In Camera sharpening verses software sharpening

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Ice9001

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Can anyone explain why i keep reading that i should use post process sharpening and not in camera sharpening , yet when I use unsharp mask in Nikon nx2 or elements the results are never even close as sharp as the in camera sharpening in my D90 . |No matter how much sharpening I apply the images look soft compared to my origional setting of 6 in my camera .
 
The reason it does not look as sharp is due to the fact the LCD on your camera is a lot smaller so therefore tends to look a lot sharper, D90 screen is fantastic.
As far as PP is concerned USM is always better than incamera sharpening imo.
What Unsharp mask settings are you using?
 
Ice9001 said:
Can anyone explain why i keep reading that i should use post process sharpening and not in camera sharpening
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Because in post production you have MUCH more control over the sharpening, and the choice of one of a thousand different ways of doing it.

The main thing for me is selective sharpening. In Photoshop (and other apps) you can use layer masks allowing you to only sharpen certain sections of the image (detail areas like eyes and other facial features), while ignoring out of focus or less important areas that would otherwise be tweaked with an overall sharpening of the entire image.

Unsharp Mask is generally better than in-camera sharpening, but there are many many better methods than unsharp mark for sharpening images, depending on the software available to you.
 
Are you shooting raw or JPEG?

If you are shooting JPEG the camera applies sharpening on the 12 bit raw data before compressing to an 8 bit JPEG. If you sharpen a JPEG on the computer you are sharpening the 8 bit JPEG data, this can be inferior.

If you are shooting raw and switch off sharpening in the camera, or deselect it in the Capture NX2 Edit List, you should be able to use Unsharp Mask to get results at least as good as the in camera sharpening. It is always best to sharpen as the last step when editing, if you sharpen and then apply other editing steps it can affect the quality.
 
I shoot in raw and have been shooting with the sharpening off recently I use Nikon Capture nx2 for editing mainly also elements seven . I was going through my old photos recently and noticed that the images looked much better sharper crisper when I was shooting with the camera sharprning set to six and in the standard picture mode . The Nx2 software lets you apply the in house settings after the fact if you shoot in raw and if you have them set differently you can revert back what ever settings you want but even this seems to nit be able to do the job . When I re apply the sharpening the picture still does not match the crispness of the in camera settings the subjrcts say birds look soft lacking detail contrast its weird .
 
It may not be just sharpness it could be some of the other parameters such as contrast.

Have a look at what in camera processing you have enabled and see if this could be a factor.

Not being a Nikon user I don't know what controls are available in Nx. but you may want to have a look at Lightroom as it does have some excellent sharpening controls including the clarity control
 
Try and get hold of a copy of "real world sharpening" by Bruce Fraiser and Jeff Schew, this is well worth a read, and it'll explain things much better than I can..
 
"Digital cameras will, as a part of their default image processing, apply some level of sharpening, to counteract the effects of the interpolation of colors during the color filter array decoding process (which will soften detail slightly)...

"If you shoot in JPEG it is recommended to apply some in-camera sharpening (e.g. "Low" or "Normal") because with regular software, it is not so easy to achieve the same sharpening quality level of in-camera sharpening. One of the reasons is that in-camera sharpening is applied before JPEG compression, while sharpening on your computer is done after JPEG compression, thereby making the edges of the JPEG compression squares more visible" (Vincent Bockaert).
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Kaouthia said:
The main thing for me is selective sharpening.
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Yes, this is excellent advice. Global adjustments are often unhelpful. RAW editing tends to promote this.

Better results are usually possible if editing tools are applied selectively where they are needed most. Should we warm up an entire image, including faces, neutral tones and overcast skies? Should we apply the same sharpening tool to every texture? Should we apply saturation to every pixel and every colour in the image? Colour-correction adjustments may favour some parts of the image more than others. When working with black and white images is it best to apply the same colour-toning to the highlights, the mid-tones and the shadows? Probably not. Should we reduce noise everywhere? Possibly not. Noise reduction affects image quality.

Sam
 
Hard to say what is going on without seeing your photos and seeing exactly what adjustments you are making.

Try this in NX2 though.

In the edit pane go to Camera Settings and turn the Sharpening off.

After all other edits and resizing go to the Edit Pane and select New Step / Focus / High Pass.
The photo will go grey, adjust the radius slider until detail just appears.
Click Opacity / Click All and change to Luminance & Chrominance, move the Chrominance slider to 0
Click on Blending Mode / Change to Overlay

Then view the picture at 100% and fine adjust the radius looking for halos etc.
 
Sharpening, something else for me to learn!! Got to get a good Digital photography book. Anyone recommend one? (Sorry to hi-jack thread)
 
Koolpc said:
Sharpening, something else for me to learn!! Got to get a good Digital photography book. Anyone recommend one? (Sorry to hi-jack thread)
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How about obtaining a book on forum etiquette!!
 
Some people don't know what the sharpening parameters (radius, amount etc.) are for and what their separate jobs are, and end up making a mess of it (like I used to). I use LR3 for sharpening, and this is where I learned how to do it correctly,

http://froknowsphoto.com/sharpening-tutorial/
 
Thanks guys some great responses they were really helpful . I am starting to get smewere with this sharpeng thing lol . Tryed your method Suv its very smooth looking but not sure if I like it it still lacks a little detail compred to the in camera sharpening but maybe I am just not appling it right lol
 
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