When should you crop and sharpen

[lynweber]

So I know i have read this somewhere but can't remember. So my question is do you crop first then edit or edit then crop? Do you sharpen before edit or after final edits are done and before you crop?

Thanks!

Lyn

[dakwegmo]

Do you shoot RAW or jpg? If you shoot JPG you'd likely only need to sharpen for your specific outputs (web, print, etc.). If you shoot RAW you'll also do some capture sharpening when you open the photos in your RAW converter. Those are about the only times I sharpen unless I'm going for a very specific effect.

Likewise with cropping, I'll do a composition crop the very first thing, to make sure there's a decent image without any distracting elements before spending too much time processing them. I'll also crop for various print sizes.

[lynweber]

I shoot jpeg

[dakwegmo]

Shooting JPG, your camera applies the capture sharpening, you can adjust this setting in-camera if the jpgs aren't sharp enough out of camera. Otherwise, I'd only sharpen for output.