What sharpness?

[Pigelin]

Iv'e been wondering, in my post processing software I can choose to change sharpness for my RAW images, 1-10. Until now iv'e been changing on random to what I think looks good, but is there any preferences to what is wanted on different types of photos? For example, I know that for portraits a low sharpness is standard. But I kinda like high sharpness...

[teaking]

Its all down to personal preference and image, each image will require different amounts of sharpening. Selective sharpening can work really well to by selectively sharpening parts of the image it can make the image appear sharper than other methods portrait shots are a good example where you want the eyes sharp and the outer elements not so.

Maybe aiming for a good overall general sharpness in your RAW editor and then selectively sharpening later? its down to what suits your work flow

[Pigelin]

Thanks for reply . I've actually wondered if you could do selective sharpening. For the moment I only have photoshop elements besides the standard RAW converter, can you do this with that software?

Another thing, if I have some noise and use noise reduction, how does this affect the sharpness? With higher sharpness comes higher noise? In other words, is it contradictive raising sharpness while using noise reduction?

[LeeR]

The tools for handling sharpness in the RAW image editor are rather limited but can be useful in some situations. I like it for portraits because you can use the Details and Masking sliders to determine here you want the sharpening to occur to some degree. However, the best tools for sharpening, though a bit more cumbersome, are in PS proper where you can sharpen on a new layer and use a mask to determine where the sharpening occurs, or use one of the edge sharpening techniques to the sharpen just to critical edges.

[teaking]

LEE is right he has the experiance here.

As for noise reduction it does soften images and can require some sharpening to bring back some detail.

But do remember that when printed the noise may not even seem half as bad or you just may not notice it.

As for a work around to try to avoid sharpening noise there is a technique called mid tone sharpening. The idea is by sharpening mid tones you avoid halos and noise in the shadows and highlights and only sharpen the important detail in the mid tones. Photoshop uses the blend if technique to implement this and google has lots of tutorials, where as in GIMP you have to use creative layer masks but get the same effect in a very workable way theres a good tutorial of this on the cambridge in colour forums.

[Mike367]

All I can add is that for print, I sharpen a bit more than for computer viewing....that is, I find it prints better if it looks slightly over-sharpened on my monitor.