... my signature shows I am very keen on photographing Dragonflies.
I photograph mainly invertebrates and flowers. This sort of thing -
invertebrates -
flowers. These images were captured over several years with several cameras (3 bridge cameras, one P&S and one micro-four thirds), and originally processed using the techniques I was using at the time. Because I wanted to compare the results from these cameras and wanted as level a playing field as I could achieve, I reprocessed them all recently using my current techniques. I do sometimes use different techniques (e.g. creative sharpening in Lightroom) for some other types of photographs, but given your interest in dragonflies I'm concentrating here on the techniques I use for the vast majority of my stuff - invertebrates and flowers.
I have tried various sharpening techniques over the past six years or so, but have settled (at least for the moment
) on using Photoshop Smart Sharpen (in CS2). I do most of my processing in Lightroom (version 5), and don't do any sharpening in Lightroom; so I do no input sharpening and no creative sharpening. The only sharpening I do is output sharpening.
I sharpen after resizing to the final output size (currently 1100 pixels high).
I usually use the smallest Radius which produces any perceptible result (to my eye), which is 0.3 pixels. Sometimes, particularly with snails and slugs, I may use a larger Radius. (This is not to do with the shells, it is to do with the way their bodies - if that is the word - respond to sharpening.)
I use Amounts varying from about 20% to about 100%.
I also use sharpening-related techniques such as defogging/clarity (USM with small Amount, large Radius and Zero Threshold), and also Clarity in Lightroom. I usually use a very mild (indeed, scarcely perceptible) application of these techniques. (e.g. I have a very mild defog built into my workflow, just before the output sharpening, of USM Amount 7%, Radius 30 pixels, Threshold 0. If you try this you will see what I mean by "mild".
)
I don't print much, but when I do (usually A4, occasionally 16x12) I prepare a version for on-screen viewing to get the look that I want, then I revert the sharpening and the downsizing, and then sharpen the full size image using Smart Sharpen with the same Amount and twice the radius.
