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Sharpening…?
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Quick question – do most people apply sharpening as part of their initial workflow (i.e. when sorting out white balance, exposure etc) or do you apply it afterwards with the likes of Photoshop. I’ve been doing the former for years, but after talking to some people am looking at sharpening as the final stage before cropping. What does everyone else do?
From all I have ever seen, or learned, sharpening is always the final action, so I would adjust and crop all before sharpening.
Appreciate that Paul, thanks. Am always trying to improve, so all advice is welcome.
Personally I crop first before anything else, sharpening is the last thing I do as after editing the image I keep an eye on any grain/noise caused by the editing that might be made worse by sharpening too much.
Capture sharpening in Lightroom as part of a baseline set of editing actions I apply to all new images. Once I have determined my preferred output usage and form, I will then apply output sharpening on the export options as I export the finished copy of the image. I find this works well, although do admit my personal preference is for lightly sharpened images.
For most, I think sharpening optimally falls into 3 categories – capture sharpening, any creative/ local sharpening to specific areas of the image, and output sharpening. With non-destructive catalogue-style editing programs like lightroom or aperture, I am not sure the order in which sharpening is applied makes any material difference. With destructive, pixel editing programs like photoshop, I imagine the stage at which you apply sharpening is more important.
Maurice, I’d tend to sharpen last of all. Other tonal edits along the way may affect the results of sharpening in subtle ways you don’t want.
There are different sharpening algorithms for different effects and some parts of the image may not benefit as well as others. Sharpening every pixel to the same extent and in the same way may not get the best results, so using layers in software is helpful to target specific areas. Not everybody can be bothered though and these days the whole image tends to get sharpened in Lightroom or whatever software we use.
I seldom shoot RAW, but I’ve been given to understand that what Murchu calls “capture sharpening” should be applied at the start of processing. Shooting as I do in JPG, no capture sharpening is needed. Any sharpening I do, such as around the eyes of a model, and overall sharpening for print, are the final steps in processing.
Alex.bigalguitarpicker wrote:
I seldom shoot RAW, but I’ve been given to understand that what Murchu calls “capture sharpening” should be applied at the start of processing. Shooting as I do in JPG, no capture sharpening is needed. Any sharpening I do, such as around the eyes of a model, and overall sharpening for print, are the final steps in processing.
Alex.Good distinction Alex, I neglected to mention my workflow is a RAW workflow, where files need some capture sharpening, something which jpegs do not need in my experience. The sharpening you mention, I would clump together as creative/ local sharpening in my own workflow, with final (and additional) output sharpening applied for prints, ie output sharpening for matte/ gloss prints, etc. Lightroom includes the latter under an option in the export dialogue, where three strengths of sharpening for different general types of output (screen/ glossy paper/ matte paper) can be selected, which tends to be quite convenient.
Appreciate the replies! Lightroom is on my list of things to learn this winter….
Mauriceg wrote:
Appreciate the replies! Lightroom is on my list of things to learn this winter….
If looking for lightroom learning resources, I can recommend George Jardine’s video series. They are not free, but not too expensive either, and found learning from the horses mouth so to speak quite valuable (Jardine is an ex-Lightroom head honcho). I am sure there are other good, free resources also, but if interested in Jardine’s videos, you can find them at http://mulita.com/blog/?page_id=2″ onclick=”window.open(this.href);return false; where you can see one or two videos to see if they are something you are interested ponying up for.
No connection to George by the way, other than as a happy customer :)
How much capture sharpening do you do or does it depend on the image? I’ve been shooting RAW and only recently found out JPG’s are sharpened in the cam but RAW files are not.
As for lightroom resources, I highly recommend a 3 days workshop on creative live by Jared Platt, this guy has very efficient workflow. He did another workshop last week that was just as good. Some of his workshops are on youtube also.
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