Sharpening questions

[Krusty79]

I have read that you should not sharpen your images until one of the final steps because you don't want to edit an already sharpened image and I have also read that you should sharpen at various steps along the way. At what point in your workflow do you sharpen? Do you sharpen at the RAW stage? Any tips to avoid over-sharpening? Thanks.

[dlambert]

Here's some good reading on that topic:

http://photo.stackexchange.com/quest...-be-sharpening

http://photo.stackexchange.com/quest...ge-for-a-photo

Be sure to read this article, too:
http://static.photo.net/attachments/...-175557684.pdf

[OsmosisStudios]

I always sharpen as the last step before saving.

[Digidave]

I have read that you should not sharpen your images until one of the final steps because you don't want to edit an already sharpened image

This true for certain steps such as resizing, cloning, etc...

and I have also read that you should sharpen at various steps along the way.

This is also true but here's the thing. You probably already have your first sharpening when you set your camera to sharpen. That takes care of the first sharpening. Then you should do a final sharpening after your edits & before saving to jpg.

Personally, I use Nikon's Capture NX2 & the first step after opening a photo, in the RAW format, is to shut off in camera sharpening & apply my own. This gives me more control over how much & where it is applied.

[Krusty79]

Thanks for the replies. You've given me a lot to think about. I guess there is no one formula for sharpening that applies to all situations. It seems to be unanimous that images should be sharpened just prior to printing or after resizing. I did see the tutorial by LeeR that explains why digital images all need some sharpening.

I did a search for "Sharpening" in my camera manual and the only reference to it was if I set up a custom picture profile, so I don't think my camera is doing sharpening. It sure doesn't look like it on some of my shots!

[ravncat]

I tend to follow the Capture / Creative / Output sharpening routine...

Capture sharpening makes up for sharpness lost in capture - when you use light room - the sliders there are primarily for capture sharpening. If you shoot JPG - you set the capture sharpening level in the jpg settings ... usually high, low and normal or a range in between.

Creative sharpening is applying sharpening to specific areas of the image, usually to bring focus to an area of the image or deal with something that may be just a bit on the edge of the depth of field captured.

Output sharpening is final sharpening - and depends upon what the image is going to - for example to the screen for web, to a high resolution file, for output on a different monitor (like an ipod or a digital photo frame) or for print (and then it depends on printing method and paper used)

[Digidave]

I did a search for "Sharpening" in my camera manual and the only reference to it was if I set up a custom picture profile, so I don't think my camera is doing sharpening. It sure doesn't look like it on some of my shots!

Unless you specifically went into your camera's menu & turned it off, it is probably set to normal or medium or something similar.

[dlambert]

Originally Posted by Digidave

Unless you specifically went into your camera's menu & turned it off, it is probably set to normal or medium or something similar.

Note - this is true if you're shooting JPG, but not RAW. No sharpening or other image adjustments (saturation, contrast, tone, etc.) are applied to RAW's -- you get to do all that stuff in PP, which gives you much more control over the output (and the ability to re-do processing until you get your photos looking the way you want).

[Digidave]

Originally Posted by dlambert

Note - this is true if you're shooting JPG, but not RAW. No sharpening or other image adjustments (saturation, contrast, tone, etc.) are applied to RAW's -- you get to do all that stuff in PP, which gives you much more control over the output (and the ability to re-do processing until you get your photos looking the way you want).

Well, you are sort of correct. If you use a program that reads the in-camera settings, as I do, you are looking at a JPG that was created inside the RAW file using the in-camera settings.

[dlambert]

Originally Posted by Digidave

Well, you are sort of correct. If you use a program that reads the in-camera settings, as I do, you are looking at a JPG that was created inside the RAW file using the in-camera settings.

Interesting -- what program is that?

When I use ACR, it seems like it wants to use its own presets. I haven't tried testing this specifically, but this seems consistent:

How does camera picture style settings affect post-proc?

I've noticed that the Windows preview window will sometimes load up RAW images, and then appear to apply camera settings to them (exposure, temp, etc.), but I think that's driven by whatever DLL it's using to process RAWs.

It certainly sounds like something to be aware of, one way or the other.