SHARPENING?

Briony

Briony

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Nicki.
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Is there a hard and fast rule about sharpening a photo :shrug: or do we all have our own set rules? on this as I am finding it difficult to spot as to whether a photo needs sharpening or not and some views to me are soft when loking at them:shrug:

What are the general rules that one goes by please ?
 
Others may be able to tell you of rules about sharpening, but I personally always sharpen my RAW pictures. I use the high-pass filter method on a seperate layer as that gives me more control.
 
Some people like ultra sharp photos.....others don't! Lately I've been going easy on the sharpening sliders, but ultimately I'll add whatever I think the photo needs.....

I've never done batch sharpening, even if I have 100's to process!! :thumbs:
 
Sharpening is one of those actions that can be overdone very easily. Some software applies a small amount of sharpening on import others don't. Generally I'd say if the image looks sharpened then you've added to much.

Also different software applies sharpening in different ways. Lightroom for instance allows you to apply capture sharpening, to the imported image, and then allows output sharpening for printing.

If you are shooting JPEG the camera software will have applied some sharpening during the process. I don't think there is any real rule f thumb except don't over do it. Each image does need to be evaluated in it's own terms
 
On the most basic level the most significant rule is that sharpening should be the last step in your processing and should be performed after resizing. However, you can take a more sophistocated approach if you wish, typically with three phases of sharpening. Some software will let you take the three step approach, some not. The steps are....

1. Capture Sharpening, to overcome softening effects of the AA filter covering the sensor;

2. Creative sharpening, targeted at specific areas of the image such as eyes and hair, while perhaps softening other areas such as background or skin;

3. Output sharpening, tailored to suit your output size and output medium.


The reason it is important to sharpen as the last step, after resizing, is that when you squeeze a huge 10 to 20 megapixel file down to about 0.5 megapixels for the web, for example, all the fine detail that you so painstakingly might have sharpened earlier tends to get crushed together, rendering your earlier efforts moot. You need to sharpen once you've downsized so that you can enhance the image as it finally looks for display.

There is a good example of the three sharpening stages here....

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=466333

If you're only going to sharpen once then do it at the end, just before saving.

If you prefer a talkthrough approach then take a look at this video from Canon....

http://www.usa.canon.com/dlc/controller?act=GetArticleAct&articleID=287&fromTips=1
 
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Thnak you, so you sharpen after you have flattened the image :thinking:
 
Theres a very good book on sharpening called real world sharpening by Bruce Fraiser, it's well worth a read.
 
No I don't, I always sharpen on a new layer, that way if I overcook the extra sharpening ( I do the main sharpening in ACR) I can reduce the fill or opacity on the new sharpened layer until it works, I usually set the opacity between 60-80% on that layer as I find this works best and takes less time than messing around in my sharpening plugin or filter.
 
tdodd said:
The reason it is important to sharpen as the last step, after resizing, is that when you squeeze a huge 10 to 20 megapixel file down to about 0.5 megapixels for the web, for example, all the fine detail that you so painstakingly might have sharpened earlier tends to get crushed together, rendering your earlier efforts moot. You need to sharpen once you've downsized so that you can enhance the image as it finally looks for display.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that tip tdodd, I hadn't thought of that :bonk: even though I knew that sharpening should be done last. I just assumed that resizing would have no effect on it. Must have a tinker around to see what the effect is, then change my script.
 
For what it's worth, I agree with tdodd:

1. Capture Sharpening, to overcome softening effects of the AA filter covering the sensor;

2. Creative sharpening, targeted at specific areas of the image such as eyes and hair, while perhaps softening other areas such as background or skin;

3. Output sharpening, tailored to suit your output size and output medium.
Click to expand...

But I would add that I use Camera Raw for capture sharpening, and Photoshop for the other two stages. Camera Raw's sharpen tools are very powerful, and certainly better than the blunt instrument that is unsharp mask. I also think it's at the right stage of the workflow, ie as you convert to bitmap. Non-destructive as a consequence.

The Bruce Fraser book is great, as is Real World Camera Raw by Jeff Schewe and Bruce Fraser.
 
Graham00 said:
i just use auto sharpen at the end in elements is this not the proper thing to do ?
Click to expand...

You won't get the best results by doing it that way. Each image should be sharpened (or not sharpened) individually to get the very best out of them. The excellent Ron Bigelow link that Blasteh provided explains it a lot better than I can :)
 
One thing ive found recently - which is good for pictures which are sometime beyond rescue, is to use un-sharp mark in 2 stages, or more possibley.

I use a larger radius and low % first just to get it started, then use a small radius and higher % to make the details pop. I saved a couple of football shots that way last weekend.

Ade
 
Adey said:
One thing ive found recently - which is good for pictures which are sometime beyond rescue, is to use un-sharp mark in 2 stages, or more possibley.

I use a larger radius and low % first just to get it started, then use a small radius and higher % to make the details pop. I saved a couple of football shots that way last weekend.

Ade
Click to expand...

A large radius and a low % is also good for a midtone contrast boost (bit like clarity).
 
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