Sharpening Nikon raw images - where is the sweet spot ?

mikeyw

mikeyw

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I realise Nikon raw images are fairly soft out of the camera but just wanted to gauge where people tend to position the sharpening slider in lightroom as a rule of thumb ?... obviously all photos are different but i find i'm usually hitting somewhere in the 70-90 range most of the time.

Obviously this sort of thing can be subjective so just wanted to gauge others views.
 
mikeyw said:
I realise Nikon raw images are fairly soft out of the camera but just wanted to gauge where people tend to position the sharpening slider in lightroom as a rule of thumb ?... obviously all photos are different but i find i'm usually hitting somewhere in the 70-90 range most of the time.

Obviously this sort of thing can be subjective so just wanted to gauge others views.
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I use ACR, though I do the same in LightRoom when I use it.

By default I have sharpening set to 70, Noise Reduction set to 20 and Lens Correction (luckily my camera and lenses are in the database :)) saved as a Preset which I apply to every image, and then do other things should the image need it.

Obviously if those settings are not right for the image I can start again with it being a RAW file, but they are right for me almost all of the time.
 
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mikeyw said:
I realise Nikon raw images are fairly soft out of the camera but just wanted to gauge where people tend to position the sharpening slider in lightroom as a rule of thumb ?... obviously all photos are different but i find i'm usually hitting somewhere in the 70-90 range most of the time.

Obviously this sort of thing can be subjective so just wanted to gauge others views.
Click to expand...

Really? That high? Mine come out plenty sharp and need at best 45. What lenses are you using?
 
mikeyw said:
I realise Nikon raw images are fairly soft out of the camera but just wanted to gauge where people tend to position the sharpening slider in lightroom as a rule of thumb ?... obviously all photos are different but i find i'm usually hitting somewhere in the 70-90 range most of the time.

Obviously this sort of thing can be subjective so just wanted to gauge others views.
Click to expand...

It's going to vary a lot, some lens will produce a sharper more contrasty image, some subjects will need more sharpening (eg a rusty gate will take more than a pretty girls portrait) and it also depends on output whether for print or web, and size.
 
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