Sharpening, how do you do it?

[David H. Hartman]

I shoot with the Standard Picture Control. I rarely shoot NEF + JPG fine these days but rather NEF only. The sharpening of the Standard PC helps make a clearer LCD image for previewing. Turning off all sharpening in camera makes for a mushy image on the LCD. In post, usually CaptureNX-D these days, one of the first things I do is turn the sharpening all the way down. I do whatever I'm going to do in CNX-D or occasionally CNX2 and then pass the results on to Photoshop in a 16bit TIF. I specifically do not want this TIF sharpened. 

In Photoshop I'll do additional image processing and save the TIF as a PSD file. If I do sharpening with the full sized image it will be a stamp of all visible layers that can be turn off or discarded of later. It will usually be the top or next to the top layer in the PSD.

When down sampling I create a new flat PSD file and then duplicate the background layer. This new layer will be used for sharpening. I frequently down sample in stages. I normally sharpen lightly before down sampling to retain fine details. This can be as light as 5%, 0.3 pixels, remove lens blur. I'll frequently down sample 50% at a time. If I have troublesome diagonal lines I'll down sample in smaller steps. Frequently this isn't needed. I can erase though areas of the sharping layer if they are troublesome. I can back off the opacity of the sharpened layer if I've sharpened to much, e.g. 100% down to 70%~50%. I use basic smart sharpening a lot. I sometimes use the unsharp mask and sometimes high pass sharpening. I may mix all three.

What I do not want is to sharpen the TIF I send to Photoshop and I don't want sharpening of my Photoshop PSD until very late in the PS work so I can throw it out if I need to. The final size and sharpening of an image is tailored for the specific use.

I'm still learning. Anyway that's my 2 cents on the subject.

Dave

[David H. Hartman]

Depending on the Raw converter, setting all sharpening controls to zero results in an incredibly soft image, particularly for sensors which have an optical low-pass filter. I don't know what would be a neutral setting in that case.

I think you want to increase the acutance to the level you like while keeping it subtle enough that the view is not aware it. If the viewer is aware of the sharpening then it's detracting from the appreciation of the photograph. One the flip side no sharpening will probably detract from the photograph also. I rather doubt that there is a neutral setting unless it's the middle of the scale offered by the camera or software. Certainly no sharpening in this case is not neutral as the image has been blurred by the Bayer sensors and low-pass filter.

Another 2 cents,

Dave

[charlie]

I was under the impression, and I'm not sure where I got the impression, that when down sampling in photoshop these days it is already doing down sampling in multiple steps behind the scenes, so to speak, so it is not necessary to do so manually like it was in the past.

Is this an incorrect impression?
Are you finding it makes a big difference to do it in steps?

For the past several years I've just used Lightroom to down sample straight to the needed size.

[David H. Hartman]

I'm still using Photoshop CS2 so I can't comment on latter versions.

Dave

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Even CS2 will support the free Nik collection. The output sharpener there can be very good if you fine-tune its usage.

If you haven't tried it yet,  I recommend you give it a spin. Just don't accept the preset checkbox that you are willing to allow the Nik software to 'phone home' and you'll be just fine. The plugins come in 32- and 64-bit versions and either version can be used as a standalone module.

[Ron Scubadiver]

Sharpening?  I use a file, LOL.