expand...

That's pretty much how I work in DPP. I like my images to be as sharp as practically possible first - but after resizing images need sharpened, so I set my sharpening to 3 and then just export the images, and they come out all sparkling :love:
 
Like Alib - I normally sharpen RAW images
 
I always shoot RAW so nearly always add a little sharpening after the final resizing. I do it on a layer so that I can do final adjustments with the opacity setting, and mask out sharpening of the background if I want. I rarely print but if I do then I sharpen a bit more.
 
Janice said:
If you look at lightroom default settings, Tom, there is a medium amount of sharpness applied anyway as soon as you open up the image in Lightroom.
Click to expand...

Aha! so there is, that makes more sense :) always wondered why I didn't have to bother with sharpening, to be honest I had never really taken a look under the 'detail' section before as I rarely need noise reduction either. Well learnt something new :D
 
Richard.T said:
Hey all,

After spending a while browsing and posting on here today, A lot of people sharpen their images by default it seems..

I for one, am a photographer who loves sharp images straight off my camera and any images which aren't to a standard of sharpness that pleases me( obviously hugely different between each 'tog) are usually not even considered, be it for a paid job, for possible sales or just for fun..

I rarely sharpen images unless I only have one of a said scene and I want to show it to others..

What about everyone else?
Click to expand...

Do you shoot jpeg? Then the camera is sharpening them for you - without you being in control!
 
Peter-T said:
I've never sharpened any of my pics. In fact I dont even know where the shapen is in CS3
Click to expand...

RobC said:
I never used too, then someone suggested I should and now I hate all my photo's because whenever I sharpen them they look cack !
Click to expand...

Peter-T said:
Only really use jpg, does this make a difference? i take it the camera does some sharpening
Click to expand...

If you shoot jpeg then sharpening is done in camera. If you shoot raw then you have to sharpen in PP - EVERY digital file requires a degree of sharpening depending on the final use.
 
Again I shoot raw 100% so sharpening is a must regardless.
Any shots heading to print get extra sharpening, lots of. Even some print shops have questioned if I want my "really noisy" image printed. As a result they are amazed at the resulting print and I try to avoid the same print shop again :)
 
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