Sharpening

menthel

menthel

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Jim
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Right, I know the 7D needs a decent amount of sharpening but in portraits I have never quite got the hang of it. I just don't think I do enough, so I gave it a bit more. What do you think? Over, under, just right? All tips gratefully received!


SJW 6_8_11-37 by menthel, on Flickr
 
My inclination would be to dial it back, it's getting a bit too sharp for my liking. Also you need to consider the complete process. Is the image going to be printed.If so are you going to apply output sharpening, and how much. Also is it going on the web, think about how the hosting company treats images. It definitely looks too sharp magnified on Fliker

How are you handling the image? In Photoshop , DPP, or Lightroom
 
Looks fine to me for the size posted but then I like my male portraits sharp, if you are going to have stubble then at least make it sharp.;)

But as Chappers said depending on the output and size the same image will need different amounts of sharpening for different types of output.:)
 
Thanks all. I have used lightroom and perhaps sharpened to what I wanted at the first stage, whereas I have still added more on export and then whatever flickr does has made it just too much. I don't like sharpening too much personally but see a lot of the images here looking very sharp.

Another problem may be that this was with my 70-200 which is a lot sharper than my usual 18-50.

I will redo etc later.
 
Hi. I use unsharp mask. For portraits, set the threshold to 5, for landscapes 0. Helps to control skin tone. Depending on file size, you will need a greater amount for print out put, less for web. This always makes it difficult as if you sharpen for print output the view you get is web so it looks oversharpened...
 
Appreciate the question was about sharpening, but I'd suggest the focus is a bigger issue with the portrait, looks to me like it’s on the nose and the eyes aren’t sharp.
 
Thanks all. Lightroom doesn't allow for using an unsharp mask technique and I won't be taking every image into photoshop, I just don't have the time!

As for the focus on the photo, its actually one of me and hence not actually taken by me and was not chosen as an amazing photo or even one with the focus on exactly the right place, just one to sharpen up and ask the question with! ;)
 
hi all. here are a couple of sharpening methods i use -

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/photoshop/cs/using/WS54906275-E3B4-41d5-AC02-338AD02FD23Da.html (sharpen selected parts of picture using colour channels)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OptOm3RkByM&feature=player_embedded
(sharpen selectively in lab mode. i use this mostly and try the other methods if this doesn't produce satisfactory results)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8plOYfKbGoM&feature=related (using high pass filter to sharpen)

good luck!
 
memoryboy said:
hi all. here are a couple of sharpening methods i use -

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/photoshop/cs/using/WS54906275-E3B4-41d5-AC02-338AD02FD23Da.html (sharpen selected parts of picture using colour channels)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OptOm3RkByM&feature=player_embedded
(sharpen selectively in lab mode. i use this mostly and try the other methods if this doesn't produce satisfactory results)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8plOYfKbGoM&feature=related (using high pass filter to sharpen)

good luck!
Click to expand...

Thanks, but as I said in the post above, I use lightroom! ;)
 
The beauty of Lightroom is that you can go back and tweak you input sharpening if you want to. It's all very easy. So I tend to keep capture sharpening initially down to a minimum ( Usually the defaults to start with ). Adding aditional sharpening (if needed) at the editing stage.

A lot of my images go to repro, so I don't know what and how much sharpening they are going to apply. Usually the default setting gives a nice image on the page be it small or across 2 A4's
 
o9k36r.jpg


h3h3 sharp
 
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