Hiding.

[jiro]

I see, Jiro, that you do not use unsharp mask for any creative sharpening before resizing. Would that be correct?

YES. There are 4 sliders under the SHARPENING process in Lightroom: Namely

AMOUNT - the extent of sharpness that you want to apply on the image you are editing. I think it works the same as the High Pass filter in Photoshop. Picture this as something like a volume control on a stereo unit.

RADIUS - The extent the sharpening amount is extended to the neighboring pixel elements. If you push this too far (increase its value) you would see the Halo effect on the image you are editing. I usually starts at 0.5 and then gradually increase the value depending on my subjective taste. Typically I don't go as far as 1.2 to 1.3 in value. If you have very sharp edges on your image (like clearly defined straight lines) it will definitely produce halos around these lines. If you have soft edges on the image, these areas won't be affected until you increase the radius value to the right.

Amount and Radius are the sharpening enhancers, the next two sliders are what we call dampeners.

DETAIL - This dampens the halo effect induced by the radius slider. It's like you are bringing in the detail on the sharpened areas while at the same time preventing any blooming or halo to appear while you are adjusting it.

MASKING - This works like the find edges filter in photoshop. What it does is that it is finding all the edges (from going to all the areas of the image to just the edges alone) on the image and selectively apply the sharpening adjustment values on these areas. White areas are the most affected ones while the black areas are not. To see it in action, hold the ALT key while adjusting the sliders to see its effect on the image. Remember, white areas are affected, black ones are not.

Also, how is Step 4 different from contrast adjustment in LR,

The contrast slider in LR is a global adjustment tool. If you want to be specific on your contrast adjustment, then the TONE CURVES in Lightroom is the better choice to use. However, since Lightroom does not have layer capabilities (but it does have the adjustment brush to work on similar to this but limited in range) You can't tune in your adjustment by adjusting the opacity of your adjustment layers. This is the reason why I use the contrast and tonal adjustment tools in photoshop. I can go as many as 8 curve adjustment layers on one image depending on how I want to fully control my tone contrast adjustments. I can't do that in Lightroom.

It all depends on what you want to achieve. I don't apply the same procedure over and over again like a prescribed medicine to all my images. The image usually gives me an idea on why, where, and how much will I edit it. I learned this approach from David duChemin's book. When you apply the same thing to all your images and not subjectively assessing if it makes your image coincide with your vision then you simply know "how" to adjust but not "why" you are adjusting. The former is the logical side, the latter is the intuitive side of editing.

...do you use masks for selective adjustments?

YES, definitely. Main subjects usually are sharper, brighter, with more contrast. Background and secondary subjects are a bit softer, darker (if needed) and with lower contrast to be distinct from the main subject.

Hope this helps, Abhi.

I forgot to tell you abhi. I always have 2 versions of my work. One is a 16-bit high resolution of the image and one in 8-bit smaller sized jpeg. The 16-bit high resolution does not get any sharpening values added to it until I know what I want to do with it (print or share in the web as a high-res image). The Jpeg file is the one that gets all the adjustments prior to uploading to flickr.

[RockNGoalStar]

Willie, thanks so much for taking the time to write down your method.

I need a photo to try it out on now... I'll let you know how I get on.

Thanks again!

[jiro]

Willie, thanks so much for taking the time to write down your method.

I need a photo to try it out on now... I'll let you know how I get on.

Thanks again!

Hello, Tommy. I dosed off early morning here while reading some books about composition. Sorry for that. Hope this info could be of help to you. Good luck on your edit.

[abhi]

The 16-bit high resolution does not get any sharpening values added to it until I know what I want to do with it (print or share in the web as a high-res image). The Jpeg file is the one that gets all the adjustments prior to uploading to flickr.

Thanks for the detailed response, Jiro. Unfortunately I am still a little confused about your sharpening workflow. In your earlier post you said

2. Do some noise correction if necessary but do not use LR's sharpening features.

What I am curious about is if you use any sharpening (global or local) on your 16-bit image. Say, for example, a selective sharpening of the main subject relative to the background before the resizing followed by an output sharpening step.

I usually try to follow the procedure outlined in the tutorials, which (assuming I understand it correctly) involves using unsharp mask for creative sharpening on the 16-bit image. And a final global level output sharpening on the resized image.

[jiro]

What I am curious about is if you use any sharpening (global or local) on your 16-bit image.

YES. This is my final edit so even the sharpening is applied to it.

Most of the time, when I converted the image from .tiff to .jpg and resized it, the sharpness of the image is already quite acceptable. On some instances wherein I still feel that the image is still lacking that extra sharpness, I apply another sharpening layer to the converted jpeg file. I think this is the one that was usually commented by some that some of my images are "over-sharpened" so I try to be subjective on applying this last process on the jpeg file. Hope this clarifies it to you, Abhi.

On the 16-bit .tiff file, the reason that I say I am applying the sharpening is because I am already quite satisfied with all the edit that I've made so even if I print it, the sharpening that I added to the .tiff image is sufficient for me. The jpeg file somehow needs a different kind or amount of sharpening as the file has a smaller size and at the same time I already lost some detail due to the conversion.

[jiro]

If you are still confused with my explanation, wait 'til I get some more cups of coffee so I can be sharper with my thoughts. Hehehe.

[abhi]

If you are still confused with my explanation, wait 'til I get some more cups of coffee so I can be sharper with my thoughts. Hehehe.

Hehe It's sharp enough now. I managed to confuse myself by misreading. Now that I have had dinner and coffee, I can see that you wrote

The 16-bit high resolution does not get any sharpening values added to it until I know what I want to do with it

I missed the part in bold earlier.

[jiro]

English is not my native language so kindly pardon if my sentence construction and thought process is a bit crooked. Hehehe.

If you can get hold of this book: "The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3: Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby" The last Chapter (chapter 14) Talks about the 7-Point System invented by Scott Kelby using Lightroom adjustment tools. His workflow is something like this:

1. Choose a Camera Profile - You can access this on the lowest adjustment took in LR under "Camera Calibration".

2. Adjust the White Balance.

3. Adjust the Overall Exposure. (he adjusts the Exposure, Recovery, Fill Light, Brightness and Black Sliders to do this).

4. Add Contrast. (He uses the tone curve to do this).

5. Apply local adjustments. (similar to selective tone and color contrast, blurring or sharpening, brightening or darkening some areas, etc...)

6. Adding "punch" and enhancing color. (He adjusts the Clarity and Vibrance slider to achieve this).

7. Finishing effect. (Here he likes to add vignetting).

Perhaps you can get the idea now.

[abhi]

English is not my native language so kindly pardon if my sentence construction and thought process is a bit crooked. Hehehe.

You've done great with your description of your workflow, Jiro. Thank you for sharing it with us.

[Sahil]

Hey Jiro, New looks huh

[jiro]

Hey Jiro, New looks huh

Yup, before I totally go AWOL. Hehehe.

[Sahil]