Sharpening

JoeWhitley

JoeWhitley

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Joe
Edit My Images
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Hello everyone,

Do you all sharpen every image you edit? If so, what's the best way to do it and how do you prevent the images going the wrong way? I zoomed into an image I sharpened the other day and it was all weird.

Thanks a lot in advance for any help.

All the best,
Joe
 
It depends a bit on whether your shooting jpeg or raw, all raw need to be sharpened, but as jpeg usually have in camera sharpening added you may not need to sharpen (depends a bit on the amount of sharpening added in camera) Usually they will still benifit form some sharpening.
Ideally view the image at 100% when your sharpening, most softwares don't show it properly at other sizes and this cam be misleading.
See if you can get hold of a book called real world sharpening by Bruce Fraisre and Jeff Schewe, it'll tell you everything you need to know about sharpening.
 
I dont shoot in Raw only jpg and yes I sharpen every image and as said view at 100% to get the right result :thumbs: ( I use CS 5 )

Les :thumbs:
 
swanseamale47 said:
It depends a bit on whether your shooting jpeg or raw, all raw need to be sharpened, but as jpeg usually have in camera sharpening added you may not need to sharpen (depends a bit on the amount of sharpening added in camera) Usually they will still benifit form some sharpening.
Ideally view the image at 100% when your sharpening, most softwares don't show it properly at other sizes and this cam be misleading.
See if you can get hold of a book called real world sharpening by Bruce Fraisre and Jeff Schewe, it'll tell you everything you need to know about sharpening.
Click to expand...

Thanks Wayne. I've just started shooting in RAW as I love editing the photo in that menu that comes up when you open the CR2 file in Photoshop. Does the 'clarity' part of that menu count as sharpening, or do you have to do it separately?
I'll have a look for that book - thanks a lot for the advice.
 
Sorry but I've never heard of those two terms. How do they work? Thank you
Click to expand...

First you need to duplicate the layer and work on the top one.
Then go to Filter, Other, High Pass

You will need to move the radius slider for various levels of sharpening, try first with 10
In your layers palette change the mode from Normal to soft light and then merge down to one layer.

Check the results and if ok you have it.

If not, instead of soft light use Hard Light and merge down.
 
Personally I prefer to use the Unsharp Mask on objects such as buildings and landscapes, again on a duplicate layer and the flatten the layer if you are happy with the result.
 
snapalot said:
First you need to duplicate the layer and work on the top one.
Then go to Filter, Other, High Pass

You will need to move the radius slider for various levels of sharpening, try first with 10
In your layers palette change the mode from Normal to soft light and then merge down to one layer.

Check the results and if ok you have it.

If not, instead of soft light use Hard Light and merge down.
Click to expand...

Thanks very much, Brian. I'm planning to upload a few more images to Flickr this afternoon so I'll give that a go. Appreciate the help :)
 
One thing to take into consideration is whether you are sharpening for print output or screen output. The difference is usually in the pixel count (or file size). Larger files need 'stronger' sharpening. The gotcha is that your monitor only displays at 72ppi where as you may print at c.300ppi. So your sharpening looks 'over done' on screen. Welcome to the world of digital!
 
JoeWhitley said:
Hello everyone,

Do you all sharpen every image you edit? If so, what's the best way to do it and how do you prevent the images going the wrong way? I zoomed into an image I sharpened the other day and it was all weird.

Thanks a lot in advance for any help.

All the best,
Joe
Click to expand...



I shoot raw and apply a small amount of sharpening in lightroom. If I'm exporting small watermarked proofs from lightroom I just add more sharpening by checking the output sharpening box in the export dialogue and choose screen or print and let LR do it.

For print images they are exported without additional sharpening and I finish my edits in photoshop. After I resize for print it screen I duplicate layer, apply smart sharpen filter and change blend mode of layer to luminosity. For screen viewing I set filter on 0.7 pixels and adjust amount to taste. For printing I set it to 1.2 pixels and sharpen more aggressively.

Another trick is to apply smart sharpen to your image without duplicating layer, then choose fade smart sharpen filter and change to blend mode luminosity instead of doing a duplicate layer.

If I'm getting tricky I will use a layer mask to apply sharpening to parts of the image selectively. Another way to do this is use the sharpen tool to paint sharpening to select areas. In CS5 the sharpen tool has been updated and apparently uses the most sophisticated sharpening algorithm in photoshop. It used to be carp so don't try it with earlier versions.

BTW the blend mode luminosity reduces haloing caused by sharpening, that's why I do that above.
 
Photodiva said:
One thing to take into consideration is whether you are sharpening for print output or screen output. The difference is usually in the pixel count (or file size). Larger files need 'stronger' sharpening. The gotcha is that your monitor only displays at 72ppi where as you may print at c.300ppi. So your sharpening looks 'over done' on screen. Welcome to the world of digital!
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot for the tip.
 
lensflair said:
I shoot raw and apply a small amount of sharpening in lightroom. If I'm exporting small watermarked proofs from lightroom I just add more sharpening by checking the output sharpening box in the export dialogue and choose screen or print and let LR do it.

For print images they are exported without additional sharpening and I finish my edits in photoshop. After I resize for print it screen I duplicate layer, apply smart sharpen filter and change blend mode of layer to luminosity. For screen viewing I set filter on 0.7 pixels and adjust amount to taste. For printing I set it to 1.2 pixels and sharpen more aggressively.

Another trick is to apply smart sharpen to your image without duplicating layer, then choose fade smart sharpen filter and change to blend mode luminosity instead of doing a duplicate layer.

If I'm getting tricky I will use a layer mask to apply sharpening to parts of the image selectively. Another way to do this is use the sharpen tool to paint sharpening to select areas. In CS5 the sharpen tool has been updated and apparently uses the most sophisticated sharpening algorithm in photoshop. It used to be carp so don't try it with earlier versions.

BTW the blend mode luminosity reduces haloing caused by sharpening, that's why I do that above.
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot for all this information. I appreciate you taking the time to help.
 
PhotoshopEditer said:
I sharpen every image I shout. If you use Lightroom make a preset with sharpening and apply it to all your images. You will still have to change it a bit.
Click to expand...

I just got lightroom. How do you create a preset?
 
I don't sharpen every image, I guess it also depends on my lens. I only shoot in RAW, don't subscribe at all that every RAW image requires sharpening, if that is the case one might be better off changing some in camera settings to help it a little with a direct result or get a better raw processor that understands your camera information.
 
dejongj said:
I don't sharpen every image, I guess it also depends on my lens. I only shoot in RAW, don't subscribe at all that every RAW image requires sharpening, if that is the case one might be better off changing some in camera settings to help it a little with a direct result or get a better raw processor that understands your camera information.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice.
 
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