Sharpening - how much?

[lerabu]

Hi,

So, as we know some lenses are sharper than others etc... but sharpening can be done in post also, either for example in Lightroom or in PS or in any other software used.

I am at a loss on how much to sharpen. Of course it depends on what you want the final result to be but I am just interested how much does the community here sharpen in post and which sharpening tool they use

Cheers!

[Doug Pardee]

When it comes to sharpening, there are no easy answers. Here's the canonical book on the subject: www.amazon.com/World-Sharpening-Photoshop-Camera-Lightroom/dp/0321637550/ — it's 360 pages long.

The short answer is: there is no One Right Answer. It depends on your techniques, your tools, your vision for the image, and the output device(s). Furthermore, each photo must be approached differently.

[bigwater]

It is also good to keep in mind what the image is going to be used for. If it is saved as a jpg some sharpening will be applied in that process but if it is saved as a tff or pdf for print more sharpening won't necessarily be applied.

[ravncat]

I come from the three types of sharpening school; Capture sharpening, Creative sharpening, Output sharpening. How much to sharpen depends on alot of things - Raw or Jpg, Camera, Lenses, Your feelings, display size, and paper or monitor. There are whole books devoted to sharpening and sharpening tools.

capture sharpening is done in Raw conversion - or by your Jpg sharpening settings. This should be enough to undo the "softening" that occurs at the sensor level from the lens quality, bayer interpolation, and anti aliasing filter.

Creative sharpening is sharpening parts of the image that you want to draw the eyes attention to.

Output sharpening is based on the final display and is pretty tough to just define. If you're going for web or monitor display, just go with what you think looks good for now.

[vsa]

Originally Posted by bigwater

... If it is saved as a jpg some sharpening will be applied in that process ...

Would you explain this out for me? Never heard of sharpening if saving to jpg (assuming you're talking about software and not camera saving the image).

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My advice is that if you see halos in high contrast areas after sharpening you've gone way too far (at least in those areas.. which brings us to a point that most often it's better to use selective sharpening).
Example of the halo: http://www.pbase.com/lamlash/image/117490069/large.jpg

[JFSanders]

Originally Posted by vsa

Would you explain this out for me? Never heard of sharpening if saving to jpg (assuming you're talking about software and not camera saving the image).

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My advice is that if you see halos in high contrast areas after sharpening you've gone way too far (at least in those areas.. which brings us to a point that most often it's better to use selective sharpening).
Example of the halo: http://www.pbase.com/lamlash/image/117490069/large.jpg

The jpg standard is a algorithm applied and able to be read by other software. Yes, there is sharpening applied during the compression algorithm.

Lens sharp is NOT the same as software "sharpening". To be honest, software sharpening is not even sharpening. It is an increase in contrast along dissimilar edges in the image.

So the process goes as such. If you take a out of focus image, you cannot sharpen it in post. You must make a tack sharp image and then in post you can refine the contrasting elements, such as the eyes to make them dominate the face. It will give the illusion of a very sharp image.

There are programs out there such as deFine that do a passable job as long as the image is not more than a couple of pixels blurred. But they cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

VSA, you are absolutely correct about the halo telling you that you have gone way too far. Much better to under sharpen than over sharpen. And always sharpen last after sizing for output.

[vsa]

Originally Posted by JFSanders

...Yes, there is sharpening applied during the compression algorithm...

As far as I've seen there hasn't been any big change from photoshop to jpg so I'm assuming this sharpening is minimal and for the most part will go unnoticed and should not be factored in the overall shaprening process.. as in you shouldn't under sharpen just cos the jpg conversion will sharpen it a little.

Originally Posted by JFSanders

And always sharpen last after sizing for output.

+1

I normally sharpen the image as I see fit before the whole resizing for web (for example), save, resize for web, sharpen just a little bit to compensate the slight degradation from resizing, save for web and close... keeping the original as it was.

What comes to the tools, I mostly use Lightroom so there's not all that much choice but in Photoshop I most often use smart sharpen since it's quick and most times does the job. People from Adobe say that the Sharpen tool is the most sophisticated sharpening tool at the moment available in Photoshop, even though in the past (before cs5) it was frowned upon by almost everyone who knew what they were doing.

[dakwegmo]

Originally Posted by vsa

As far as I've seen there hasn't been any big change from photoshop to jpg so I'm assuming this sharpening is minimal and for the most part will go unnoticed and should not be factored in the overall shaprening process.. as in you shouldn't under sharpen just cos the jpg conversion will sharpen it a little.

JFSanders made it sound like JPG compression applies sharpening; it does not. If you're shooting JPGs, your camera automatically applies sharpening to compensate for inherent weaknesses in digital technology, but this is done before the image is compressed. Any other sharpening to the image would have to be done explicitly. Simply re-compressing the image won't add any additional sharpness.

[JFSanders]

Originally Posted by dakwegmo

JFSanders made it sound like JPG compression applies sharpening; it does not. If you're shooting JPGs, your camera automatically applies sharpening to compensate for inherent weaknesses in digital technology, but this is done before the image is compressed. Any other sharpening to the image would have to be done explicitly. Simply re-compressing the image won't add any additional sharpness.

Marcus, in general terms you are correct that the compression algorithm does not specifically sharpen as it is defined by Adobe, but and it is a significant one, the algorithm effects the image in that it destroys pixels along contrasting edges which is what happens when you "unsharpen".

As for the rendering engine in the camera, you would have to know the software from the inside to know if they actually unsharpen the image during rendering from RAW to JPEG. As far as I know, Nikon nor any other manufacturer is forthcoming with that knowledge. It would certainly be pixel peeping but sometimes I get in the mood. Usually after my prints come out different than I thought they would!

[dakwegmo]

Originally Posted by JFSanders

Marcus, in general terms you are correct that the compression algorithm does not specifically sharpen as it is defined by Adobe, but and it is a significant one, the algorithm effects the image in that it destroys pixels along contrasting edges which is what happens when you "unsharpen".

The JPEG algorithm, which wasn't developed by Adobe, doesn't increase contrast; it takes a block of pixels and averages them. The result could be higher contrast if neighboring blocks of pixels are averaged in different directions, but for areas where there's already sharp contrast, the average often results in less contrast along the edge and an overall blurrier image.

Originally Posted by JFSanders

As for the rendering engine in the camera, you would have to know the software from the inside to know if they actually unsharpen the image during rendering from RAW to JPEG. As far as I know, Nikon nor any other manufacturer is forthcoming with that knowledge. It would certainly be pixel peeping but sometimes I get in the mood. Usually after my prints come out different than I thought they would!

Regardless of how it does it, the camera applies a separate sharpening algorithm to JPGs that is separate from the compression algorithm.